Here is a map of London with different heating stories plotted onto various postcodes. To respect the privacy of our participants, we have used initials rather than full names.
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Temperature scale in °C
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Interview 31
Kentish Town
2 adults and one teenager
My wife and I don’t disagree anymore on how hot the house should be but there was a time when we did, and then we adapted to each other’s body temperatures.
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Interview 40
Clerkenwell
Young woman living with partner
Every time I switch on the boiler, I start to think “do I need it”, and then I turn it off. I turn it on and off so many times.
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Interviews 28-30
Caledonian Road
3 adults who are friends (age – 26, 32, 40), and live on Caledonian Road
3 adults who are friends (age – 26, 32, 40), and sleep rough on Caledonian Road
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Interview 27
Outside Sainsbury by the Angel Station
T has been homeless for a year. His parents died when he was 16 and his sister went away to New Zealand.
T has been homeless for a year. His parents died when he was 16 and his sister went away to New Zealand.
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Interview 26
Caledonian Road
Woman living alone in a flat, with her nephew sometimes visiting and staying the night
“Hot toddy made my cheeks warm”
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Interview 25
Barnsbury
Single woman living in a lower-ground floor flat in Barnsbury
The lower ground floor makes it difficult to trap heat, and the lack of sunlight coming in makes it feel even more cold!
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Interview 23 and 24
Clerkenwell
A young Zambian couple living in central London
Young couple living on the lower ground floor level.
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Interview 22
Brent
B and her two children (5 years and 1 year old)
Living in a 1-bedroom privately rented house so she mainly stays here and comes to mum’s after work as there is no living room for the kids in her house.
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Interview 21
Croydon
K lives between two homes – house 1 is the house of godmother who she cares for and house 2 is her daughter and grand daughter’s house
K lives between two homes – house 1 is the house of godmother who she cares for and house 2 is her daughter and grand draughter’s house
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Interview 20
Crystal Palace
3 adults and 1 baby
Living in a home provided and managed by the Ashra housing Association
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Interview 19
Balham
Man living in a house, where his younger son stayed with him for a year and older son stays with him two days a week
Pencil-sized hole in the window that lets the draft in, despite the boiler being on all the time, making the house hot and cold at once.
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Interview 18
Balham
Participant lives with dad, and older brother comes to stay twice a week
Boiler always on, even when nobody is at home, and sometimes the back door is left open.
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Testimonies from the Heat Workshop
Brent
10 Londoners with Jamaican, Italian, Colombian and Nigerian ancestry.
Participants discussing strategies of staying warm, reflecting on their childhood memories of various winters and sharing tips and fear around heating – a shared fear emerged of the Hot Water bottle popping open in the middle of sleep!
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Interview 5 and 6
Queen’s Park
A couple, and recently hosting a Ukrainian refugee
N measures the temperature of air in the different rooms and at different points in each room to try and arrive at the most efficient way of warming the house. But the issue is that D and N often want different levels of warmth in the home!
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Interview 3
Basildon
M and her three children
M’s boiler just stops working on some days, and the unpredictability worsens the cold and the discomfort feeling.
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Interview 1 and 2
Wembley
Four occupants (G and her three children) but her older daughter, grandkids, and her ex-husband stay often.
Explanation of the Map
The markers on this map indicate the postcodes of the homes talked about in the heating experience interviews. During the interviews, participants were asked about the current temperature of their home, and what they would like their ideal temperature to be.
An area of colour surrounds each marker. The shade of this colour indicates the temperature that was reported for the current/ideal temperature question. Please see the key above to see how the colours correspond to the temperatures.
The map allows you to toggle from viewing participants’ “current” temperatures to their “ideal” temperatures, allowing you to see how the map changes. (If a current/ideal temperature isn’t available for an interview – the marker displays without a surrounding colour.)
Additionally, you can filter the map based on property type to see how the heating experiences of participants varies with regards to their housing situations.
The initial dataset was collected through interviews and workshops that took place during the winter of 2023-24. Each of the initial interviews has a corresponding three-panel comic strip illustrated by artist Daniel Locke.
Click on any of the markers to read more about that interview, and to see the three-panel comic strips that accompany the heating experiences.