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Evidence shows that people have a major impact on building performance. Occupants’ impact is especially important in social housing, where their occupants may present greater vulnerabilities, and their needs are not always considered. This study aims to analyse the socio-demographic influence in social rental housing concerning hygrothermal comfort...
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... the year 2021, this trend slightly varies, with an increase in hours of activation of P1. This variation corresponds to that observed in hygrothermal comfort, which may be a consequence of a change in the socio-economic or socio-demographic conditions of the samples analysed in P1. Table 4 shows the theoretical cost data for heating and DHW based on the monitored consumption data and the natural gas price per kWh and m 3 . The natural gas price per kWh has been obtained from the official Eurostat database [74], while the natural gas price per m 3 has been provided by the building management company. ...Citations
... They have identified that household occupation does not show significant relevance in heating or cooling energy consumption patterns. In contrast, Perez-Bezos et al. [56] has stated that socio-demographic Fig. 3. Koppen-Geiger climate-type map of the World [98]. characteristics of households influence the energy consumption and hygrothermal comfort in social housing based on real-time data monitoring of 15 residences in the north of Spain. ...
... Contratiempos como la COVID-19 activan esta percepción. A consecuencia del teletrabajo, una parte importante de la sociedad ha pasado a habitar sus viviendas de manera continua, constatando las deficiencias energéticas y ambientales de sus hogares y el impacto a nivel de confort, salud y económico (Perez-Bezos et al., 2022). Soluciones de mantenimiento o reparación pueden incorporar mejoras energéticas sin un coste adicional desmedido. ...
El parque edificado europeo es responsable del 36% de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y del 40% del consumo de energía y su rehabilitación reduciría un 26% del consumo. Además de los beneficios económicos de esta reducción, como su incidencia en reducir la pobreza energética, las viviendas energéticamente eficientes implican co-beneficios en el confort y la salud de sus habitantes; sin embargo, los hogares no son conscientes de ello, lo que, aunado a otras barreras, desincentiva la obtención de viviendas eficientes. Este trabajo persigue conocer la importancia que otorgan los hogares a los beneficios y co-beneficios asociados a la eficiencia energética; entender si es homogénea entre éstos e identificar su correlación con sus características sociodemográficas. Para ello, se realiza una encuesta a una muestra de hogares de Barcelona. Mediante un análisis multivariante, se identifican los patrones de la relevancia otorgada a las distintas ventajas y su asociación estadística con las características sociodemográficas de los hogares. Los resultados sugieren que la importancia de estos beneficios es heterogénea. Las personas mayores y de mayor renta aprecian más co-beneficios como la salud, el confort y la conservación medioambiental, pero las personas más jóvenes y de menor renta valoran más los ahorros.
Energy poverty, along with climate change, is becoming one of the most worrying issues in Europe. Many people live without a minimum thermal comfort in their homes because they are not able to afford high energy bills. In other words, the indoor temperature of many dwellings remains below the recommended temperature during long periods, particularly in winter. This is more frequent among low-income families, which are over-represented in ‘Spain's social housing. In this paper, we present a simple and novel procedure to manage heating energy consumption in order to guarantee a minimum indoor temperature in social housing dwellings. To test the procedure, a social housing building located in the Basque Country, in northern Spain, has been selected as the case study. The heating consumption and outdoor temperature have been monitored for three winters and a characteristic curve for the heating consumption has been derived using the methodology proposed. Thanks to this procedure, the indoor conditions of the dwellings have improved by 80.9%, helping to alleviate energy poverty. The results show that the method is reliable, since the heating consumption needed to guarantee a specific indoor temperature could be estimated with an acceptable error rate. In the end, several aspects of this case study are discussed, and conclusions that propose certain suggestions to energy policies are derived.
In the wake of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), many governments urged the population to stay at home. For this reason, practically all human activity took place inside the houses. As an exploratory study, during the national lockdown, an online questionnaire about households and housing was disseminated in the Spring of 2020. More than 1673 valid responses were obtained. A descriptive statistical analysis was made choosing sociodemographic, territorial (habitat), and housing variables, such as indoor environmental quality (IEQ) the availability of outdoor spaces, the prospects for changes in. Also, a logistic regression helped to stablish the multivariate causal relations linked to the dependent variable “general satisfaction with the dwelling”. The results associated urban habitat, tenancy regime, higher incomes, and fewer cohabitants, with worse perceived domestic IEQ (mainly associated with noise and less natural lighting), and lack of own outdoor space, except those mainly with balconies or terraces. Households with the most desire for domestic changes were also associated with the aforementioned characteristics. In conclusion, it is remarkable the determining role of housing design for dwellers' satisfaction, especially in uncertain times like COVID-19 pandemic. This not only conditioned the different ways of inhabiting and occupying the domestic space, but also the capacities of households to face a situation as disruptive as the one experienced during confinement. The house cannot be evaluated as an isolated element, the built environment, the habitat, and the circumstances of the household also influence. The latter does so through multiple indicators on people's perception of their reality, the way they live them, and how they express it. Additionally, resilient building design and modernization opportunities are identified.
