Householder Readiness for Smart, Data-Driven Performance Monitoring of Homes

The decarbonization of UK homes is an essential aspect of the government’s net zero ambitions. However, the challenge of the design – performance gap of new homes, and the lagging performance of existing homes remain. This paper investigates smart data-driven building performance monitoring (BPM) for homes, and the drivers of householders’ acceptance and adoption. The findings from a nationally representative survey affirm previous knowledge that cost, privacy and data security would drive adoption of smart BPM. More importantly, most householders would likely adopt BPM. However, such scheme should be convenient in time, effort, and cost. Implementation should be coupled with a legal framework to address system and data security and privacy concerns; householders should have control of their own data. Lastly, integrating BPM in building regulations, incentivised retrofits and renewables schemes would increase householder awareness and confidence in its value and merit as part of any net zero home strategies.