How to collect reliable information regarding occupants’ behavior during IAQ campaigns? Performance 2 project first feedbacks

The Performance 2 project (2020-2024) is a French national research project that aims to evaluate the robustness of Humidity-based DCV systems installed in two multi-family dwellings more than 10 years ago. This evaluation include analyses of results of measurements performed on the ventilation system and IAQ campaigns in 13 dwellings. As the emissions of indoor pollutants strongly depend on the occupant’s behavior, information is required regarding the activities and habits of the occupants during the IAQ campaigns. The occupants often judge this information very intrusive and too big. Moreover, some bias may exist in the occupant’s response who may give answers that they judged more socially desirable that the real answer. In Performance 2, an important preparation has been made with the participation of a researcher in social psychology, in order to define tools to obtain reliable information from occupants. As the information given to the occupants and the time when it is done may strongly influence the occupants’ behavior during the measurement campaign, a reflection has also been conducted to limit the bias due to this behavior changing.  
This paper presents the methodology tested in Performance 2 IAQ campaigns on 14 dwellings. It proposes in a second part an analysis of the results of the first IAQ campaign of Performance 2 (winter 2021-2022). This analysis regards the quantity of answers collected (including response rate to the weekly log and the duration of the interviews) and the quality of the answers (including variability of the answers and comparison between observations and answers). As the measurements are performed during a strong COVID wave, the IAQ perception of the occupants, and thus their behavior, may be influenced by the sanitary situation.