The Weakest Link

As we approach the start of the seriously colder weather at the end of the month and the most depressing date of the year, when on the 27th October, at 2am GMT (or *UTC), the clocks needlessly go backwards, making it dark quicker.

Daylight Saving Curse ..... The Madness Happens Every Year.

.... then we all have to think about whether the central heating goes on?

Now you would think that this question was just a matter of individual choice and perhaps determined by a mixture of a monetary as well as physical comfort factors. Certainly not a matter of regional choice in a country as small as Britain. However, if you did, then you would be wrong.

Research by a 'smart' thermostat manufacturer (Tado), has revealed marked regional or even national differences in when the central heating comes on in the UK. Now I will own up and admit the heating came on in the evening last weekend, when I found my legs getting chilly if I sat still after 5pm ... so thermostat was set at 16c, and it comes on if the heat is below that figure after 5pm .... what that does make me? A bit of a wuss I guess .... 😏

Central Heating Switch On Temperatures In The UK .....

Anyway, it appears that its not the soft southerners who reach for the central heating switch first, but actually the Wussy Welsh. Who would have thought that the land of my fathers, a land made up of mountains and valleys, would have such a low tolerance of the cold?

But the figures don't lie. Using smart thermostats, they can track usage details across the country, without guesswork and compare it with the outside temperatures. Their investigation found that generally, the further north you live, the more likely you are to tolerate the cold. The exact figures released were:

The Welsh give in when the temperatures were falling to 14.2c .... whereas the Southern softies in the South East, held out until temperatures were hitting 13.6c, before they reached for the thermostat switch.

The Northern Irish were next to break after the Welsh, holding out until the thermometer fell to 13.3c  and the English, well the Northerners and Midlanders were holding out until temperatures fell to 13.2c ..... But the toughies were the Scots, who on average hung on until a very chilly 12.6c before they switched on the heating.

Now I have to be honest .... there are three ways of looking at all this:

1. It could be that living in a colder climate, the Scots are far more tolerant of low temperatures (except for the Welsh, who aren't as tough as the rest of us), or
2. The Scottish are living the stereotype of the "frugal Scot", and just put on an extra layer when temperatures drop, or
3. Londoners are richer than the rest of us, and so don't hesitate to put the heating on faster than the rest of England, but not as fast as the Welsh.

I lived in Scotland, and I can't recall them being particularly tolerant of cold, or especially stingy in putting the heating on ....  according to Tado, we Brits have a higher tolerance for the cold, than any other mainland European country .....  but apparently the Scots are in a league of their own.

It would be interesting to know what the Nordic countries especially Iceland do in the autumn, and whether the Scots figures match up to them.

* Until 1972, Greenwich Mean Time was the same as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), but after that date GMT is no longer a time standard, although GMT and UTC share the same current time in practice, so people often interchange them. UTC is not a time zone, but a time standard that is the basis for civil time and time zones worldwide. This means that no country or territory officially uses UTC as a local time.