DOI: 10.5061/dryad.bzkh189mh
title: Follow-on EOU UK central heating on/off date micro-survey result 2024

description: When do UK Mastodon/Fediverse users (2024) turn their central heating
 fully off, by month? This informal periodic survey on social media
 suggests that a substantial fraction of respondents (possibly 20% or more)
 leave their central heating on year-round, which may lead to unnecessary
 energy consumption and carbon emissions. Follow on to 2017 to 2022
 study:https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates.htmlhttps://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.wstqjq2t6
description: Monthly informal polls run in 2024 on social media
 (Mastodon/Fediverse this time) with fixed timing and duration and poll
 question/answers, aiming to add to the previous study.  The data from the
 two studies should be readily combinable.
description: # EOU UK Central Heating On/Off Date Micro-survey 2024
 [Analysis](https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates-2.html) [Data DOI](10.5061/dryad.bzkh189mh) [Secondary data DOI](10.13140/RG.2.2.34151.76964) Follow on to 2017 to 2022 study: [Previous analysis](https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates.html) [Previous data DOI](https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.wstqjq2t6) This is the data from a year's worth of polls on social media asking when is UK home central heating actually off, or when might it come on 'accidentally' on a chilly evening well away from the heating season? These were informal polls conducted by the author in 2024 on social media (Mastodon/Fediverse for this dataset) with fixed timing and duration and poll question/answers, aiming to add to the previous study. The data from the two studies should be readily combinable. The poll duration was shortened from the previous apparent Twitter default of 2 days, to the apparent Mastodon (mastodon.energy) default of 1 day, for expediency, and because 2 days had felt burdensome historically. A 24h sample should be reasonable, though the effect of weekends and public holidays may make results more noisy, along with likely smaller reach. Even mid-summer not all central heating was reported as completely off; even in mid-summer not all was reported as on. ## Description of the data and file structure The data structure is identical to the previous study, though "Twitter" has been replaced with "social media poll". Poll data CSV, one survey record per row, with fields: poll start date, duration (d), social media poll link, total count, on count, off count, what-is-off count, other count. The structure is: * A header line. * One line per data record, each record being one poll result. * The records are in ascending date order. * The (poll start) date is in YYYY-MM-DD ISO 8601 format. * Each line/record contains comma-separated values for: * poll start date * poll duration (days) * Twitter poll link URL * vote count total * vote count "on" * vote count "off" * vote count "what's off?" * vote count "other" * The last ("other") value is nominally redundant. * An empty field represents a missing datum or zero count or not applicable. * The duration of initial polls was not recorded. * The "other" question was not asked on later polls. The CSV file stands alone, but links out to the Mastodon/Fediverse polls. The data is described and analysed in [https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates-2.html](https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-survey-UK-central-heating-on-off-dates-2.html) ## Sharing/Access information This is a section for linking to other ways to access the data, and for linking to sources the data is derived from, if any. Links to other publicly accessible locations of the data: * [https://www.earth.org.uk/data/UKCHOnOff2/UKCHOnOff2-poll-data.csv](https://www.earth.org.uk/data/UKCHOnOff2/UKCHOnOff2-poll-data.csv) Data was derived from the following sources: * Mastodon polls created by the author. Note: the author does not vote in the polls.