Scenario
One PBSA portfolio of 10x assets, had every site running with automated heating controls, but the consumption data was displaying a conflicting story: rooms running far hotter, and far more energy-hungry, than the heating controls alone could explain. With Utopi Data identifying the outliers, site teams went room-by-room across all 10 sites to understand what was actually happening.
Resolution
Across the entire portfolio 112 Rogue Heaters were found and removed, in 9 of the 10 sites. They weren’t a fringe issue – more Rogue Heaters were uncovered than every other behavioural cause combined, making them the single largest contributor to excess in-room consumption. Two sites alone accounted for 63% of the Rogue Heaters, revealing concentrated hotspots within the broader portfolio that would not have been visible with electricity metering alone.
Beyond the energy impact, the fire safety implications are significant. Unauthorised Rogue Heaters are one of the most common ignition sources in residential fires. In a PBSA context, where life safety obligations sit squarely with the operator, a hidden population of 112 unknown heat sources across a portfolio represents a material risk that no fire risk assessment or routine room inspection had surfaced. Room-level data turned an invisible compliance gap into a list of specific rooms requiring intervention.
Rogue Heaters are an embedded behavioural pattern, and data’s role is to make that pattern visible at the level where it actually needs addressing – the right rooms, the right buildings, and the right conversations. With that evidence in hand, operators can move beyond a generic “stop using heaters” message and toward sustained, site-specific engagement: explaining how the central heating system is actually performing, helping residents understand the impact of supplementary heating on bills, comfort, shared utility costs, and the fire safety risk they introduce, building the kind of awareness that compounds across the academic year.
The Data
112 Rogue Heaters found and removed
Saving an estimated £23,744 over a 200-day heating season from Rogue Heater removal
63% of all heaters concentrated in just two sites, one site had flagged 5% of rooms for Rogue Heaters, the other a HUGE 11% of all rooms being flagged for Rogue Heater presence