What influences occupants' behavior in residential buildings: An experimental study on window operation in the KTH Live-In Lab

TL;DR

This study analyzes how indoor and outdoor environmental factors, along with time of day, influence window operation behaviors of residents, highlighting individual differences and implications for energy efficiency in residential buildings.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the environmental and temporal drivers of window behavior, using multivariate analysis in a real-world Swedish residential setting.

Findings

Occupants are influenced by air quality and time of day.

Individual variability affects window operation patterns.

Environmental factors significantly impact energy-related behaviors.

Abstract

Window-opening and window-closing behaviors play an important role in indoor environmental conditions and therefore have an impact on building energy efficiency. On the other hand, the same environmental conditions drive occupants to interact with windows. Understanding this mutual relationship of interaction between occupants and the residential building is thus crucial to improve energy efficiency without disregarding occupants' comfort. This paper investigates the influence of physical environmental variables (i.e., indoor and outside climate parameters) and categorical variables (i.e., time of the day) on occupants' behavior patterns related to window operation, utilizing a multivariate logistic regression analysis. The data considered in this study are collected during winter months, when the effect on the energy consumption of the window operation is the highest, at a Swedish residential building, the KTH Live-In Lab, accommodating four occupants in separate studio apartments. Although all the occupants seem to share a sensitivity to some common factors, such as air quality and time of the day, we can also observe individual variability with respect to the most significant drivers influencing window operation behaviors.