[nbabitskiy]

It never crossed my mind, in 30+ years living in Moscow, that you can get off central heating, but you actually can![0] - although, it's unpractical for a private owner, living in the city.

But the museum in question is a village house, I'm pretty sure they don't have central heating.

[0] (in Russian) https://www.garant.ru/news/1155577/

[agent008t]

Isn't central heating more efficient than private heating though? Central heating usually works by using heat from a nearby power station, which would otherwise have been wasted, no?

[nbabitskiy]

Heating costs me about as much as if I ran a 1kWh setup 24*7 for my 56m2 apartment. Short googling suggests, that I could do better on my own, but not so much better to actually do anything about it.

Efficiency of any infrastructure depends on it's physical condition, and technocratic abilities[0] of local governments; both are ok where I live, but mostly much worse in smaller cities.

[0] for the lack of better terminology. I can't talk about "quality" of Mayor's work in general, for it should include not stealing votes, representing actual people etc.

[iguy]

Interesting figures. BTW, the terminology is a mess, but I think what you're describing would most clearly be called "district heating", as "central" often just means that your house has one burner in the basement (as opposed to a fireplace in each room, originally). I hadn't stopped to think what the museum would have.

And, somewhere in here there's a parable about capitalism. The engineers are correct that the district heating plant has economies of scale... but it's only as clean as your town's politics, and even a squeaky-clean mayor has to make a terrifying giant decision about whether to upgrade it, once every 30 years. Instead of every owner gossiping with his neighbors about what works & what breaks, and whether double glazing was worth it.