Housing retrofit as an intervention in thermal comfort practices: Chinese and Dutch householder perspectives

Bas J.M Van Vliet,Frank J De Feijter

doi:10.1007/s12053-020-09919-8

Abstract

Contemporary packages of housing retrofit equipment are based on models of expected energy savings with regard to globally standardized thermal comfort levels. Previous research shows that the energy savings realised after a housing retrofit is substantially lower than expected. Attempts to reduce energy demand by physical re-design, utilising technical standards for thermal comfort as well as financial incentives, tend to ignore the role of retrofit interventions in the construction of everyday practices of thermal comfort making. Thermal comfort practices of heating, cooling and ventilation are moderated by specific householders’ motivations which constitute ‘wants’ and emerging ‘needs’ in the interaction with the housing retrofit equipment. This paper proposes that the interactions between the retrofitted buildings and the householders are the sum of material affordances, as signified by the design of the housing equipment on the one hand, and the practical affordances in practices-as-performances on the other. The study presents comfort practices in relation to recently retrofitted low-income housing estates in Beijing, Mianyang (Sichuan province, South-west China) and Amsterdam on the basis of 50 qualitative interviews with householders in each city. The paper concludes that the expected energy saving is counteracted by a poor match between conventional retrofit packages and householders’ considerations about their thermal comfort. To better reduce energy demand and to mitigate energy poverty, retrofit packages should provide adaptive thermal comfort as preferred by householders, rather than fixed or tightly specified thermal comfort. Such a perspective may support a more flexible and inclusive use of housing equipment as part of retrofit programs.

Highlights

A recent study revealed that after energy retrofitting of housing complexes, the realized energy savings are 30–40% lower than theoretically expected (SunikkaBlank and Galvin 2012; Galvin and Sunnika-Blank 2017)
This paper seeks to answer the following question: In what ways do material affordances of designed retrofit packages for energy saving match with practical affordances in thermal comfort practices and what are the implications for future retrofit policies in China and the Netherlands? We take retrofitted configurations of building technology and thermal comfort practices as the functional unit of analysis
The theoretical approach of our study is built on the notion of ‘material affordances’ as designed usabilities, next to ‘practical affordances’ in which actual usefulness contributes to a meaningful way of conceptualising roles of householders in appropriating the retrofitted apartment

Summary

Introduction

A recent study revealed that after energy retrofitting of housing complexes, the realized energy savings are 30–40% lower than theoretically expected (SunikkaBlank and Galvin 2012; Galvin and Sunnika-Blank 2017) This substantial lower energy saving in the building improvement is largely attributable to different understandings of thermal comfort between experts’ (building installation engineers, architects and government regulators) on the one hand and householders on the other (Hinton 2010). Due to the variety of existing and emerging indoor comfort levels within and between households, the energy use in identical homes can vary by a factor of 3 to 4 (Gram-Hanssen 2010) This seems to reveal a poor understanding of the role of householders in retrofit provision (IPCC 2014). With an alternative and broader view, energy retrofitting would take into account social conventions, differentiated meanings of thermal comfort, location of activity, moving around the house, food, bedding and clothing, instead of only building insulation or energy saving appliances (Maller and Strengers 2014)

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