Assessing the Domestic Energy Use and Thermal Comfort of Occupants in a Post-war Social Housing Development Estate in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus

Many existing buildings in Cyprus—including high-density residential tower blocks, which account for approximately 56% of the total housing stock in addition to other existing buildings—do not meet current energy-efficiency standards for the European Union (EU). As a result, many of these structures face the threat of overheating and careful planning to implement holistic retrofitting schemes is needed. The aim of the present study was to fill a research gap in this area by developing an evidence-based framework for energy-policy decision-making mechanisms related to the integration of European energy-efficiency standards. The present study investigates 36 base-case representative archetype medium-rise residential tower blocks in a post-war social-housing estate in the coastal city of Famagusta, Cyprus, where the climate is subtropical and partly semi arid, and focuses on the development of energy policies and regulations through an exploratory case-study approach. A socio-technical-systems approach was employed to develop a bottom-up energy-policy framework for the Cypriot residential sector, and complex socio-technical associations between building energy use and occupants were examined. Household feedback was collected, existing adaptive thermal-comfort models for naturally ventilated multi-family buildings and households were investigated, an innovative framework that combines an assessment methodology with existing thermal-comfort benchmark criterion was developed, and a building-diagnostic and thermal-performance-oriented approach was proposed. The questionnaire survey revealed that 80% of the study respondents were slightly comfortable in temperatures in the range of 28,50–31,50°C, and the study findings were implemented to develop policy design that considers the UN Sustainable Development Goals related to energy-and-recovery plans; implications on domestic energy use in the south-eastern Mediterranean climate are expected to influence future trends in EU countries.