Abstract
Understanding homeowners' renovation decisions is essential for policy and business activity to improve the efficiency of owner-occupied housing stock. This paper develops, validates and applies a novel modelling framework for explaining renovation decisions, with an emphasis on energy-efficiency measures. The framework is tested using quantitative data from a nationally-representative survey of owner-occupied households in the UK (n = 1028).The modelling advances formal representations of renovation decisions by including background conditions of domestic life to which renovating is an adaptive response. Path analysis confirms that three conditions of domestic life are particularly influential on renovation decisions: balancing competing commitments for how space at home is used; signalling identity through homemaking activities; and managing physical vulnerabilities of household members. These conditions of domestic life also capture the influence of property characteristics (age, type) and household characteristics (size, composition, length of tenure) on renovation decisions but with greater descriptive realism.Multivariate probit models are used to provide rigorous, transparent and analytically tractable representations of the full renovation decision process. Model fits to the representative national sample of UK homeowners are good. The modelling shows that renovation intentions emerge initially from certain conditions of domestic life at which point energy efficiency is not a distinctive type of renovation. The modelling also shows clearly that influences on renovation decisions change through the decision process. This has important implications for policy and service providers. Efficiency measures should be bundled into broader types of home improvements, and incentives should target the underlying reasons why homeowners decide to renovate in the first place.
Highlights
The objectives of this paper are to develop, validate and apply a descriptively-realistic model of energy efficient renovation decisions made within the context of everyday domestic life, and to demonstrate the relevance of this model for informing policy
This is consistent with Friege and Chappin (2014)'s recent review of decision models which concluded: "a deeper understanding of the decisions of homeowners is needed and we suggest that a simulation model which maps the decision-making processes of homeowners may result in ... developing new mechanisms to tackle the situation" (p196)
This paper advances understanding and modelling of energy efficient renovation decisions by including the underlying reasons why homeowners decide to renovate, by representing the decision as a process comprising a sequence of stages rather than as a one-off event, and by showing that the distinctiveness of efficiency-type renovations emerges through the decision process rather than being distinctive from the outset
Summary
The objectives of this paper are to develop, validate and apply a descriptively-realistic model of energy efficient renovation decisions made within the context of everyday domestic life, and to demonstrate the relevance of this model for informing policy
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