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Morton et al BeHave 2016 full paper.pdf (135.06 kB)

How do householders interact with their heating controls?

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conference contribution
posted on 2016-06-22, 12:36 authored by Ashley Morton, Victoria HainesVictoria Haines, David AllinsonDavid Allinson
This paper presents measurements of householders’ manual interaction with their heating controls. The results demonstrate the importance of measuring heating use behaviour directly rather than relying on thermostat and timer settings or inferring heating use from internal temperature measurements. This is the first time, to the author’s knowledge, that manual heating interactions have been recorded. Heating controls will only save energy if used effectively, yet currently, little is known about how they are used. This paper describes an in-depth study of twelve UK residential properties that had new heating controls installed. Heating system interactions with these controls, energy consumption and room temperatures were monitored for ten months from July 2014 to April 2015 inclusive, covering autumn and spring shoulder months and the winter heating season. These measured data were supported by a series of qualitative interviews with the households. The paper reports details of the householders’ heating system use, separating the occupants’ manual interactions with the controls from their pre-programmed heating schedules. The findings show that the participants had many manual interactions with their heating systems, even during scheduled heating periods; changing heating durations and demand temperatures. The results also identify that manual interactions with heating controls occur more frequently during the winter season than in the shoulder months. The results have important implications relating to assumptions of set-point temperatures and schedule characteristics previously based only on self-reported use or measured internal temperature profiles.

Funding

This research was made possible by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) support for the London-Loughborough Centre for Doctoral Research in Energy Demand (grant EP/H009612/1). It was undertaken in conjunction with the Digital Energy Feedback and Control Technology Optimization (DEFACTO) research project, also funded by the EPSRC (grant EP/K00249X/1).

History

School

  • Design

Published in

4th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency

Citation

MORTON, A., HAINES, V. and ALLINSON, D., 2016. How do householders interact with their heating controls? To be presented at: BEHAVE 2016: The 4th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency, 8th-9th September 2016, Coimbra, Portugal.

Publisher

Energy for Sustainability Initiative of the University of Coimbra (EfS - UC) and the Portuguese Energy Agency (ADENE)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-05-05

Publication date

2016

Notes

This conference paper is published with kind permission of the conference organiser.

Language

  • en

Location

Coimbra, Portugal

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