Heat: the municipality adapts in schools – Biot Infos

Article published in the magazine BIOT INFOS – quarterly Spring 2024

News : Work in Biot

Biot has 3 school complexes comprising 4 buildings, accommodating almost 1,000 nursery and primary school children. Since 2020, to ensure the comfort of pupils, teachers and staff in the schools, the municipality has invested €2 million in maintaining and bringing up to standard the buildings, which had been in a state of disrepair for several years. Often poorly insulated from the outset or over-exposed to the sun, schools are getting a facelift, with new joinery, shading sails and energy consumption measurement systems.

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Over the last few decades, the effects of global warming have been felt between May and October, and Biot town council has been studying the best measures to implement to regulate the heat in its schools, while at the same time taking care to protect children’s health, comply with environmental standards and comply with the architectural requirements imposed on some of them. It’s a balancing act that sometimes leaves parents confused about quicker action, such as installing air-conditioning units.

Commercial buildings of more than 1,000m² are subject to Law no. 2018-1021 of 23 November 2018 on the evolution of housing, development and the digital economy, and in particular Article 175, which requires commercial buildings to reduce their energy consumption by at least 40% by 2030, 50% by 2040 and 60% by 2050. In addition to other requirements, this law prohibits the use of energy-guzzling air conditioning units, in favour of passive ventilation solutions.

In terms of health, doctors and health professionals agree that air conditioning is not recommended in schools to protect children’s respiratory health. In fact, according to a number of studies carried out over many years in the French overseas departments, which are regularly exposed to high temperatures, the medical profession agrees that the use of air conditioning is not without consequences for health. ENT doctor Suzanne Déoux explains: « Air conditioning can make you ill. First of all, you lower the temperature. When you air-condition by closing all the windows, you’re in an enclosed space. You put 25 children in a room where there is no air for them to breathe. In the first few minutes when they arrive, the CO² level rises rapidly and exceeds the desired thresholds for the children. We compared air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned rooms. In the latter, the children’s air quality was perfectly normal. In an air-conditioned classroom, there is exposure to pollutants in the classroom that are irritating to the respiratory tract. There is also the problem of thermal shock. The difference in temperature with the outside environment can lead to rhinitis, sinusitis and bronchitis, as well as muscle spasms after exertion. If you install a ceiling fan, you can reduce the temperature you feel by 3 to 4°C. That’s one solution. »

These recommendations are also shared by the national representatives of the leading parents‘ association, the FCPE, and the SNUIPP-FSU, the primary and secondary teachers’ union, who expressed their position in the press in the following terms: « ventilation yes, refrigeration no ».

Two schools, Eugène Olivari and Paul Langevin, may be exposed to heat. At the Olivari school, which is particularly hard on concrete, work has been carried out over the last 4 years to provide cooler areas, with the installation of a shelter for parents to wait when they leave class, shade sails in the playground and anti-UV filters.

At Paule Langevin, major insulation and renovation work has been carried out in recent years on this building dating from the 1970s, such as insulating the attic and replacing the joinery with double-glazing to ensure that passive cooling solutions are effective.

In order to choose the best solutions for cooling the classrooms, the town of Biot commissioned a thermal engineering consultancy to carry out a precise diagnosis and draw up an action plan to reduce the heat in the school. During the spring holidays, the first test classroom was fitted with a ceiling fan to try out this solution. Pergolas have also been installed in the courtyard to create more shade until the summer holidays, when a real island of coolness will be created as part of the greening of the courtyard. At the same time, the prefabs next to the playground will be demolished to make way for a children’s garden planted with trees.