Rating the Components of Indoor Environmental Quality in Students Classrooms in Warm Humid Climate of Uli, Nigeria.

Abstract

The indoor environment of classrooms needs to be comfortable for the occupants to perform their class work effectively. To achieve this objective, architects and engineers need to be proactive at the early design stage by considering the very component of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) building occupants consider most as the hindrance to comfortable living. This paper presents the findings of a post-occupancy evaluation of students’ subjective responses to the various environmental qualities; lighting, odour, noise/acoustics and heat/thermal comfort in warm humid university classrooms.  The aim was to rank the IEQ on the scale of students’ consideration for a comfortable indoor classroom work. This was done using questionnaire to get the subjective response from the respondents. The work was conducted in two university classrooms while the students were engaged in various class activities. Valid responses were gotten from sixty-five students. The result suggests that majority of occupants (62%) rated thermal comfort number one as the component of the IEQ that usually gives them the most concern, while 71% of the respondents rated ‘‘preference to sit beside windows’’. This result is consistent with earlier studies on IEQ attributes conducted in other climatic zones in Nigeria. The findings will be helpful to designers, engineers, facility maintenance managers when taking decisions in constructing sustainable classroom blocks.