Do passive houses need passive people? Evaluating the active occupancy of Passivhaus homes in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The Passivhaus model emphasises a high standard of building fabric insulation and controlled ventilation with heat recovery in order to achieve comfort and reduce energy use. The implication is that environmental control is achieved by the building fabric and ventilation system with little need for significant occupant interaction or behaviour change in order to achieve comfort and energy efficiency. This paper challenges such views with new research that draws upon empirical data from case studies of houses in the UK built to the Passivhaus standard. It uses inductive analysis of interview data, documenting userinteractions with the houses, and opinions and attitudes of the occupants towards living in a Passivhaus. The research includes both social rented housing and private ownership tenures. The results of this study show both comfort-driven and energy saving-driven behavioural adaptations among the occupants and that the Passivhaus system demands a high level of occupant interaction in order to achieve both comfort and energy efficiency. 'Designing out' occupant's behaviour and reinforcing the image of automated comfort without facilitating occupant behavioural adaptations, could lead to user dissatisfaction in Passivhaus buildings.

My Fault or Default—Household Behaviors Living in a Climate-Smart Building

“…This study found that passive solutions or solutions where households have to engage actively, like flipping a switch, are more effective than relying on information or feedback as a source for encouraging behavioral changes, which has also been found elsewhere [6,9,10]. This implies that when constructing new residential buildings where active engagement of households is encouraged, solutions to engage households physically-to make them do something-should be a solution.…”

“…Some studies suggest that households need to interact with all the buildings' energyreducing features in order to get the best performance [9], while others indicate that the interaction with the smart features of a home environment is short-lived [10]. In this study, it was found that households were initially interested in engaging actively with all the smart features that Greenhouse promised, but that this window of opportunity was missed because of malfunctions.…”

“…This approach, where the use of practical solutions that engage households to make adjustments to their behavior can be a fruitful avenue to explore as this combination can increase the likelihood of decreasing household GHG emissions. For example, using specific building materials, the design of ventilation systems and exterior design features to optimize the use of solar heat can help to minimize household energy consumption [8,9]. Other initiatives that have been developed to help households reduce their GHG emissions include introducing electronic gadgets that provide users with real-time feedback on energy or hot water consumption in the attempt to raise awareness of consumption patterns [10,11].…”

Living in an Active Home: household dynamics and unintended consequences

“…This is relevant to Active Homes, which have the potential to change residents' relationships to energy through the inclusion of energy-generation technologies such as solar photovoltaics (PV), which may require active administration (Hansen & Hauge 2017). Existing research into low carbon housing has highlighted potential tensions between expert expectations of residents and the experiences of residents themselves (Zhao & Carter 2020;Cherry et al 2017). However, previous research into 'prosuming' households has largely focused on those who have chosen to install few or individual technologies, reflecting a sample who are energy-minded and engaged (Stikvoort et al 2020).…”

Energy, Economic, and Environmental Performance of a Single-Family House in Chile Built to Passivhaus Standard

“…Concurrently, the thermal transmittance values of an enclosure are regulated in Chile while taking into consideration its climatic and performance similarities with other European countries, such as the United Kingdom or Spain. Additionally, when considering levels of hermeticity, establishing a limit on the energy demand may still be insufficient [13][14][15][16][17], as is the case in countries such as Sweden and Portugal, where the imposition of regulations on the transmittance levels of the envelope-as in the previous examples-failed to substantially reduce the energy demand of the dwellings [12,18]. As a policy to mitigate these gaps, the European Union, through its Directive 2010/31/EU, stipulates that from the year 2021, houses should be built with near-zero energy consumption restrictions in place [19].…”