Users and practices in heating and ventilating homes – why do they behave different than we think?

We need to improve the indoor air quality for the health of the building users, and we need to optimize and reduce energy consumption for heating, cooling, and ventilation for the sake of the global climate. In both cases the interplay between buildings, HVAC (heating, cooling, and ventilations) technologies and the users are central. Research show that technical optimization without considering the interaction and behaviour of the users may end in sub-optimal technical solutions, neither resulting in reduced energy consumption nor improved indoor air quality.