Assessment of the impacts of balconies on indoor environmental quality in mild climate conditions, Portugal

ABSTRACT

The configuration of balconies can affect the indoor environmental performance of dwellings, but there is not enough knowledge regarding how a balcony simultaneously impacts all the parameters of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Therefore, this study aims to evaluate, for the first time, the impacts of different balcony configurations on IEQ. A comprehensive in-situ campaign was carried out on ten balconies and their contiguous rooms in a building in Porto. Air temperature, relative humidity, CO₂, PM_2.5 and TVOCs concentration, illuminance and sound pressure level were simultaneously monitored. The results show that an open balcony has a positive impact on hygrothermal conditions, controlled daylight illuminance, and reduced traffic noise by up to 10 dBa. The presence of a glazed balcony improved hygrothermal conditions in winter and increased the noise reduction by up to 15 dBA, but caused a reduction in the daylight of up to 64%. The rooms, in which the balcony was eliminated presented the worst hygrothermal conditions, lost the benefits of noise reduction and had an increase in daylight illuminance of up to 136%. It was also found that the impacts are interrelated and that a balcony influences the occupants’ behaviour by enhancing window opening.

KEYWORDS:

• Balcony
• residential buildings
• indoor environmental quality
• in-situ monitoring
• occupants’ behaviour

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to acknowledge the support of FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, the funding of the Doctoral Grant PD/BD/135164/2017, through the Doctoral Programme EcoCoRe. The second author like to acknowledge the support of by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia through the individual Scientific Employment Stimulus 2021.02686. CEECIND. This work was financially supported by: Base Funding - UIDB/04708/2020 of the CONSTRUCT - Instituto de I&D em Estruturas e Construções - funded by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC). The authors want to thank the Municipal Department of Civil Protection – Porto for the outdoor weather data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by: FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia by the Doctoral Grant PD/BD/135164/2017, through the Doctoral Programme EcoCoRe; FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia through the individual Scientific Employment Stimulus 2021.02686. CEECIND; and by Base Funding - UIDB/04708/2020 of the CONSTRUCT - Instituto de I&D em Estruturas e Construções - funded by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC).