Carrie Behar

Thesis title: Understanding ventilation practices; how residents adapt to living with whole house ventilation in low energy housing.

Primary supervisor: Dr Tadj Oreszczyn
Secondary supervisors: Dr Lai Fong Chiu, UCL Energy Institute; Dr Ben Croxford, UCL IEDE

Sponsor: EPSRC

Background

Whole-house ventilation technologies (WHV) are being introduced into new housing to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s housing stock. These technologies have the potential to provide fresh air in airtight dwellings, which is required both for the health of the occupants and to protect the building fabric from the effects of moisture.

The design of housing with WHV anticipates different ventilation practices to a traditional home. For example, filters need changing, boosters activating and vents cleaning; furthermore, it is expected that windows are manipulated and reconfigured by the resident to prevent overheating and facilitate ventilative cooling during hot weather.

Aim

This thesis set out to explore how residents of low energy housing with WHV technologies are ventilating their homes, and to understand to what extent their ventilation practices have adapted since living with WHV. The research adopts a socio-technical approach to discuss some of the constraints which prevent occupants ventilating their homes as the designers anticipated and, in doing so, questions the deterministic notion that simply installing new systems will result in changed ventilation practices among residents.

Methods

A qualitative methodology is adopted to investigate how residents engage with the various components of a ‘sustainable’ ventilation system through their everyday domestic practices. Data were collected using in-depth interviews, resident walk-throughs, and photography, supported by analysis of design and construction documentation, at three recently completed social housing schemes: the first naturally ventilated using passive stack ventilation, the second incorporating continuous mechanical extract ventilation and the third utilising mechanical ventilation with heat recovery.

Carrie Behar (MArch, MSc, MRes) is a PhD student at the UCL Energy Institute.

Carrie trained as an architect at the Bartlett School of Architecture. During this time she spent two years in practice, working at Peter Barber Architects and Douglas & King Architects, before returning to the Bartlett and completing her Part 2 (MArch) in 2009. The following year, Carrie studied the MSc Environmental Design and Engineering (EDE) course at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, where her dissertation project focussed on undertaking a critical analysis of one of the TSB-funded Retrofit for the Future exemplar projects, a Victorian terraced house in Battersea, as a case study for examining barriers to the sustainable refurbishment of residential buildings.

In 2010 Carrie joined the UCL Energy Institute as an MRes student, on the newly established Energy Demand Studies and the Built Environment course. Her research was based on a post-occupancy evaluation of residential dwellings at the Grade II Listed Barbican Centre in London. The study sought to characterize baseline user satisfaction, energy-use and behaviour in Barbican dwellings, investigate options for refurbishment strategies to reduce energy consumption without compromising the heritage value of the buildings, and consider how effective the adopted combination of post-occupancy evaluation techniques was at identifying problem areas and enabling the team to propose workable solutions.

Carrie's PhD is concerned with understanding the effects of adopting various ventilation strategies in low energy homes, and is due for completion in September 2014.

Previous Work:

'An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Post-Occupancy Evaluation Techniques in Characterizing Baseline User Satisfaction, Energy Use and Behaviour in Barbican Centre Dwellings'

MRes Dissertation: Energy Demand Reduction and the Built Environment (UCL Energy Institute, July 2011)

'The Peabody Low-energy Retrofit; A Case Study of a Victorian Terraced House in Battersea'

MSc Dissertation: Environmental Design and Engineering (UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, September 2010)

'Parametric Ornamentation; An Investigation into the Application of Parametric Modelling Techniques to the Design and Fabrication of an Architecture of Ornament'

MArch Dissertation: Architecture (Bartlett School of Architecture, May 2009)