The perceived effectiveness of a secondary-glazing window and households' energy conservation attitudes

The benefits of residential environmental retrofits have received increasing attention from policy makers and homeowners, however a mismatch is also observed between environment measurements and self-reported symptoms of comfort and well-being. This situation arises because perceived comfort is strongly influenced by several personal factors. However, this dimension is somewhat under-researched. Specifically, little study has focused on the link between households' energy conservation attitudes and the perceived effectiveness of a retrofitted secondary-glazing window. This study assesses the links between households' energy conservation attitudes and the perceived effectiveness of a retrofitted secondary-glazed window system. This research involves two key elements. Firstly, we assess the energy conservation perception of households using a survey. Secondly, we assess whether households' energy conservation attitudes would have an impact on their comfort perception of a secondary glazing window system with a non-parametric correlation analysis. The survey results show that most respondents, in general, had strong positive attitudes towards energy conservation. In addition, a positive association between energy-conservation and the perceived effectiveness of retrofitting with a secondary-glazed window system was apparent. The implications of these findings are discussed in the study.