The water circulated heaters, in Germany at least, have devices on each radiator that estimate heading usage by monitoring the temperature. The heating costs are then allocated to residents proportionally based on those measurements. If you can get energy out of the radiator quicker out will cause your usage to be under estimated and you pay a smaller proportion while your neighbors pay more.
So the hot water heater for the radiators is centralized for the building ? If as you say, each apartment then has an individual meter to tally their personal consumption and then everyone pays their fraction of the main boilers consumption, wouldnt the total heating cost also drop ?
I know that on the scale of an apartment building, one guy using his heating more efficiently will fall within the margin of error of the system, the neighbours would only pay extra if the main boiler ran at a "fixed speed" and used X units of fuel a month no matter what. If the boiler has the ability to cut off or vary its output then technically it would compensate for the lower load from one apartment. Even if the former is true then the extra cost spread over several apartments would be a very small amount.
Its quite admirable how you are concerned about this like a good neighbour and citizen. Maybe to boost everyone else's savings you could suggest that they do the same so that the overall heating cost comes down.
While I understand that heating costs are high, its relatively easy to produce heat efficiently since it is a byproduct of so many things we already use, hell you can get a couple of people in a tent your body will up the space to comfortable levels without any extra heating. Good insulation and some air movement helps a lot.
From my two years spent in northern England, my take on heating is that the stuffiness that goes with it and the localized heat zones were the worst bits. Some low speed ceiling fans would have helped a lot but they seem uncommon in cooler climates. Things might change with global warming on the rise. Cracking the window open just made one side hot and an annoying cold draft on the other side.
As someone from a hot, humid tropical country , what I would like to see is more effective, efficient and well priced localized or personal COOLING solutions. Room air conditioners need to get more efficient, even though variable speed inverter compressors have helped. On top of this something to keep you comfortable while you are out an about. The various types of fans can just about manage to make the heat bearable but cant make it comfortable, the way an AC can obviously because they cant remove humidity effectively.
Peltiers are inefficient and solutions based around them usually end up bulky or not powerful/long lasting enough.
Something like a desktop compressor based AC would be neat, just to hit you with some cool, dry air until you get settled enough to a point where a regular fan would be enough and at the same time you dont use a lot of energy cooling down the entire room. Obviously venting the hot air and draining the condensation becomes an isssue with these. There are some portable and battery powered "camping" air conditioners available like the Ecoflow Wave that could be charged up by solar. However the problem with these is the cost. For the price of the Wave and similar devices ~ $1000, I can buy a much more efficient air conditioner for half the price and pay for using it 9 hours a day for two years.
We are already seeing an increased demand for air conditioning due to global warming. A number of my EU friends have gotten ACs fitted over the last few years because of all the hotter summers. The heating + cooling types seem to be a good investment in such places as they seem to work pretty efficiently at heating until you get to the lower single digits. Gas heating is still cheaper though.
Man, I wish I didnt live in an apartment so that I could make use of solar.
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