2.2 TOTAL EXPENDITURE ON FUEL AND LIGHT

The first analyses are concerned with total annual expenditure on all forms of heating, water heating, cooking and lighting. The separate figures for each items are not given as these were not required by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

The expenditures have been prepared separately for houses and flats as it was desired to know whether or not, owing to the better conservation of heat in large dwellings, there was a smaller expenditure in flats.

Table 1

Total annual expenditure was obtained for 2,561 families living in houses and for 711 families living in flats. The average annual expenditure for families occupying houses was £16.16.10., whilst the average annual expenditure for families occupying flats was £18.2.8., thus showing that the expenditure in flats was higher than the expenditure in houses. We believe, from other information of a non-statistical character obtained in the course of the Survey, that this is due to the fact that in most cases the standard of heating and lighting in flats is higher than that of houses, so that although one would have expected the heating needs to have been less, this is offset by the other factor. In addition to this a point which emerged was that where all rooms are on one floor more of the dwelling may be used and heated, whereas in the case of the house the clear division made by the stairs, effectively limits the use of the upstair rooms. This is borne out in the results of the space heating section.

Table 2

In one case, however, it appears that this factor of the higher standard in the more modem dwelling does not apply, that is in the case of Degree-day Region II which includes the tenements of Perth, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee and other Scottish towns; Region III however, which includes Glasgow and also a considerable sample of flats in England showed the some trend as the total.

This same point about the higher standard of heating in more modern dwellings is reflected in the comparison between old and new dwellings. The average annual expenditure of 1,138 new dwellings was £18.2.0., whereas the average annual expenditure of 2,266 old dwellings was £16.12.8.

Table 1

The higher expenditure in flats is reflected in almost every case of the detailed analysis given, by number of rooms in Table 1. The range in the case of houses from 1-6 rooms was from £12.9.4. to £18.9.7., whereas the range in the case of flats was from £15. 10.5. to £23.3.2.

Table 2

Table 3

A similar picture is given where the expenditure is analysed by number in family. This is given in detail in Table 2., where it will be seen that the range for families of 1 - 8 living in houses is from £11.17.0. to £22.3.6., whereas the range for families in flats is from £12.8.6. to £22.15.2. Table 3 The summary Table 3 shows the position more clearly. These broad conclusions must be modified, however, by reference to difference of annual income.

2.2 1 EXPENDITURE ANALYSED BY DEGREE-DAY REGION

Table 4

The average annual expenditure of households was approximately the same in each Degree-day region, this being particularly true for families occupying houses. This fact may in some measure be accounted for by the lower prices of coal in the North of England since the same expenditure would buy more fuel. There were some differences in the expenditure of flat dwellers, and this did not follow the Degree-day region order but reflected the fact that in Degree-day region II the flats were largely of a poor working-class or tenement character.

2.3 A COMPARISON OF THE EXPENDITURE BY HOUSES AND FLATS OF EQUAL SIZE WITH EQUAL NUMBERS IN FAMILY HAVING AN INCOME OP BELOW £160 p.a. AND ABOVE £160 p.a.

This further analysis confirms the general impression already gained from the previous tables that the average annual expenditure in flats is greater than in houses.

Table 5

It will be seen from the analysis of families with an income under £160 per annum that, to take an example of families with 4 in the household, and with 2 habitable rooms, flat dwellers have an annual average expenditure of £16.8.1. compared with £14.16.5. of the house dwellers. Those occupying flats of 4 rooms have an £18.13.6 as compared with an annual average expenditure of £16.16.9. for 4 room houses. It will be seen that in almost all cases where the totals are large enough to be useful this difference is present.

If the total of all the families of equal size is taken it will be seen that there is a higher expenditure in almost all cases of flat dwelling families; for example families of one, £12.5.5. against £11.16.5. families of two £15.3.11. against £13.11.1., families of three £17.9.0. against £15.17.4., families of four £17.5.3. against £16.10.4., families of five £20.3.5. against £17.7.0.In the case of families of six the dwellers in houses spend slightly more, but the sample of flat dwellers in this case is rather small.

The average annual expenditure for families with an income of between £160 and £300 per annum shows broadly the same pattern. There are, however, some inconsistencies; for example if one compares flats and houses with two in the family, the average expenditure in houses is a little greater than that in flats £15.0.11. compared with £14.9.1. With three in the family, however, the flat expenditure is £17.15.10. compared with £16.17.9. and similarly with four in the family £18.9.0. compared with £18.3.10. The expenditures of families of five show an even larger difference, an expenditure of £20.12.4. in flats compared with £18.13.10. in houses.

The influence of family income on average annual expenditure is very evident in the case of families living in houses, but is less clear in the case of families living in flats.

The average annual expenditure for families of 2, 3, 4, and 5 are given as an example.

If a comparison is made between families of equal size occupying houses with the same number of habitable rooms, it will be seen that families with the higher income have a higher expenditure in almost every case, as for example in the cases of families with houses of three rooms.

In the case of flats there is no such clear pattern, the expenditures often being higher in the lower income groups. The samples in these analyses are however very small.

2.4 AVERAGE EXPENDITURE PER HEAD ON FUEL AND LIGHT

The average annual expenditure per head varied with family size as follows:-

The average annual expenditure of all persons was £4. 15. 3. Per annum.

2.5 COAL CLUBS

Table 6

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research were interested to know how far the custom of purchasing coal through a coal club was general. This was of special interest to them as it represented a case where the purchasing of heat was done by a regularly weekly payment all the year round. This is in some ways parallel to the gas and electric charge and to the sort of charge which might be made for district heating. The questionnaire asked the direct question “Do you belong to a coal club”? This has been analysed by the income, by region, and by urban and rural. There were 4,971 answers to this question. Of this total there were 322 coal club members (6.5%) and 4,649 who do not belong to coal clubs (93.5%).

Table 6

2.6 COST OF COAL

Question 3 asked “How much do you pay for a hundredweight of coal” ? Most of the households in the sample paid between 2/3d. and 3/5d. per hundredweight for their coal.

There were some differences between the town and the country as follows:-

Table 7

9.2% of the town households paid between 1/10d. and 2/2d. compared with only 1.6% of the country households, whereas 28.3% of country households paid between 3/1d. and 3/10d. per hundredweight as compared with 29.9% of town households.

Table 8

As would be expected there were considerable regional differences, the prices paid for coal being very much less in the north than in the south.

Table 9

In Region II, towns on a coalfield were compared with towns away from a coalfield and a very striking difference emerged. In the coalfield towns 28.7% of the households paid between 1/10d. and 2/2d. per hundredweight for their coal compared with only 2.6% of the rest, whereas only 9.1% of the house- holds in coalfield towns paid between 2/8d. and 3/~ compared with 47.8% of the households in towns away from the coalfield.

2.7 QUANTITY OF COAL BOUGHT

Table 10

Information about the habits of coal buying are required for planning reasons. Table 10 shows that most people, (36%), buy two hundredweights at a time, 16.3% buy three hundredweights, 14.3% buy one hundredweight, 10% buy 5 hundredweights, 9.1% buy 5-10 hundredweights and 8.1% buy 10-20 hundred-weights. It is interesting to note, in passing, that the intermediate quantity, four hundredweights, is only bought by 4.3% of people. There are no important differences between the urban and rural sample.