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A. Stephanides:
"Indoor climatic conditions in a residential building with a humidity-responsive ventilation system";
Supervisor: A. Mahdavi; Abteilung Bauphysik und Bauökologie, Inst. f. Architekturwissenschaften, 2011; final examination: 2011-06-29.

The present thesis contains the evaluation of the indoor climatic conditions in a residential building that is equipped with humidity-responsive ventilation. Humidity-responsive ventilation is a type of demand controlled ventilation that reacts to the amount of humidity inside the apartment. The observed building is part of a residential neighbourhood that is located in the 22th district of Vienna. The building contains 12 apartments whereof 11 participate in this case study. The number of inhabitants in the different apartments is almost the same. Furthermore the floor plans of the different apartment types are rather similar, which makes them reasonable to compare.
To evaluate the indoor climatic conditions, temperature, relative humidity and in some apartments carbon dioxide concentration or light were measured over a period of nearly five months. The measurement took place in the winter months from 16.11.2010 - 01.04.2011, because during this time most of the complaints of the inhabitants regarding thermal comfort occur. Due to the fact that relative humidity is beside the temperature one of the most important factors that influence thermal comfort in a room, this thesis is especially directed to the evaluation of the relative humidity inside the apartments. The measured carbon dioxide values are representing the indoor air quality in a room and were measured in the bedroom of five of the participating apartments. Light measurements were conducted to detect the presence of the inhabitants.
In addition to the objective measurements, subjective data was collected by a paper based questionnaire handed out to the inhabitants of the apartments weekly. The occupants had to evaluate their actual feeling of comfort concerning relative humidity and temperature, give information about their ventilation behaviour and their overall thermal comfort. It was attached importance not to influence the inhabitants too much by questions about the ventilation system, to avoid different ventilation behaviour during the case study.
Relative humidity values, temperature and CO2 concentrations were compared between the apartments.
Although the building has demand controlled ventilation, the possibility of user-operated natural ventilation is established. The results suggest that the humidity-responsive control works properly concerning the reduction of humidity inside the apartments, but is due to different reasons partly not accepted by the inhabitants.

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