We clear your doubts about central heating

Who decides when the central heating is turned on and off? Can I turn my heating off whenever I want? Do all the neighbors pay the same amount? When we move into a house with central heating, many questions usually arise. In this post, we want to help you clear up the most frequent doubts.

Central heating hours and duration

One of the most frequently asked questions by tenants of a building with central heating is the schedule and duration of service.

The responsibility for establishing the central heating schedules is the responsibility of the owners’ association itself, as established by the Horizontal Property Law. However, in order to improve the thermal comfort of all the inhabitants of the building, when individual meters are installed, a longer schedule is usually established.

Some communities establish a two-part heating schedule (first hour and last hour); others, on the other hand, decide to turn on the central heating after the sun goes down. Each community establishes its own rules, and these are decided at the corresponding meetings where the neighbors meet to discuss them.

Central heating cost sharing

Another of the most common doubts is about the distribution of heating service expenses.

The way of distributing the cost of the central heating varies from one community to another according to the established in the statutes. There are two main ways of doing it: by means of a coefficient or by the number of elements that each owner has in his house or premises. This means that if, for example, the owner wants to install a greater number of radiators, he will have to pay more for the cost of the central heating, since he estimates that his consumption will be greater.

We are aware that each tenant has different needs and, therefore, very different consumption. At present, measures have been taken to introduce a fairer form of payment. For example, it is becoming increasingly common for individual consumption meters to be installed, so that the heating costs are passed on to the owners according to the general distribution criterion and the individual consumption calculated by these meters.

A large number of communities with central heating have already carried out the individualization of consumption and the neighbors have noticed it in their bills. Many of them have been encouraged by the energy efficiency law, which aims to regulate the accounting of individual consumption in thermal installations in buildings.

The energy efficiency law directly affecting central heating

In the near future, the installation of individual meters in communities with centralized heating will go from being optional to mandatory.

To align public policies with the European Commission’s Energy Union Strategy, the government passed a law in 2020 urging neighborhood communities to install individual meters or cost allocators in their homes.

The government has set May 1, 2023 as the deadline for these meters to be installed. In addition, homes that do not adapt to the regulations by the deadline risk fines of up to 10,000 euros.

However, not all buildings with central heating are required to do so and the timing of those who do have to pay depends on the location of the building and the date of construction.

In addition, it should be noted that the new measures do not mean the end of central heating, but the way in which tenants pay for their consumption. This is intended to result in improved energy efficiency.