Occupant's behavior with respect to window opening: a technical and sociological study.

The occupant's behavior with respect to window opening may greatly affect the ventilation system, the energy consumption orland the indoor air quality. In order to quantify the magnitude of opening times, many surveys have focused on climatic parameters and concluded to the temporal correlation between the timelength of opening and the outside temperature or the solar irradiation. In this paper, we study the influence of sociological and technical parameters on the average time of opening during the winter. The research is based on a sociological survey and a two year monitoring of thirty houses with recording sensors on every window. The wife at home or not, the size and age distribution of the family are key variables in the kitchen, bathroom, children's bedroom. The orientation of the living room related to the sun explains the occupant's behavior in this room. For the parent's bedroom, none of the selected parameters emerges, the distribution and frequency of opening time are so erractic. The type of ventilation systems, natural versus mechanical, is not the main explainable variable, as well as the degree of equipment of the family.