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Why is it important to keep your profile up to date?

The Living Lab Operations Team

In the Living Lab, we're trying to build an accurate picture of how real people use energy in real homes. When you become a Labber we ask you a whole bunch of questions. That's so that we can place you inside that big picture.

The more we know about you, your living circumstances, and the home you live in, the better we can do that part of the job. The place where we gather all that information together is your profile.

Some of the questions on the profile might sometimes feel a bit intrusive, but there are good reasons why we ask them.

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...we want the membership of the Living Lab to properly reflect the huge diversity of people, homes and households in the UK...

How you can help us

Firstly, we want the membership of the Living Lab to properly reflect the huge diversity of people, homes and households in the UK. From one-person studios to large family homes, from small flats to enormous mansions: we need to include a bit of everything if we're going to make sure our picture is accurate enough.

Secondly, knowing more about you helps us match you up with companies that have products and services to test. If we know you don't have an electric vehicle (EV), we can ensure we never pester you to sign up for EV- focused trials. But if we do know you have solar panels on your roof, or a gas boiler, we know you might be interested in trials that focus solely on those technologies. It makes our lives a bit easier, and it means we can make sure to tell you when we have a trial you might be interested in.

Thirdly and finally, many of you share your smart meter data with us – so knowing more about your home and your household helps us to interpret and understand that data better. If you get new insulation installed in your loft, the data might reflect that you're using less energy for heating during the following winter - our systems will see that dip, but it will be easier to explain and understand if we know about the new insulation.

That's why keeping your profile up to date matters.

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Understanding your profile

When you join the Lab, usually before you do anything else, we ask you the 20 most important questions. We call these ‘key info’. These cover things like what kind of home you live in, how you heat it, and what common tech you have.

These are the basics we need to get you started as a Labber. You won't normally be able to join any trials unless you've answered these questions, as we simply don't know enough about your home to learn anything.

As well as the key information, there are some optional extra questions. You don't have to fill these out to take part in trials - but the more we know about you, your household, and your home, the more trials you're likely to qualify for.

These optional questions cover similar ground, but in more detail. They ask things like, do you have solid walls, or cavity walls? (We recently ran a trial that we could only offer to people with solid walls - so it really helped to know which Labbers qualified to take part.)

You can find these questions in the Your Profile section of the site. The key info questions you’ve already answered are also stored here, so that you can go back and edit them if you need to. You'll find them grouped with other related questions, so for instance, if you told us you have a gas boiler when you signed up but now you’ve changed to a heat pump, you can find that question again in the ‘Heating and hot water’ section.

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It's important that the Lab reflects what's happening in the real world.

We don't just want to have households that have all the latest energy efficient bells and whistles - we also want to include households have none of those things at all. That way, we can make comparisons, and draw useful conclusions.

So it helps us to know things like:

  • Is your home old, or new?
  • Is it insulated - at all? Well? Or just a bit?
  • Do you have a smart heating controller?
  • Does your home have an energy certificate (EPC rating), and if so what is it?
  • How many people live in your home?
  • Does anyone have a health condition that might affect how they use energy?
  • Is it ever a struggle keeping up with the energy bills? (This is useful information because some of our trials are specifically designed to help people in that situation.)
  • What technologies do you already use? (That helps us understand the sorts of devices that you could use.)
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Your profile may change over time.

You might independently replace a gas boiler with a heat pump, or add solar panels. You might welcome a new person into your household, who has a long term health condition. You might boost your insulation, install new double glazing, or buy a few energy-saving gadgets.

Any change you make changes how your household uses energy. And the way you use energy is the most important thing we need to know,

So that's why it's so important to keep your profile up to date. No matter how small the changes are, we'd love to know about them. The information you share with us is most useful when it's accurate.

Whatever you tell us, we respect your privacy.

We’re very grateful to you for sharing your data with us and your personal privacy is incredibly important to us.

We keep your data safe in accordance with all relevant Data Protection legislation, including GDPR . You can find more information about how we look after your data in our privacy notice.

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