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The role of the occupant in buildings energy use has been evident in studies in many countries. Our experience since the early 1970's has indicated that energy use can vary by at least a factor of two solely on how the occupant operates the house or apartment. This often involves window use. For example, window and door openings, to cool an overheated dwelling, can take place at any time of the year. This paper describes work at Princeton which measured occupant ventilation behavior, and which provided feedback in an attempt to modify behavior.

20 low-income family houses were studied for Air Changes per Hour and Equivalent Leakage Area as measured by the Blower Door Test during the winter of 1985-86. The residents of 10 of these homes were given instruction on air sealing techniques and were provided a "starter kit" of retrofit materials. Upon retesting, these 10 homes showed no improvement in either ACH or ELA,indicating either a lack of interest on the part of the householders in making their homes more airtight, or an inability to do so based upon insufficient information or physical limitation.

Describes an energy conservation strategy for a private home in Columbus Ohio and the benefits that resulted after nine years. The net result of the conservation steps was to reduce the annual house heating energy requirement from approximateley 1060 CCF of natural gas to 410 CCF and annual water heating energy requirement from approximately 400 CCF to 234 CCF. Thecombined savings at the present rate of $65/CCF was $530 per year. Includes a list of conclusions drawn from the experiment.

Briefly overviews some of the available instrumentation and techniques that could be used by the home-owner, or professional auditor to evaluate energy use in houses. Includes descriptions of the "blower door" method for evaluating air leakage, and some tracer gas techniques for measuring air infiltration.

Briefly reviews definitions of airtightness, sources of leakage in buildings and describes the "blower door" method of measuring air leakage. Describes typical results obtained, names and addresses of some manufacturers of blower doors and the difficulty in relating air leakage results to air infiltration rates. Briefly discusses other methods of testing for airtightness.

Discusses ways of increasing accuracy and thoroughness of energy audits of buildings by use of specialized instruments and improved audit techniques. States air infiltration measurements are key item in audit procedure. Describes 'house doctor' kitwhich with records of past energy usage, knowledge of prevailing weather and a questionnaire are used to establish the energy signature of a house. The kit includes blower door, infrared camera, temperature probes and appliance consumption meter. Describes simple tracer gas method using sulphur hexafluoride collected in sample bottles.