Friday, June 17, 2022

Will There Be a Prescribed Heat Level in Homes?

 This topic has started up in Germany, and there is some belief that the government has the authority to mandate a 'limit'....because of the shortage of natural gas.

If you asked most Germans?  They'd say up to this point....they ran their home heat at 20 to 22 C (68 F to 71 F).  

The chatter going on?  The suggestion is that the natural gas/heating oil heating systems could be mandated to be 18 C (64.5 F) in the day-time, and down to 16 C (61 F) for the evening hours.

My humble belief is that it'll be discussed to 'doom/gloom' up until September....then some compromise will occur....probably 18 C for day and night.  If you weren't happy....you could have an electric space heater....running it for an hour (as you come home) and reaching the level you desired.

My home is a bit different.....the heat in the bedroom is turned almost off, with the bathroom probably running near 23 C in the winter (round-the-clock).  Rest of the house stays near 20 C.  

Germans to grumble?  Well....yeah.  

2 comments:

PROCON said...

How would this be enforced? Honor system?
Government mandating thermostats hooked-into a government monitor? Snoopy neighbors?
Talk about Big Brother.

Schnitzel_Republic said...

This whole thing has not been thought through....but other side of this...they simply won't have the natural gas to run business operations at 100-percent, and home heating at 100-percent. Other element, they don't have six months to really develop the idea (figure by mid-September...natural gas usage will start to crank up).

Myself? We have a ultra modern natural gas heating system for 3 apartments in the house. You can set it...hour by hour. I wouldn't have issues setting day-time temp to 18C. But this suggestion of night-time at 16C? That's pretty low (I'd have to run some electrical secondary heating device in a room or two).

As for monitoring? I could see them have a meter-reader coming around each month, and maybe having a fine for x-amount of excess heat (probably would have to amount to 250 Euro to really get my attention)....but they don't have the manpower to do monthly meter-readings.

Whole thing in Oct/Nov will be major chaos.