Maby, C M (2019) Enabling the integration of energy improvements into mainstream home repair, maintenance and improvement practice in the UK. PhD thesis, Cardiff University, UK.
Abstract
One of the many complex challenges in tackling climate change is the pressing need to achieve a major reduction in carbon emissions from existing homes. In the UK, this is made even more difficult by the age and slow replacement of the housing stock, and the high proportion in private ownership. Making the necessary improvements will require significant investment and disruption. The home repair, maintenance and improvement market is demand-led and thriving, and offers practical opportunities to include energy improvements. The first point of contact for homeowners looking to get such work done tends to be mainstream building tradespeople: they could be the frontline in communicating, selling and implementing energy improvements. While work has been done to try to understand better the views and needs of the households and homeowners, a perspective that tends to be missing in policy debate is that of the building tradespeople themselves. Using a grounded theory approach, and qualitative research techniques, building tradespeople, trade associations, merchants and suppliers were interviewed in order to develop a better understanding of standard practice within the local supply chain in relation to home energy improvements. This provided a basis for seeking solutions to some of the barriers that were identified. A second phase of fieldwork focused on the key role of the general builder and the training and support required to deliver home energy improvements within mainstream home repair, maintenance and improvements. Recognising this as a socio-technical issue, a theory was developed, grounded in the practical realities faced by building tradespeople, using a multi-level perspective to create a picture of current practice and recommendations for change.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | carbon emissions; climate change; energy performance; grounded theory; homes; improvement; repair; maintenance |
| Index terms: | energy performance, ownership, household, grounded theory, socio-technical, carbon emission, climate change, replacement, repair, qualitative research, integration, builder, homeowner, housing stock |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, sociology, organizational analysis, economics, energy systems, research design and methodology, demography, research methods, maintenance engineering, theoretical framing, climate science, practitioner, materials science |
| Topics: | Engineering Principles, Sustainability, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Urban Studies, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here