Abstract One of the priorities to tackle the global warming is to reduce the carbon emissions and energy consumption in buildings. Buildings consume significant levels of energy for heating or air-conditioning in most parts of the world. The drive to enhance the understanding of building envelope and the impact of insulation on energy use, are decisive factors for enhancing public engagement to attain carbon emission and energy consumption reduction towards more sustainable future. This thesis presents a research in enhancing public engagement in energy conservation in the building by using infrared thermography and new methodologies. The thesis consists of three parts, including building thermography survey, innovative educational design and building monitoring.
The first part was investigating the insulation of buildings, by providing the opportunity for the public to carry out thermography survey of their buildings using a low-cost smartphone based infrared camera. This part involved 50 participants, who carried out the thermography survey and conducted three questionnaires. The results show clearly how the study improved the participants' behaviour and engagement in relation to energy consumption in the building. This research resulted in developing a novel approach to enhancing people engagement.
The second part has resulted in developing an innovative physical educational tool. The tool is a building simulator, which is designed to support the teaching of energy consumption in building and the impact of insulation at different school levels. The tool has been tested successfully in the laboratory, school and university with significant results. Some of the results are presented in this thesis, which confirms the effectiveness of the tool in enhancing the understanding of energy consumption in the building.
The last part focused on monitoring of the energy in an existing public building in Nottingham. The monitoring study covered the monitoring of temperature, humidity, insulation efficiency, door operation and audience pattern during a whole winter season. The results have identified significant energy saving potentials by following the suggested recommendations and redesigning the operation of the building and utilising the heat generated by the audience as a sustainable source of energy.
All these parts are correlated to enhancing the public behaviour and engagement in energy conservation in the building. The research was able to help people to identify the areas of issue in their insulation by using low-cost technology, providing a novel approach for people engagement. Moreover, it developed a new educational tool for the education sector to support the teaching of energy and make it more touchable. This is a vivid research, which was able to provide some new tools for people toward better future, and by that achieving the contribution to knowledge
