Schools are amongst the most densely occupied indoor areas and at the same time children\nand young adults are the most vulnerable group with respect to adverse health effects as a result\nof poor environmental conditions. Health, performance and well-being of pupils crucially depend\non indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of which air quality and thermal comfort are central pillars.\nThis makes the monitoring and control of environmental parameters in classes important. At the\nsame time most school buildings do neither feature automated, intelligent heating, ventilation, and air\nconditioning (HVAC) systems nor suitable IEQ monitoring systems. In this contribution, we therefore\ninvestigate the capabilities of a novel wireless gas sensor network to determine carbon dioxide\nconcentrations, along with temperature and humidity. The use of a photoacoustic detector enables\nthe construction of long-term stable, miniaturized, LED-based non-dispersive infrared absorption\nspectrometers without the use of a reference channel. The data of the sensor nodes is transmitted via\na Z-Wave protocol to a central gateway, which in turn sends the data to a web-based platform for\nonline analysis. The results show that it is difficult to maintain adequate IEQ levels in class rooms\neven when ventilating frequently and that individual monitoring and control of rooms is necessary\nto combine energy savings and good IEQ.
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