Oral histories of domestic heating transitions in England and Sweden: lessons on how heating transitions play out across place and time

Over the last seventy years, most European countries have undergone one or more transitions in home heating provision. Moving first away from burning solid fuels and towards communal or individual central heating systems and now towards low carbon electric heating systems. Heating transitions are awash with personal, social and cultural complexity but tend to be simplified into grand narratives that tell simple stories of technological triumph. Through analysis of 21 oral histories gathered across England and Sweden, we look beyond the techno-economic dimensions of heating transitions to understand how they play out in diverse ways in everyday life over time, producing different experiences and outcomes (socially, culturally, financially) across places and social groups. We reveal similarities and divergences between the outcomes associated with different heating transition routes pursued in each country, underlining the long-lasting consequences of heating change. The research reported in this article received full ethics approval from the University Research Ethics Committees at Sheffield Hallam University and Lund University. Informed, written consent was obtained from all research participants.