Evaluation of the thermal condition of an interior space

A Simple, Practical and Economical Approach

Abstract

Much of our time is spent in closed spaces, which in the best of cases have air conditioning as a synonym for adequate thermal comfort. But when the power or air conditioning fails, opening doors and windows often does not produce the comfort expected by the occupants. The objective of this article was to show a simple procedure to evaluate the thermal condition, in the hot season, of an occupied interior space, taking a teachers' cubicle as an example. The environmental parameters of the interior were obtained from simple equipment and low-cost sensors programmed with the Arduino uno. The use of simple online calculators and simple mathematical models to estimate the expected concentration of CO₂ in the cubicle, an indicator of the level of ventilation, is shown. Using the heat index, it was obtained that the thermal condition of the cubicle was "extreme precaution".