jaue2016056: Study on Thermal Environment of Retirement Homes That were Repurposed from Closed Schools

Abstract

As we known, Japan entered the low birthrate and aging society. Many primary schools were closed down for the decrease of school-age children, while the elderly nursing homes are obviously insufficient. Under such circumstances, the conversions from the abandoned schools to the elderly welfare facilities also have shown a rising trend year by year for effective use of the buildings. However, there are many differences in the original purpose and the characteristics of users between the schools and elderly nursing welfare facilities. Especially, the elderly people and the children demands on the indoor thermal environment are different.
So the elderly nursing homes that converted from the abandoned schools have some problems in thermal environment. In this study, interviews with facility managers about the actual status and measurements of thermal environment of the two elderly welfare facilities, that have been repurposed from the closed schools in Kunisaki City, Oita Prefecture, were carried out to find the problems in the conversion. The obtained findings are as follows.
1) Both in winter and summer, the tendency to rely on the cooling and heating equipments for maintaining
the indoor thermal environment was remarkable.
2) The room temperatures decreased remarkably in the space without heating in winter, due to inadequate
thermal insulation of windows and walls. 
3) The difference of upper and lower air temperature exceeded 3 ℃ in some heating rooms and it seemed
that thermal unpleasantness was caused .
4) The higher humidity than criterion value was pointed out as a problem from the summer measurement.