Monitoring Thermal Comfort- Within A School Classroom

In 2026 Air1Testing was requested to assess the teaching environment a academy school. 

The initial observation indicated that two  classroom had a strong odour and also had suffered an amount of condensation leading to mould growth. The teaching staff suggest that it was an extremely difficult environment for the students to learn in, with many experience extreme lethargy in the afternoon. If they were able to prove severe air conditions then they may be eligible for a grant under BB101. 

Deploying a number of BuiltAir monitors around the room and coupling them to our remote router, we were able to view the real time data over a set time period. 

This provided startling evidence of high temperatures, very high carbon dioxide and most sigbificantly, no airflow. Unlike other monitors our system actually measures airflow in m/s/

What guidance is there for monitoring ventilation within a school ? Building Bulletin 101. It refers to BSEN 15251, and BSEN 13779  this covers ventilation for non residential buildings. A Dept of Education performance standards recommend that the level of a carbon dioxide per room, for its designed occupancy, should not exceed 1500ppm for more than 20 consecutive minutes per day. 

ASHRAE 62.1 defines the minmum exhaust rate per pollutant. 

The BuiltAir is designed to monitor compliance with these standards and critically avoids the use of misleading algorthims.

BB101 link 

https://consult.education.gov.uk/capital/bb101-school-design-iaq-comfort-and-ventilation/supporting_documents/DfE%20Ventilation%20guide%20consultation%20draft%2029%2006%202016.pdf