Low carbon heating and older adults: comfort, cosiness and glow

Devine‐Wright, Patrick; Wrapson, Wendy; Henshaw, Victoria; Guy, Simon

doi:10.1080/09613218.2014.883563

Cited by 42 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The mobilisation of different forms of capital, including social, economic, cultural, and symbolic capital, is important here in both establishing one's status position as well as avoiding stigma [27]. Devine-Wright et al [11] suggested Sustainability 2018, 10, 934 4 of 15 that perceptions of cosiness in a home occupied by older adults led to the installation of wood-burning stoves and fake fireplaces, despite the installation of highly efficient low-carbon heating technologies.…”

Section: Resident Behaviour and Interaction With Energy-efficient Heamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the scarcity of approaches regarding experiences and attitudes towards energy-efficient technologies within and outside a "low-energy home", as well as beyond the systems and technologies that enable it, is striking. Whilst the studies discussed in this section of the paper examine housing and heating broadly, they also enable an important understanding of how energy-efficient technologies, energy and heating are positioned within a wider set of relations between status, stigma [27], national identity, and notions of masculinities [26], as well as concepts of cosiness and glow [11].…”

Section: Resident Behaviour and Interaction With Energy-efficient Heamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Devine-Wright et al [11] analysed how older adults engage with new energy-efficient heating technologies post-installation, suggesting heating practices were influenced by pre-existing meanings associated with the "making of a home". Whilst some scholars have focussed on interactions with particular energy-efficient technologies, such as controls, others have emphasised the need to study technologies as constituted within meanings of culture, spatialities, technologies, and bodies [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Role of ‘Community Spaces’ in Residents’ Adaptation to Energy-Efficient Heating Technologies—Insights from a UK Low-Energy Housing Development

Oliveira

Marco

2018

Sustainability

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Advanced energy-efficient heating technologies are often integral to low-energy home design, practice, and policy. The expectation is that technologies designed to lower space-heating energy use may also contribute to better performing buildings and a comfortable indoor environment. Too often, though, it is found that residents do not use technologies as intended due to multiple socio-technological phenomena. Whilst increasing efforts have been made to better understand residents' social engagement with energy-efficient heating technologies, there is a lack of evidence that takes into account the wider context of a housing development. This paper draws on residents' experiences across 40 dwellings in a recently completed low-energy residential development in the United Kingdom (UK). Implications of the research are twofold. First, the study contributes to a better understanding of the emerging roles, motivations, and expectations that a 'community' has for residents living in domestic low-energy environments. Second, there are implications for design professions to take account of the potential effects that specific external collective spaces such as playgrounds, allotments, and gardens can have on the ways that residents adapt to new technologies within their home. There are also implications for international energy policies on low-energy housing, specifically in relation to energy efficiency technology adaptation and learning.

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Section: Resident Behaviour and Interaction With Energy-efficient Heamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resident Behaviour and Interaction With Energy-efficient Heamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Role of ‘Community Spaces’ in Residents’ Adaptation to Energy-Efficient Heating Technologies—Insights from a UK Low-Energy Housing Development

Oliveira

Marco

2018

Sustainability

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“…Instead we suggest that energy prosumption may be understood more broadly and not simply in electricity prosumption, but is equally applicable in the context of heat, and across all elements of the energy system (Chappells andShove 2000, Van Vliet et al 2012). For example, there exists literature on wood-burning stoves and other forms of domestic wood combustion (Devine-Wright et al, 2014;Peterson, 2008;Reeve et al, 2013), which is not conceptualised as prosumption, but is complimentary to these debates.…”

Section: Energy Prosumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualising energy prosumption: Exploring energy production, consumption and microgeneration in Scotland, UK

Ellsworth-Krebs

Reid

2016

Environ Plan A

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Energy prosumption has become a common phrase as more householders and communities are producing and consuming their own electricity and heat. Prosumption is a combination of two words: production and consumption, and emerged as a concept at a time when consumers were beginning to be more proactive and take over steps traditionally thought of as ‘production’. In many ways, energy prosumption is nothing new (e.g. wood combustion), yet development of our modern energy system has changed the relationships between energy producers and consumers (e.g. smart meters, renewable energy production). Thus, there is a growing body of research interested in the motivation and conditions for the uptake of microgeneration technologies and the implications to energy infrastructures and big energy producers. However, this ‘energy prosumption’ scholarship generally lacks a strong conceptual foundation and misses the opportunity to build on existing prosumption literature and related debates. This paper brings the wealth of literature on prosumption into the energy context and reflects on the insights offered by a prosumption lens. Our study explores a particular manifestation of prosumption – when a household is simultaneously a producer and consumer of their heat and/or electricity via microgeneration – and we present data from semi-structured interviews with 28 households living with microgeneration technologies in Scotland, UK. Thus, we provide a robust framework from which future research on household and community energy prosumption can build.

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“…Hypothermia and heat death are directly attributable to the thermal environments (Collins, 1986;Rudge and Gilchrist, 2005;Burholt and Windle, 2006). Cognitive abilities also decline in older age, possibly making it more difficult to operate complex systems and understand new technologies (Devine-Wright et al, 2014). On the other hand, older people, simply by having lived for longer, will have a richer and more varied history of thermal experiences that embraces a wider range of heating strategies and technologies.…”

Section: Occupant Behaviour and Energy Consumption In The Homementioning

confidence: 99%

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

2015

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Thermal variations across space affect the use of space within a dwelling. Older people show interest in and understanding of thermal behavior of dwellings. Older people pursue the thermal conditions they desire. Older people take actions to modify the quality of the thermal environment in their house. Changes made to the house may not be solely motivated by thermal comfort concerns. a b s t r a c tThe 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.

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Low carbon heating and older adults: comfort, cosiness and glow

Cited by 42 publications

References 31 publications

Role of ‘Community Spaces’ in Residents’ Adaptation to Energy-Efficient Heating Technologies—Insights from a UK Low-Energy Housing Development

Role of ‘Community Spaces’ in Residents’ Adaptation to Energy-Efficient Heating Technologies—Insights from a UK Low-Energy Housing Development

Conceptualising energy prosumption: Exploring energy production, consumption and microgeneration in Scotland, UK

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

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