Technical article

Winter in the Southern Cone: How Homes Stay Warm Without Central Heating

Then a friend tells them the houses can feel cold in July, because many have no central heating.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a couple named Walt and Joan. Both are 66. They love the idea of Montevideo, Santiago or Buenos Aires. Then a friend tells them the houses can feel cold in July, because many have no central heating. They wonder how true that is, and how much it matters.

I went to the energy ministries and statistics offices. They do not measure "cold houses." They do measure how much energy homes spend on heat, and what equipment families use. That tells us something.

What the official pages show

Chile and Uruguay measure different things in different years, so I would not compare them line by line.

Chile

The ministry's 2018 residential study, published in December 2019, says "el 53% se destina a calefacción y climatización." About 2 million homes used firewood. The study had 6.28 million homes in total, so firewood was in roughly one home in three (my arithmetic, not a figure the study states). Central heating shows up in a chart as 4.58% of bottled and natural gas use. The study did not give a national share of homes with heating equipment.

Uruguay

The ministry published a study on 21 August 2026, using 2023 data. It says "la calefacción concentra la mayor demanda neta (43,7%)." For all home uses together, electricity is 43.4% of the net energy, firewood 40.1% and bottled gas 13.0%. The ministry adds that the interior has a "alta dependencia de la leña para calefacción." It also says open stoves lose much of the heat, so firewood supplies 13.5% of useful energy though it is 40.1% of net energy.

Argentina

The statistics office surveyed urban households in 2017 and 2018 and published in December 2022. About 78% used some equipment to heat the home. In Patagonia, the coldest region, 90.6% did, and gas stoves were in 79.6% of homes. Stoves are not exclusive. A home can have a gas and an electric one.

Bolivia

The national statistics office publishes electricity coverage from the 2024 census, at 92.2% of occupied homes. It also lists data sets on cooking fuel. The pages show no official figure on heating.

What is left open

• Any official measure of damp or cold indoor temperatures. None of the four statistics bodies publishes one in the pages read.
• Monthly heating cost in any of the four countries, and newer Chilean and Argentine surveys than 2018 and 2017-2018. The tables give shares of energy and of homes, not bills, so ask for twelve months of bills.
• Bolivia: the national statistics office's census and household survey pages list electricity and cooking fuel. No heating figure appears on them (read 11 October 2026). The household survey microdata catalog is the place to look for one.