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1242_ Burris Mitchell and Haines Windsor Final Amended.pdf (145.44 kB)

Exploring comfort in the home: towards an interdisciplinary framework for domestic comfort

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conference contribution
posted on 2013-03-04, 13:55 authored by Andrea Burris, Val MitchellVal Mitchell, Victoria HainesVictoria Haines
With increasing costs of energy and the need to cut CO2 emissions, householders are actively encouraged to reduce their energy consumption. As the biggest uses of energy in the home are for space and water heating, research into comfort has predominately focused on the thermal environment. A wider perspective on comfort is provided by sociological practice-orientated research that seeks to understand how people create comfort at home and psychologically informed approaches relating to understanding the drivers for behavioural change. By gaining a multidisciplinary understanding of how and why occupants create comfort at home, opportunities to maximize energy demand reduction can potentially be identified. Findings from a study of householders and a review of the literature were used to create a framework that incorporates a three-tiered approach to understanding comfort in the home consisting of “comfort needs”, “comfort preferences” and the highest level, “comfort aspirations”.

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Citation

BURRIS, A., MITCHELL, V. and HAINES, V., 2012. Exploring comfort in the home: towards an interdisciplinary framework for domestic comfort. IN: Proceedings of the 7th Windsor Conference (Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings) - The Changing Context of Comfort in an Unpredictable World, Windsor, UK, 12-15 April 2012. 13 pp.

Publisher

Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings (NCEUB)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2012

Notes

This is a conference paper. The organiser's website is at: http://nceub.org.uk/

Language

  • en

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