Indoor Air Quality in Educational Buildings - Serbian Case

Abstract

According to the various researches, the people spend the most of their time indoors which is directly connected to the necessity of adequate indoor air quality. The question of the indoor air quality is of a special importance in educational buildings having in mind the large number of occupants, their health and impact on learning capabilities. The paper deals with the analysis of the indoor air quality in university classroom, using the results of measurements of CO2 concentration and statistical survey among the occupants’ which was performed during the winter semester. The measurements were performed during four weeks, together with the occupants’ survey. Measuring parameters were indoor air temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentration. The results showed that the higher concentrations of CO2 measured in classroom caused the symptoms such as stuffiness, sleepiness, reduced concentration, headache and hard breathing. During the fourth week of measurements, when the average CO2 concentration was about 2050 ppm in classroom, about 65% of students’ voted that the indoor air quality in classroom was poor or very poor and felt some of the symptoms such as stuffiness, sleepiness, reduced concentration and hard breathing, while 15% stated that they had all these symptoms. The analysis of occupants’ evaluation regarding the poor indoor air quality impact on their concentration ability showed that subjective feelings of reduced concentration ability were the lowest when the measured CO2 concentration in classroom was also the lowest.