Hot (water) topics: the formation of an energy issue at home

摘要

Domestic use of hot water has been identified as an urgent energy issue to address. In this paper, results from focus group interviews, with both residents and staff members, are presented. Results show that hot tap water use is differently shaped depending on whether you are a resident or a staff member. One thing in common was that in the focus groups it was difficult to separate hot tap water use from water use in general. Hot tap water use was not distinguished from use of cold tap water. To explore the issue further, the research on hot water was taken to residents' homes and through more in-depth qualitative methods by an artist a formation process was started. Residents started to share more detailed stories about how they lived their everyday life in kitchens and bathrooms. These stories contain childhood memories and how past experience has shaped their water use and consequently their energy use patterns. The formation of this topic continued and in the artist's interpretation of the data, three different artefacts became important: the sink, tub and toilet. These artefacts were placed in a river in the centre of a city as part of an audio walk with voices from the residents talking about their use of water. The exhibition was available during summer 2016 and the audio walk with the voices are planned to be reused and part of an exhibition in 2017.