Section
Your Home
British housing was built to hold heat in. Solid brick, small windows, dark roofs and a decade of insulation retrofits aimed entirely at winter. Part O covers new builds. This is for the other twenty eight million homes.
Writing
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What scrapping the gas standing charge does to the cost of heating
Gas standing charges are going, and £108 a year moves onto the unit rate. Who gains, who pays more, and what it does to heat pumps and air conditioning.
David White -
The heating season is getting shorter, and by how much depends where you live
Heating degree days computed from this site's own 1950 to 2026 series. Every one of 25 towns needs less heating than it did in the 1960s.
David White -
Your heat pump's efficiency more than halves in the cold, and the maker publishes the number
Mitsubishi's own declared data for a unit in our database: efficiency of 7.0 at 12 degrees outside, 3.0 at minus 7, and 2.24 at the operating limit.
David White -
Your air conditioner is also a heater, and this is the arithmetic
Six of the nine air conditioners in our database heat as well as cool. Whether running one beats your boiler comes down to a single break-even number.
David White -
When to put the heating on, from 76 years of daily readings
Autumn turns cold about ten days later than it did in the 1990s, and six weeks apart north to south. Why the honest answer is not a date at all.
David White -
What it costs to make an old house cope with heat
A retrofitted 1960s house sat ten degrees below a 35C day with no air conditioning. The bill was about £80,000 over ten years. What the money bought.
David White -
What the October 2026 price cap changes about what you run
Electricity loses its VAT and gas rises 8% from 1 October. The verified rates, and the point where a heat pump becomes cheaper than a gas boiler.
David White -
Shade the glass from the outside, or you are already too late
An internal blind stops the light after the heat is in the room. External shading stops it at the glass. What the regulations assume about west windows.
David White -
The overheating rule that applies to new homes, and the ones it leaves out
Part O has covered new homes in England since 2022. What it asks builders to do, the homes it does not reach, and what to check before you commit.
David White -
What a portable air conditioner actually costs to run
The purchase price is the small number. Here is how to work out the running cost for your own unit, your own tariff and the nights you would use it.
David White -
Work out how much cooling your room needs before you buy anything
Cooling is a number, not a feeling. Here is how to get it for your own room, and why the answer is often that a machine is the wrong purchase.
David White