Earth Notes: On UK Central Heating Season (2024)

Summary of polls

2024-01-14: Continuation of Polling

Given a reasonable response count on Mastodon of 23 UK residents with central heating I resumed polling for 2024 on the same lines as before, though now on Mastodon / the Fediverse.

Note that in order to get reasonable response numbers such as these, and responses over a reasonable spread of hours which may widen demographics, the post is periodically (re)boosted on the @EarthOrgUK account, and also @DamonHD.

Note that votes are effectively anonymous (I do not know who has voted nor how).

I aim for the data collected to be useful. I intend to use a more standardised poll question and timing and duration, with a link to the intended meaning of the options for example. I do not intend to be po-faced about this, however!

The dataset should be directly compatible with the previous survey in structure. It may prove useful to merge them into one dataset for analysis.

The dataset has been published free to use (CC0 / public domain) as previously.

I do not vote in these polls.

2024-12-22: post closure notes

Each poll started in the afternoon of the 15th of each month and ran for 24h.

Note that the possible fourth question/option was not used in any 2024 polls.

Boosting continued typically hourly until at least 15 votes had been collected. This floor was determined empirically as achievable.

Meaning of the Poll Options

The standard poll text and options (running for 24h) are:

POLL: for which of you in the UK with central heating at home is it on a thermostat right now, so will/would come on automatically when it is cold outside?

• Our heating is on.
• Our heating is off.
• What's off?

(See https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates-2.html for an explanation of the options.)

There may from time to time be a fourth/other option.

If your system is on a simple thermostat or thermostats and will/does come on without you doing anything if today is cold even outside the heating season then your heating is 'on' for this purpose.

If you have a more sophisticated control that will need to see several colder days in a row before triggering, or your thermostat is currently set to prevent frost damage only (no higher than maybe 10°C), then your heating counts as 'off' for this purpose.

If you have a manual switch that lets the heating come on (eg if cold outside), and you chose when to switch it on, and it is not on now, then your heating counts as 'off' for this purpose.

If your heating has to be on all year then you can use the "What's off?" option. The 'on' option would also work, but maybe explain in comments.

This is not about whether heating runs 24h per day, but rather whether it runs 365 days per year, or if you turn heating off entirely in spring and back on in autumn/winter.