| Summary: | Little is known about the interrelations between behavioural
aspects and physical dependences in energy use from empirical
data. Empirical research on occupants’ ‘interaction’ with the
technical changes in low-carbon retrofitted homes demands
holistic socio-technical approaches. The aim of this paper is
to present the methodological and conceptual framework of
ongoing doctoral research focussed on the interaction between
retrofitting interventions and occupants’ behaviour and the extent to which this affects the energy use of the UK’s refurbished
housing stock. The paper discusses methods and occupant
feedback techniques for low-carbon refurbishments. It presents
the theoretical foundation of a methodological design developed to investigate, observe and analyse the ‘phenomena’ of
individual household energy use based on one year’s monitoring data. The presented methodology is built up to estimate the
‘area of interaction’ of these variables on empirical findings, by
defining the nature (direct/indirect, passive/active) and extent
(low/zero, medium, maximum) of occupants’ interaction with
technical refurbishment interventions. The paper concludes
with an overview of a method structured to examine the importance of user’s ‘interaction’, by disaggregating the association of socio-technical variables and evaluating the behavioural
dynamics in energy use.
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