“It’s an Old House and That’s How It Works”: Living Sufficiently Well in Inefficient Homes

Abstract

In the UK, the domestic sector is a major contributor of national carbon emissions. In a country with a low turnover of housing, improving the energy efficiency of the existing stock, particularly the oldest and least efficient homes, is of utmost importance if ambitious carbon reduction targets are to be met. Analysing the rich, narrative data of households living in old, hard-to-treat homes, this paper produces novel insights into the ways in which domestic thermal comfort practices are shaped by meaningful relationships, intimately bound to identificatory positions, that are deeply connected to these valued domestic environments. Findings concern how households renegotiate widely accepted understandings of thermal comfort to better fit with the materiality of their old homes by constructing for themselves meaningful 'moral' identities that focus on living sufficiently well. This relational understanding of domestic energy consumption highlights how materiality, practices and moral narratives are produced and reproduced dynamically over time, challenging static notions of utility maximisation and technical interpretations of efficiency that dominate contemporary energy policy.

Demanding expectations: Exploring the experience of distributed heat generation in Europe

“…The extent to which renewable heating installations encourage more sustainable practices remains to be seen, as in our experience, participants with renewable heating tended to report they had systems with larger capacity than required suggesting that these technologies were not necessarily demanding as little energy as they could be. This reaffirms our argument that policies around renewable heating, and efforts to reduce energy consumption through efficiency and technical means generally could work better if they recognise the social expectations and aspirations as well as the daily routines and experiences of households [48,87,88]. For example, as Vlasova and Gram-Hassen (31, p.523) highlighted in the context of domestic retrofits, policy should focus on 'how the retrofitted building can best support lower consumption related to everyday practices rather than just focusing on how to apply more efficient technology'.…”

Energy poverty, housing and health: the lived experience of older low-income Australians

“…A comparative study conducted by Thomson et al (2017) found that in most European countries, the energy-poor population is statistically more likely to report poorer physical and mental health than the nonenergy poor population. To avoid the burden of high energy bills and avoid or lessen EP, many low-income households reduce their energy use (Judson et al, 2019;Roberts & Henwood, 2019). This can result in thermal discomfort and impact on the health of the household (Hernández & Siegel, 2019).…”

A personas-based approach to deliberating local decarbonisation scenarios: Findings and methodological insights

“…to explore deeper public understandings and desires surrounding future energy systems change, including: biographical and narrative methods [12,37]; fictional narratives and storytelling [38,39]; games and roleplay [40]; deliberative mapping techniques [41]; and public deliberation methods [42]. Qualitative temporal methods attune us to the centrality of change over time in socio-technical transitions, and the use of scenarios within interviews has proven effective in eliciting ethical reflection on the changes to place and everyday life such changes entail [5,6].…”