Impacts of energy-efficiency investments on internal conditions in low-income households

Poortinga, Wouter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6926-8545, Jiang, Shiyu, Grey, Charlotte and Tweed, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7656-6460 2018. Impacts of energy-efficiency investments on internal conditions in low-income households. Building Research and Information 46 (6) , pp. 653-667. 10.1080/09613218.2017.1314641

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Abstract

Living in cold conditions poses a risk to health, in particular to low-income, fuel-poor households. Improving the energy efficiency of the housing stock may bring multiple positive health gains through improved indoor temperatures and reduced fuel consumption. This study used a multilevel interrupted time-series approach to evaluate a policy-led energy-performance investment programme. Long-term monitoring data were collected for intervention and control households at baseline (n = 99) and follow-up (n = 88), creating a dataset with 15,771 data points for a series of daily-averaged hydrothermal outcome variables. The study found that the intervention raised indoor air temperature by on average 0.84 K as compared with control households, thereby bringing the majority of indoor temperature measurements within the ‘healthy’ comfort zone of 18–24°C, while average daily gas usage dropped by 37%. External wall insulation was the most effective measure to increase indoor air temperature. The greatest increases were found in the evening and at night, in the bedroom, and in British steel-framed buildings. No evidence was found that the intervention substantially increased indoor relative humidity levels when accompanied by mechanical ventilation. The study concludes that the multilevel interrupted time-series approach offers a useful model for evaluating housing improvement programmes.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture
Uncontrolled Keywords:	energy efficiency; housing; humidity measurements; monitoring; public health; public policy; retrofit; temperature measurements
Additional Information:	This paper is published under the terms of the CC-BY licence.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
ISSN:	0961-3218
Funders:	National Institute for Health Research
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	27 April 2017
Date of Acceptance:	30 March 2017
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 17:12
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/100162

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