An analysis of indoor temperature measurements in low- and very-low-income housing in Athens, Greece: Fid-Bau Portal

An analysis of indoor temperature measurements in low- and very-low-income housing in Athens, Greece

Paravantis, John A. / Santamouris, Mathew

Fuel poverty is a complex socioeconomic problem that affects low-income households and has a serious impact on indoor environmental quality. In this research, indoor temperatures were measured in 50 low- and very-low-income dwellings in the major Athens area in Greece during the winter of 2012–2013. Initially, k-means clustering was employed to group the households into three clusters (Poorest, Average and Richest) based on mean indoor temperature, surface area of the dwelling, number of rooms, family size, building age and income; 7.6% of the households of the Richest Cluster, 8.6% of the Average Cluster and 11.6% of the Poorest Cluster were fuel poor and indoor temperatures were much below accepted standards. Separate Hildreth-Lu AR(1) regressions with robust standard errors, estimated for the indoor temperature measurements of the 50 households, showed that these families were able to exercise only a limited amount of control in heating their homes. Finally, ordinary least squares regressions with Arellano robust standard errors, estimated on the pooled temperature measurements of all households, confirmed that families in the Richest and Average Clusters were better off than those in the Poorest Cluster and showed that fuel poverty motivated people to use alternative heating sources with some success.