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Contemporary packages of housing retrofit equipment are based on models of expected energy savings with regard to globally standardized thermal comfort levels. Previous research shows that the energy savings realised after a housing retrofit is substantially lower than expected. Attempts to reduce energy demand by physical re-design, utilising technical standards for thermal comfort as well as financial incentives, tend to ignore the role of retrofit interventions in the construction of everyday practices of thermal comfort making. Thermal comfort practices of heating, cooling and ventilation are moderated by specific householders’ motivations which constitute ‘wants’ and emerging ‘needs’ in the interaction with the housing retrofit equipment. This paper proposes that the interactions between the retrofitted buildings and the householders are the sum of material affordances, as signified by the design of the housing equipment on the one hand, and the practical affordances in practices-as-performances on the other. The study presents comfort practices in relation to recently retrofitted low-income housing estates in Beijing, Mianyang (Sichuan province, South-west China) and Amsterdam on the basis of 50 qualitative interviews with householders in each city. The paper concludes that the expected energy saving is counteracted by a poor match between conventional retrofit packages and householders’ considerations about their thermal comfort. To better reduce energy demand and to mitigate energy poverty, retrofit packages should provide adaptive thermal comfort as preferred by householders, rather than fixed or tightly specified thermal comfort. Such a perspective may support a more flexible and inclusive use of housing equipment as part of retrofit programs.

Energy saving is an explicit goal of housing retrofitting in both the Netherlands and China. Retrofit providers expect to achieve this goal by applying insulation to apartment buildings and improvements in heating, cooling and ventilation. The aim of this paper is to explore both conceptually and empirically the interactions between householders and retrofit providers. Interaction activities are conceptualized in a framework of overlapping practices of retrofitting and everyday life. Empirical material is derived from interviews with retrofit providers and householders in the Netherlands and China. This paper shows that full energy saving potential in housing retrofitting fails to be accomplished, due to a limited involvement of householders at the consumption junctions in retrofit processes. Central to this failure are the limited options for residents to share pre-retrofit living experiences, to test future housing equipment beforehand and to customize retrofit packages. Also post-retrofit educational support, evaluation and monitoring is falling short to engage householders in their appropriation of their retrofitted apartment.

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Government officials and retrofit installers in both China and the Netherlands recognise the need to solve the problem of deteriorated housing and to do so while building trusting relationships with the citizen-consumers involved. Strongly regulated retrofit processes are being organised to improve the housing stock by housing retrofit. Carefully organised retrofit processes by installers and government officials are regarded as an important instrument to improve the quality of housing and to make energy-efficient use of apartments possible. In organised retrofit processes, the emphasis is commonly on a range of technical retrofit items. Typically, in the retrofitting of apartment buildings, basic measures, such as insulation solutions and heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, are considered to guarantee energy savings. The well-established policy ideals regarding smart homes and passive homes can be said to represent technocentric retrofitting strategies in which householders have passive roles. However, ongoing academic and societal debates have emerged about technocentric retrofit strategies. It is questioned whether or not the technology-centred strategies and ideals are best suited for organising retrofit projects in Chinese and Dutch cities, for example, when facing the specific development challenges of low-income householders with thermal comfort. It is argued that retrofitting existing homes, which is a societal problem, cannot be properly addressed without including the householders in the housing retrofit projects and processes.This thesis provides an academic discussion of the potential, benefits and challenges of householder inclusion faced by China and the Netherlands in the context of their ongoing and expanding housing retrofit programmes aimed at saving energy. The specific focus is on the retrofit policies, retrofit processes and the daily domestic routines or social practices of householders. The conventional strategies regarding householder participation and energy savings tend to be geared towards exploring whether or not and in what ways the packages of retrofit items are being adopted in the context of the 'new' domestic routines that come along with the retrofit. In this study, we aim to go beyond just studying (willingness to) adoption. We examine the impacts of organised retrofit processes on the The implications of household-inclusive housing retrofit projectsWhen studying the role of householders in retrofit processes, a promising approach would be to analyse how the householders' perspectives regarding everyday life match with or do not match with the perspectives of engineers and government officials as professional organisers of retrofit processes (Karvonen, 2013). Taking into account such a consumer perspective, therefore, requires not only understanding how the different domestic practices of heating, cooling and ventilation are composed and might change but also analysing how installers, engineers, policymakers and behaviour change practitioners attempt to reconfigure domest...