Energy Efficient Housing through Organized Interactions? Conceptualizing the Roles of Householders and Providers in Housing Retrofitting in the Netherlands and China

ABSTRACT

Energy saving is an explicit goal of housing retrofitting in both the Netherlands and China. Retrofit providers expect to achieve this goal by applying insulation to apartment buildings and improvements in heating, cooling and ventilation. The aim of this paper is to explore both conceptually and empirically the interactions between householders and retrofit providers. Interaction activities are conceptualized in a framework of overlapping practices of retrofitting and everyday life. Empirical material is derived from interviews with retrofit providers and householders in the Netherlands and China. This paper shows that full energy saving potential in housing retrofitting fails to be accomplished, due to a limited involvement of householders at the consumption junctions in retrofit processes. Central to this failure are the limited options for residents to share pre-retrofit living experiences, to test future housing equipment beforehand and to customize retrofit packages. Also post-retrofit educational support, evaluation and monitoring is falling short to engage householders in their appropriation of their retrofitted apartment.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• the Netherlands
• housing retrofitting
• providers-household interaction
• householder participation
• technology appropriation

Acknowledgments

This research is carried out as part of the research project Smart Retrofit of Urban Housing, 467-14-036 in cooperation with the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University & Research and the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences . We express gratitude towards participating interviewees for facilitating and cooperating in this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) [Smart Retrofitting of Urban Housing (467-14-036)].