Thermal comfort assessment in naturally ventilated offices located in a cold tropical climate, Bogotá

Thermal comfort has been the object of study and concern for more than a century. As a result, significant advances have been carried out, which have led to the establishment of standards and guidelines for thermal environments within buildings. These have defined mechanisms for its evaluation and measurement; however, they have been developed for specific areas, among which the cold, humid tropical climatic zones are not found. In the absence of thermal comfort regulations in these areas, various comfort standards are currently applied that could ignore local conditions. Therefore, the objective of this research was to approach thermal comfort in cold, humid tropical zones, through the study of naturally ventilated offices located in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Eight offices located in different areas of the city were analysed over approximately three months, surveying 72 people and carrying out 790 surveys. The results of this research showed that for a thermal acceptance of 96.58%, and according to the Griffiths method, the comfort operative temperature for the offices analysed is 23.47 °C. This differs from the static and/or the adaptive models, such as those recommended by the ASHRAE, which establish lower ranges. Applying these models could help to increase energy consumption, in a city where adequate levels of thermal comfort could primarily be obtained through natural ventilation