Problems with heating systems impacting heating behaviours

Within the sample only 13% of the participants mentioned having no problems with their heating system which impacted on their use of it. The problems reported during the interviews ranged from issues with parts of the heating system such as the radiators or thermostats, issues from the original installation of the heating system, overly complicated controls, issues with the building fabric or issues which are holding occupants back from replacing their current system.

Issues relating to the thermostat with households fell into two main categories, occupants reporting that they believed their thermostats to be inaccurate and the thermostat locations. Numerous participants reported being suspicious of the accuracy of the thermostat itself either having to have the set-point extremely high

153 to get a comfortable environment within the home (Participant P21, Male, Aged 55), or having to only move it the smallest of degree to get the heating to switch on (Participant P7, Male, Aged 26).

“The thermostat control…bugs me as I have to have mine set quite high to get a temperature…don't think the temperature on the thermostat matches the temperatures we get as I have to have that set to 25-27 degrees to get a nice

ambient temperature in the bedrooms.” (Participant P12, Female, Aged 47]

However there was also cases where the inaccuracy was believed to be due to the location of the thermostat itself. One example included a thermostat located on an external uninsulated wall of a 1600’s building where the participant believed, it was reading a much colder temperature. This participant could move the thermostat to a new location due to it being a wireless thermostat controller, however not all participants were able to do this and the location of their thermostat caused problems. Some participants reported being unable to locate their thermostat,

“It might be in the hall, yeah I think it is but not sure where really” (Participant P16, Female, Aged 48)

Some reported that they believed the thermostat was not located in the best place.

This was often due to it either being located extremely close to a heat source such as a radiator or in the warmest or coldest room in the household therefore giving a false reading to represent the rest of the dwelling.

“Rather unfortunately situated in the little sitting room, which is possibly one of the warmest rooms in the house” (Participant P18, Female, Aged 54)

Participants also had problems with their radiators within their homes which

affected the use of the heating system. Some participants felt that the radiators did not add anything to the warmth of a room when switched on even when switched to the maximum. Similarly some occupants reported their radiators not being

154 adequate any more due to their age and often felt that they were undersized for the room. Not all issues surrounding radiators was down to inadequate systems in fact two participants mentioned not using radiators within their home, one due to the need to locate a sofa directly in front of the radiator therefore switched it off, and another who mentioned having three radiators in a large open plan kitchen diner, but felt two provided more than enough heat so never got the third radiator connected to the system.

Some participants reported having to deal with broken parts of their heating system and mentioned how they adapted their heating use around these issues. One participant mentioned that they discovered their thermostat had been damaged one day and the temperature selection pin had been broken so to ensure it did not happen again they had stuck the temperature selection pin to the maximum setting on the thermostat with blutak and then adjusted the room TRV’s to suit. One participant mentioned that when they tried to switch their boiler onto just hot water, the pressure gauge on the boiler dropped dramatically and to stop it happening again they simply left the boiler set to heating and hot water all year round and relied on switching the thermostat to the lowest temperature setting during the summer months. Two participants in rented accommodation mentioned problems with their boilers. One had a broken timer on the boiler so controlled their boiler by switching it on and off as needed. The second participant reported the problem with their boiler was that it was only heating half of the dwelling due to issues with the pipe work in the property, therefore relies on heating the remainder of the dwelling through the use of electric heaters.

“The timer on the boiler is broken, which has been broken since I moved in and apparently they can’t fix it because the boiler is too old…or they just can’t be

bothered!” (Participant P10, Female, Aged 35)

“The radiator system, the pipes and all are very old…they told us there wasn’t much they could do as the pipes were really really old so it would just keep happening every time they were to clean them all out…thing with the pipes is not something

155 that you can really ask your landlord to buy new ones” (Participant P13, Female,

Aged 36)

Problems reported also arose from installation of the heating system itself. One participant reported having trouble with their heating which stemmed from the installer fitting an outlet pipe which was far too small for the boiler which meant that water vapour was condensing back into the boiler. This meant that the thermostat inside of the boiler was then affected which resulted in having to get another engineer out to not only fix the boiler but also install a correctly sized outlet pipe. Another participant reported that the radiators were not installed where they wanted them to be fitted as the installer said it would save on pipework and gave a lot of different excuses which the participant just accepted. However the participant is now left unable to afford moving them and just has to accept their location. One participant mentioned that the location of their gas meter was

extremely difficult to get to but the engineers refused to move it when installing a new one unless the participant paid a cost of £500 to move it. The location of installed controls has already been mentioned however one participant also mentioned how their boiler had been installed in an extremely difficult to access cupboard and therefore they did not change any of the settings on their boiler and simply controlled their heating through the controls which were accessible to them.

Although not technically problems with the heating system itself four participants did mention the building itself impacting their heating use. One of these reported their kitchen to be the coldest room and made sure to close the doors leading from the kitchen to the hall and living room to stop heat escaping. The reason the kitchen was the coldest room was due to a hole in the external wall in the kitchen which had been left unfixed for some time and therefore let cold air into the kitchen, particularly on windy evenings. The remaining three participants all

mentioned issues with damp in their properties. This meant that rooms which were

156 not used regularly still had to be heated even when the occupants preferred that the radiators were switched off completely in those rooms.

“When we try turning the radiator off entirely…we got a bloom on the furniture…so actually we do keep it warm due to that” (Participant P9, Female, Aged 52)

“It is a very damp house so I do it (open windows) to get the damp out” (Participant P13, Female, Aged 36)

While many participants stated they knew that their heating system was old and very inefficient now most of them had the view that replacing the system was either going to cost far too much money for them to really consider investing in a better system, although they mentioned they would obviously need to if it was to break. However some also mentioned “if it’s not broke don’t try and fix it”.

Participants viewed replacing the system before it was at the end of its lifespan as being wasteful. Replacing the system in old homes was also viewed as being quite a disruptive process and one that not everyone, especially elderly participants, would really be pushing to happen until it was an absolute necessity.

“I turned it down (new boiler), which may sound foolish but the upheaval!”

(Participant P4, Female, Aged 86)

“At my age I don’t want to have to start ripping up floorboards” (Participant P1, Male, Aged 80)