IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v84y2015icp223-232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The changing landscape of thermal experience and warmth in older people’s dwellings

Author

Listed:
  • Tweed, Christopher
  • Humes, Nicholas
  • Zapata-Lancaster, Gabriela

Abstract

The UK's carbon dioxide reduction policy initiatives often treat environmental conditions in buildings as averaged values of air temperature that flatten spatial variations. This discounts the influence of varying thermal conditions on how people use buildings and the impact this may have on energy consumption. This paper explores the intersection between older people's thermal experience, spatial and temporal variations in thermal conditions in a dwelling and the influence this has on occupants' use of space. The paper reports on qualitative studies in homes with both conventional and newly installed low carbon heating systems. The results suggest that older people are sensitive to and adept at exploiting variations in the dynamic ‘landscape’ of warmth to achieve desired thermal preferences and that they modify their dwellings to improve the quality of the thermal environment. There is also some evidence of a ‘spatial rebound’ effect after energy upgrades, when occupants inhabit rooms they previously could not afford to heat. The nature of qualitative research precludes robust recommendations for policy. However, one important avenue to explore further appears to be that householders may be more strongly motivated by interventions offering improvements across a range of aspects rather than on energy savings alone.

Suggested Citation

  • Tweed, Christopher & Humes, Nicholas & Zapata-Lancaster, Gabriela, 2015. "The changing landscape of thermal experience and warmth in older people’s dwellings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 223-232.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:84:y:2015:i:c:p:223-232
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2015.03.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421515001172
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2015.03.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burholt, Vanessa & Windle, Gill, 2006. "Keeping warm? Self-reported housing and home energy efficiency factors impacting on older people heating homes in North Wales," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1198-1208, July.
    2. Hamza, Neveen & Gilroy, Rose, 2011. "The challenge to UK energy policy: An ageing population perspective on energy saving measures and consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 782-789, February.
    3. Sorrell, Steve & Dimitropoulos, John & Sommerville, Matt, 2009. "Empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect: A review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1356-1371, April.
    4. Dowson, Mark & Poole, Adam & Harrison, David & Susman, Gideon, 2012. "Domestic UK retrofit challenge: Barriers, incentives and current performance leading into the Green Deal," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 294-305.
    5. Milne, Geoffrey & Boardman, Brenda, 2000. "Making cold homes warmer: the effect of energy efficiency improvements in low-income homes A report to the Energy Action Grants Agency Charitable Trust," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(6-7), pages 411-424, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Day, Rosie, 2015. "Low carbon thermal technologies in an ageing society – What are the issues?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 250-256.
    2. Yuqing Zhang & Bin Li & Luca Caneparo & Qinglin Meng & Weihong Guo & Xiao Liu, 2023. "Physical Environment Study on Social Housing Stock in Italian Western Alps for Healthy and Sustainable Communities," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-27, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Coyne, Bryan & Lyons, Sean & McCoy, Daire, 2016. "The Effects of Home Energy Efficiency Upgrades on Social Housing Tenants: Evidence from Ireland," Papers WP544, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    2. Webber, Phil & Gouldson, Andy & Kerr, Niall, 2015. "The impacts of household retrofit and domestic energy efficiency schemes: A large scale, ex post evaluation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 35-43.
    3. Bardsley, Nicholas & Büchs, Milena & James, Patrick & Papafragkou, Anastasios & Rushby, Thomas & Saunders, Clare & Smith, Graham & Wallbridge, Rebecca & Woodman, Nicholas, 2019. "Domestic thermal upgrades, community action and energy saving: A three-year experimental study of prosperous households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 475-485.
    4. Hamza, Neveen & Gilroy, Rose, 2011. "The challenge to UK energy policy: An ageing population perspective on energy saving measures and consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 782-789, February.
    5. Coyne, Bryan & Denny, Eleanor, 2021. "Retrofit effectiveness: Evidence from a nationwide residential energy efficiency programme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    6. Wang, Jiayu & Yu, Shuao & Liu, Tiansen, 2021. "A theoretical analysis of the direct rebound effect caused by energy efficiency improvement of private consumers," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 171-181.
    7. Matthew Collins & John Curtis, 2017. "Value for money in energy efficiency retrofits in Ireland: grant provider and grant recipients," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(51), pages 5245-5267, November.
    8. Stefan Bouzarovski, 2014. "Energy poverty in the European Union: landscapes of vulnerability," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(3), pages 276-289, May.
    9. Saska Petrova & Michael Gentile & Ilkka Henrik Mäkinen & Stefan Bouzarovski, 2013. "Perceptions of Thermal Comfort and Housing Quality: Exploring the Microgeographies of Energy Poverty in Stakhanov, Ukraine," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(5), pages 1240-1257, May.
    10. Oikonomou, V. & Becchis, F. & Steg, L. & Russolillo, D., 2009. "Energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4787-4796, November.
    11. Ghosh, Neal K. & Blackhurst, Michael F., 2014. "Energy savings and the rebound effect with multiple energy services and efficiency correlation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 55-66.
    12. Berry, Stephen & Davidson, Kathryn, 2016. "Improving the economics of building energy code change: A review of the inputs and assumptions of economic models," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 157-166.
    13. Camprubí, Lluís & Malmusi, Davide & Mehdipanah, Roshanak & Palència, Laia & Molnar, Agnes & Muntaner, Carles & Borrell, Carme, 2016. "Façade insulation retrofitting policy implementation process and its effects on health equity determinants: A realist review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 304-314.
    14. Friege, Jonas & Chappin, Emile, 2014. "Modelling decisions on energy-efficient renovations: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 196-208.
    15. Du, Qiang & Han, Xiao & Li, Yi & Li, Zhe & Xia, Bo & Guo, Xiqian, 2021. "The energy rebound effect of residential buildings: Evidence from urban and rural areas in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    16. Ross C. Beppler & Daniel C. Matisoff & Matthew E. Oliver, 2023. "Electricity consumption changes following solar adoption: Testing for a solar rebound," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(1), pages 58-81, January.
    17. Madlener, Reinhard & Hauertmann, Maximilian, 2011. "Rebound Effects in German Residential Heating: Do Ownership and Income Matter?," FCN Working Papers 2/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    18. Jenkins, D.P., 2010. "The value of retrofitting carbon-saving measures into fuel poor social housing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 832-839, February.
    19. Lin, Boqiang & Li, Jianglong, 2014. "The rebound effect for heavy industry: Empirical evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 589-599.
    20. Aydin, Erdal, 2016. "Energy conservation in the residential sector : The role of policy and market forces," Other publications TiSEM b9cedba8-1310-4097-90fb-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:84:y:2015:i:c:p:223-232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.