Learning from thermal mavericks in Australia: comfort studies in Melbourne and Darwin

The research presented in this paper was conducted in order to test whether the thermal preferences of occupants in low-energy houses are influenced by their environmental values. This was done through a 12-month thermal comfort study and Environmental Attitudes Inventory (EAI) of 40 households in dwellings of non-standard construction located within two very different Australian climates: cool temperate – Melbourne and hot humid – Darwin. The results show that the occupants of these dwellings considered conditions comfortable often outside of the accepted adaptive thermal comfort limits and suggest that the conditions people find acceptable may be influenced by their underlying environmental values. These results indicate that greater acknowledgement of atypical preferences in the mandatory assessment of building thermal performance is needed.