I can’t remember snow lying on the ground this early in November in Worcester, but it was. But my weather app also told me that four days later it was going to be a balmy 16 degrees. This unpredictability plays out in our homes with our use of “supplementary heating.”

Now this is defined as a type of secondary heating that is used in addition to main heating in a room, i.e. a gas or electric fire or log burner. Digging around, it seems the definitive research on this is a paper written by BRE on behalf of DECC (yes, it’s three acronyms ago). They found nearly half of all homes use some form of supplementary heating, gas and electric being the most common but solid fuel growing in popularity (wood burning stoves a growing sector with 200,000 sales a year according to their trade body).

Contrary to the myth that people have such heaters for the decorative look, only 3 per cent of those asked said that was the reason. Half said it was to provide extra heat when the heating system is on; a quarter said it was to provide heat when the system was not on and a further 20 per cent said it was a combination of the two. This should be taken into account when planning how we heat our homes.

With half of homes having supplementary heat, it is no surprise that there is no single characteristic that defines the housing stock but a few observations from the data:- supplementary heating is more common in older, larger properties outside London and the South East; properties tend to be relatively well insulated and owner-occupied by a slightly older population that tends to be wealthier.

So, what does this all mean? Given the characteristics I have described, it is going to be a difficult transition to make given how we use supplementary heat. Those who dismiss such heating forms as fashion miss the point completely. Let’s understand more and condemn less in working towards net zero.