On the conformity of floor heating systems with sleeping in the eastern-style beds; physiological responses and thermal comfort assessment

Radiant floor heating systems are usually designed in such a way that the sedentary persons feel thermal neutrality. On the other hand, in most of eastern countries, people traditionally tend to directly sit or sleep on the floor. This could arise some limitations in using of the floor heating systems in the countries with such eastern lifestyle. The main focus of this study is on evaluating the physiological responses and thermal comfort of sleeping persons in an eastern-style bed on a heated floor. For this purpose, thermal sensation of sleeping occupants on the heated floor was compared with that of sleeping persons on the conventional beds. The results reveal that under similar thermal conditions, the thermal sensation and skin wettedness of the sleeping persons are obviously higher on the eastern-style beds than on the conventional beds. Therefore, sleeping in an eastern-style bed causes the person to feel more thermal discomfort and also more unpleasantness due to skin wettedness. Furthermore, the results indicate that to get the same level of thermal and wettedness pleasantness on both aforementioned beds, the thermal insulation value of the blanket must be about 0.4 clo lower in the eastern-style bedding arrangement than in the conventional bed.