Is it true that people in England only heat the room they are in? (home, school)
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My parents back in Germany do have central heating, so does pretty much everyone there I know. But I do know that it is not necessarily a common thing in other countries. AC is not really necessary because the days that exceed 90 degrees are pretty rare and since houses there are built from bricks and not drywall, they are pretty well insulated and stay cool without AC, except for the occasional heatwaves. However, many people I know have air conditioning, but really, it is not necessary.
In fact, my bill for heating and AC is MUCH higher in the US because so much energy is wasted due to the poor quality of many houses and because the climate tends to be more extreme than back home.
Actually, the insulation that is put between the drywall and the siding/stucco or other finish is pretty good and probably as good as most traditional builds in Europe.
The more extreme climate is, IMHO, far more of a reason for A/C than the type of build.
While the insulation itself is good stuff if installed correctly and everywhere, houses in general still aren't insulated as well as the houses in England. I can literally feel the drafts coming in by the windows in my house, my attic room is not insulated (just the floor) which apparently wastes, and there are huge gaps where the doors are which we can't seem to get filled. And I supposedly live in a very well made house.
From my experience, the poor in England live way better than the poor in the US, almost too much better IMO - they've gone too far. If on services they certainly have enough money to heat a house appropriately. If someone has to pick between heating their whole house or not, it is generally because they are spending too much money on something else. Yes there are cases where some old folks die in the winter from hypothermia or overheating in the summer it is usually because there isn't anyone looking ot for them and they either forgot to put on the heat when they went to bed or they were just so used to being frugal that they didn't, not because the electricity company turned off thier electricity. There are still a number of very old houses that do not have central heat and I can't say too many of those houses had a fireplace in each room! So again, it isnt' because they can't afford to heat the whole house but more because they choose not to.
My whole family lives in England and I've visited for weeks at at time, mostly in the summer but a few times in the winter and I was never cold in the house. My grandmother has central heat and air but she still has the individual radiators in each room taht you could adjust so the bedrooms would be cooler than the main living areas (which actually is better for you). A few times it would be warm because most of my family does not have central air, it just isn't needed since there are maybe 1-2 times per year that it reaches even close to 90. There are still a number of houses in the North, MW, and NW that do not have central air either, again simply not needed
There is a certain radio talk host that said today on the radio how lucky we are in America to have what we have where even our poor live better than average people in England, France or Germany. He offered for proof the fact that almost everybody in the USA heats or air conditions their whole living space regardless of which room is occupied. He said people in England, France and Germany are so bad off that they can only heat one room at a time in their homes. So at night, they only heat the bedroom and in the day only the living room is heated. True to not true?
First of all, how naive are you? Since when do you need to heat the entire house when you are only in one room!?
Homes over there are brick structure, not wooden frames. The bricks can be up to a foot thick. AC is not needed, so people don't have it. Not everybody in the North ( U.S. ) has AC, either. Central heating isn't common in Germany. Why would it? It's only common here because the AC does it and it wastes a lot of money. The AC heats and cools everything. If you want it or not. They have actually the luxury of being able to heat the rooms they want to. We can't. Well, I'm sure that if you build a new house, you could request that kind of system.
And you can't tell me that our insulation here is as good as in Europe. It's not. The house heats up much more quickly and cools down much more quickly. Thus, you have the AC running all the time. I hate it. I know some people there who just build a new house a few years back. You know how much electricity they use per year? 2500 KWH!! I use 700 KWH a month and I am just in an apartment, not house. I am trying to use as little as possible. Many people are well above 1000 a month even in apartments.
Ok, I suppose that there are more homes in the North with brick structure than in the South. I think it's pretty much non-existent here for private homes. So it would be the same there.
Only heating one room is something which is largely dying out now, but it used to be quite common.
Most homes have central heating now, so there will be some sort of radiator or something in every room.
It never used to be like that, however.
Many houses in the UK were built without heating. Growing up, we had a coal fire in the sitting room, and that was it. The whole rest of the house was unheated.
It wasn't uncommon for ice to be forming on the windows, and for your bedside glass of water to freeze over !
We could have put electric fires, or paraffin heaters in the rooms, but my father was in a poorly paid job, and we simply couldn't afford it.
That wasn't really long ago, it was only the late 70's/early 80's.
Even my last apartment in Scotland had initially been built with only the fire in one room.
Many old British houses are also extremely poorly insulated, so don't retain heat well.
Programmes are under way now to convert much of the old housing stock to central heating, and to retrofit them with insulation, but they'll never be the same as houses built to modern standards.
I'd suggest that the arcticle quoted in the OP probably does have some grounding in fact, but should be taken with a pinch of salt, at best it's uninformed, at worst, just rubbish !
There is a certain radio talk host that said today on the radio how lucky we are in America to have what we have where even our poor live better than average people in England, France or Germany. He offered for proof the fact that almost everybody in the USA heats or air conditions their whole living space regardless of which room is occupied. He said people in England, France and Germany are so bad off that they can only heat one room at a time in their homes. So at night, they only heat the bedroom and in the day only the living room is heated. True to not true?
From my personal experience in Texas that is plain false.
I live a few miles east of Paris and my apartment has floor central heating (natural gas), but I have only double glazing in the kitchen (not heated). Now my apartment is only 720 sq ft (1-bedroom)so in this case central heating is relevant I think.
Homes over there are brick structure, not wooden frames. The bricks can be up to a foot thick. AC is not needed, so people don't have it. Not everybody in the North ( U.S. ) has AC, either. Central heating isn't common in Germany. Why would it? It's only common here because the AC does it and it wastes a lot of money.
Yes it is. Never saw anything besides central heating. They can regulate which room they want to heat, but it is still called "Zentralheizung" (ie central heating). Or do our definitions differ?
Agreeing with the rest of your post though!
Actually, newer US homes now have programmable thermostats that allow you to heat only the room(s) you are in, or turn the heat up before you wake up, to save energy, a good thing in my book.
He offered for proof the fact that almost everybody in the USA heats or air conditions their whole living space regardless of which room is occupied Wrong, although it may be true in the South where the air comes through central duct work. Here in the northern USwe often use window a/c and will cool only that ONE room. We make fast excursions into the other rooms to grab things that we need.
In the winter we use either gas or oil heat and it usually comes through radiant baseboards and all you can do is try to close off the individual baseboards, which isn't very effective.
I wish we still had radiators in each room but they were removed from most houses back in the 1950s so there isn't much choice except to heat the entire house in winter. With electric heat you can have a thermostat in each room and you can shut off rooms that you aren't using but who can afford ELECTRIC HEAT??? (sorry I cannot turn off bold and italic for some reason.....)
Also, the poor in the USA live very badly. If they are in subsidized elderly housing for instance, usually the heat doesn't come on until sometime in October and it goes off in the spring. People use space heaters during a cold snap when the main heat is off. In the summer, people buy their own window a/c and let's hope they can afford it because 90 or 100 degree heat is dangerous.
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I use 700 KWH a month and I am just in an apartment, not house.
I am trying to use as little as possible. Many people are well above 1000 a month even in apartments. 
