Determinants of winter indoor temperatures in low income households in England
Introduction
The issue of fuel poverty [1] and the large burden of winter and cold-related deaths in the UK [2], [3] has focused attention on winter indoor temperatures and the ill-health effects of exposure to cold through inadequate home heating. To help deal with this problem, the UK government initiated a fuel poverty review and launched, in 2000, a new Home Energy Efficiency Scheme for England, now known as Warm Front [4]. The Scheme, which is targeted at low income households, provides grants for the improvement of home insulation and heating to tackle fuel poverty and to improve winter indoor temperatures ‘to ensure that the most vulnerable households need no longer risk ill-health due to a cold home’.
In 2001, a national evaluation of the health impacts of the Warm Front scheme was initiated, part of which entailed the collection of detailed temperature data from a subset of 1600 dwellings. These measurements were made in some dwellings which were awaiting Warm Front improvements and in others that had recently received improvements to the heating system or home insulation or both. In this paper, we present a first analysis of these temperature measurements and the factors that influence the adequacy of home heating during periods of cold.
Section snippets
Methods
The study included dwellings undergoing Warm Front improvements over the winters of 2001–2002 and 2002–2003 in five urban areas: Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton. Detailed measurements of temperature and humidity were made by placing data loggers in a subset of 1604 study dwellings. We used Gemini TinyTag data loggers, which were placed away from direct sources of heat and light on a sideboard or shelf at around waist height (approximately 1 m from the ground). A
Results
The median standardized daytime living room temperature was 19.1 °C (from 5th to 95th centile range: 13.5–23.0 °C) and the median standardized night time bedroom temperature 17.1 °C (5th–95th centile range: 12.1–21.8 °C).
Discussion
The indoor temperature measurements analysed for this paper represent one of the most comprehensive sets of dwelling-related temperature data for English homes. They provide a valuable insight into the heating characteristics of households on low income. Most previous studies [11], [12], [13], [14] have focused on spot measurements and have not corrected for external temperatures during the monitored period, whereas our continuous monitoring with half-hourly measurements and the method of
Acknowledgements
This study was undertaken as part of the national evaluation of the Warm Front Scheme (England's home energy efficiency scheme). It was supported by the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Welsh Assembly Government under contract with the Energy Saving Trust (EST, Contract Number M47). The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding departments. Paul Wilkinson is supported by a Public Health Career Scientist
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