The heating season has officially begun, but Belgrade residents report that their radiators are still cold. Is that legal? It turns out that heating plants do not always have to heat during the heating season
The heating season in Serbia officially started today, October 15, but due to the earlier cold weather, most of the heating plants started working in the previous days partial heating.
From the Association heating plant Serbia told "Vreme" that everything is ready and that they have no major problems in the delivery of heating.
"We had problems in Vrbas, but it should be resolved very quickly," says Dejan Stojanović from the Association of Heating Plants of Serbia. "In the others, everything is as it should be and the heating season starts normally. This season we have about one percent more consumers than last, which means that more people connect to central heating every year."
Although everything allegedly started normally, many citizens contacted the editorial office of "Vremen" to complain - about freezing.
"Not for a single moment, neither before October 15 nor now, were our radiators warm or even lukewarm," a Belgrade resident told Vreme. "For the last ten days I've been heating with air conditioning, and I'm going to pay all that extra, plus the usual central heating bill. I think that's rude."
On the other hand, some consumers say that they have heating, that the radiators are mostly lukewarm.
However, the answer to these doubts should be sought in the specific legal solution for central heating. First, each local government has different regulations, which means that there is no single umbrella law, which is the biggest problem for consumers.
The heating regime thus differs from city to city. As a rule, the heating day lasts from 6 a.m. to 21 p.m., and in Belgrade and larger cities until 22 p.m. On weekends and holidays, heating starts an hour later, from 7 a.m., and in case of extremely low temperatures, it switches to all-day heating.
According to the decision on the supply of thermal energy in Belgrade, during the heating season the heating plants do not have to heat.
The delivery of thermal energy is automatically interrupted when the outside air temperature exceeds 15 degrees Celsius and it lasts longer than two hours.
This happened, for example, at the end of October 2024. In accordance with the Decision on the supply of thermal energy in the city of Belgrade, i.e. the Rules on the operation of the distribution system of district heating, the supply of thermal energy was then interrupted due to favorable weather conditions.
"Re-delivery of heat energy starts when the outside air temperature is 12 degrees Celsius or lower," said the service center in Belgrade.
The prescribed temperature in heated rooms is around 20 degrees Celsius, with permissible deviations of one to two degrees, depending on local regulations.
This season, Vrbas stands out as the only critical point and exception in Serbia regarding preparations for the heating season due to financial problems and the blocked account of PUC "Standard" of 218 million dinars.
However, a solution to the financial problems of this heating plant has been agreed, so heating in that city could start in the next three to five days, RTS reported.
At the same time, almost all of them are big debtors. According to official financial data from the debt records of Srbijagas, as of the end of August this year, the Belgrade power plants owed 10,48 billion dinars for natural gas alone. During the year, organizations such as the Center for Local Self-Government (CLS) indicated that the company's total debts to suppliers reached RSD 15 billion.
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