Tailoring domestic retrofit by incorporating occupant behaviour

Energy savings from building retrofits often fall short due to occupant behaviour. Current retrofit guidance may be significantly undermined due to standardised behavioural assumptions used in modelling calculations. This paper investigated the impact of household behaviour on the effectiveness and optimum ranking of domestic retrofit measures. It compared the energy saving potential from eight single retrofit measures across five household behavioural patterns, using a case study dwelling and dynamic building simulation modelling. The results confirmed that behavioural impact is significant in optimising retrofit strategies, suggesting tailoring domestic retrofit by incorporating occupant behaviour is vital for realising the energy saving potential.