How are UK homes heated? A city-wide, socio-technical survey and implications for energy modelling

Abstract Understanding heating patterns in UK homes is crucial for energy policy formulation, the design of new controls and heating systems, and for accurate stock modelling. Metrics to describe heating patterns are proposed along with methods for calculating them from measured room temperatures. The patterns of heating in 249 dwellings in Leicester, UK are derived from measured hourly temperatures and a face-to-face socio-technical survey. Of the 93% of homes that were centrally heated, 51% were heated for two periods each day and 33% were heated for only one period per day. The mean winter temperature in the rooms varied from 9.7 °C to 25.7 °C. Heating patterns varied significantly and systematically depending on the age of the householders and their employment status. Compared to younger households and those in employment, households with occupants over 60 and those unable to work, turned their heating on earlier in the year, heated for longer each day, and heated to higher temperatures. The indoor temperatures were much lower than those customarily assumed by BREDEM-based energy models and patterns of heating were quite different. Such models could seriously and systematically misrepresent the benefits of energy efficiency measures to some sectors of society.

[1]  Julian Padget,et al.  Modelling UK domestic energy and carbon emissions: an agent-based approach , 2011 .

[2]  Dejan Mumovic,et al.  A review of bottom-up building stock models for energy consumption in the residential sector , 2010 .

[3]  Steven K. Firth,et al.  The carbon footprint of UK Cities: 4M: measurement, modelling, mapping and measurement , 2010 .

[4]  Sung H. Hong,et al.  The impact of energy efficient refurbishment on the space heating fuel consumption in English dwellings , 2006 .

[5]  D. Harrison,et al.  Domestic UK retrofit challenge: Barriers, incentives and current performance leading into the Green Deal , 2012 .

[6]  Paul Gerard Tuohy,et al.  Energy, Carbon and Cost Performance of Building Stocks: Upgrade Analysis, Energy Labelling and National Policy Development , 2009 .

[7]  Y. Yohanis,et al.  Annual variations of temperature in a sample of UK dwellings , 2010 .

[8]  A. Druckman,et al.  Household energy consumption in the UK: A highly geographically and socio-economically disaggregated model , 2008 .

[9]  Koen Steemers,et al.  Modelling domestic energy consumption at district scale: A tool to support national and local energy policies , 2011, Environ. Model. Softw..

[10]  Alex Summerfield,et al.  The reality of English living rooms - A comparison of internal temperatures against common model assumptions , 2013 .

[11]  K. Lomas,et al.  Summertime temperatures and thermal comfort in UK homes , 2013 .

[12]  A. Wright,et al.  Targeting household energy-efficiency measures using sensitivity analysis , 2010 .

[13]  Juan Huang,et al.  Daily temperature profiles in and around Western Kenyan larval habitats of Anopheles gambiae as related to egg mortality , 2006, Malaria Journal.

[14]  D.R.G. Hunt,et al.  A national field survey of house temperatures , 1982 .

[15]  Michael I. Gentry,et al.  Predicting the diversity of internal temperatures from the English residential sector using panel methods , 2013 .

[16]  Tadj Oreszczyn,et al.  The unintended consequences of decarbonising the built environment: A UK case study , 2012 .

[17]  V. Ismet Ugursal,et al.  A database of house descriptions representative of the Canadian housing stock for coupling to building energy performance simulation , 2009 .

[18]  Tadj Oreszczyn,et al.  Milton Keynes Energy Park revisited: Changes in internal temperatures and energy usage , 2007 .

[19]  Michael I. Gentry,et al.  Central heating thermostat settings and timing: building demographics , 2010 .

[20]  T. Oreszczyn,et al.  Determinants of winter indoor temperatures in low income households in England , 2006 .

[21]  A. Summerfield,et al.  Heating patterns in English homes: Comparing results from a national survey against common model assumptions , 2013 .

[22]  J. Hills,et al.  Getting the measure of fuel poverty: final report of the Fuel Poverty Review , 2012 .

[23]  Steven K. Firth,et al.  INVESTIGATING CO 2 EMISSION REDUCTIONS IN EXISTING URBAN HOUSING USING A COMMUNITY DOMESTIC ENERGY MODEL , 2009 .

[24]  Sung H. Hong,et al.  Can we improve the identification of cold homes for targeted home energy-efficiency improvements? , 2006 .

[25]  Tom Kane,et al.  Indoor temperatures in UK dwellings: investigating heating practices using field survey data , 2013 .

[26]  Zaid Chalabi,et al.  The impact of housing energy efficiency improvements on reduced exposure to cold — the ‘temperature take back factor’ , 2011 .