Understanding the missing middlemen of domestic heating: Installers as a community of professional practice in the United Kingdom

TLDR

Central heating installers, though potentially influential in home heating decisions, have been largely overlooked in energy research. The paper uses a British ethnographic study to examine how central heating installers form a community of practice. The study investigates two facets of community membership—social learning processes and shared identities—within the installers’ professional practice. The study demonstrates that installers’ socially acquired roles and homeowner relationships shape heating product selection and installation, and proposes industry and policy strategies to engage this community to reduce home heating energy use and promote alternative technologies.

Abstract

Despite indications that they could play an important part in shaping how people heat their homes, central heating installers have been largely overlooked in energy research. As a means of addressing this oversight, this paper draws on a British ethnographic study to explore the ways in which these ‘missing middlemen’ can be said to comprise a ‘community of practice’. Two aspects of community membership are explored in detail: social learning processes and shared identities. This exercise shows how socially acquired understandings of their professional role and their relationship with homeowners can influence the selection and installation of heating products. The paper concludes with suggestions for how industry and policy makers might engage with this group. These suggestions focus on strategies aimed at reducing the energy used for home heating, and the installation of alternative heating technologies, both of which might benefit from an appreciation of the informal processes of community formation.