Too Cool or Too Hot

This chapter explores the lived experiences of thermal (dis)comfort ¹ in low-income households that struggle to afford to keep their homes sufficiently warm in the Global North or adequately cool in the Global South ² . Most households' energy consumption in temperate European climates is related to heating. In most of the Global South, by contrast, tropical climates make cooling the dominant energy requirement related to thermal comfort. Clearly, though, air conditioning for indoor spaces is far beyond the financial reach of most low-income households in the regions concerned.

Building on case studies from Vienna and Krems in Austria and Jodhpur and Vijayawada in India, this chapter investigates the topic of thermal comfort in low-income households struggling to pay their energy bills. It builds on data collected from two research projects. These projects overall comprised 30 semi-structured interviews, supported partly by indoor temperature measurements, and examined residents' lived experiences of thermal discomfort. Findings demonstrate how poor households often limit their energy consumption in both the Global North and Global South to restrict their energy bills. Consequently, their homes are often too cold during the winter in the Global North and too hot during the summer in both the North and South. There are apparent differences between the two countries investigated in this research, not least in climate, building structures, legal ownership arrangements of homes, standards of living, and welfare regimes. However, interviewees in both India and Austria belong to low-income groups., they are found to have minimal choices in selecting and maintaining their homes and in entertaining thermal comfort therein due to their limited resources.