In 2026, almost half of Bucharest’s days without hot water came from the works replacing its heating pipes

#2026 has the most days without hot water since at least 2022

Each column below is one day. Its height shows how many heat substations had their hot water shut off that day, and the colour says why. Until 2024 almost all of it is red: breakdowns, burst pipes repaired in a hurry. From 2025 the orange grows: shutdowns announced for the network’s modernisation. In summer 2026 orange covers most of the picture.

A substation’s day is counted once, by the cause announced most often that day. Days with no capture of the page (at most 11 a year) are blank.

Breakdowns did not rise. Between 1 January and 23 October, breakdown block-days fell from 175,701 in 2025 to 127,389 in 2026, while works block-days doubled from 61,270 to 131,640, so the total rose. Part of the fall in breakdowns is only apparent: a substation shut for works cannot be counted as a breakdown on the same day. At substations with no works shutdown in 2025 or 2026, breakdowns fell by 6%.

#In September City Hall said 95% of the sites were done

On 14 September 2026 City Hall’s headline was “95% of the heating building sites are done!”. In the same statement the 95% referred to 37 km of pipe at an advanced stage; another 63 km were still under way. City Hall promised that “by winter, 438 more blocks will have hot water and heating without problems” and that all sites would close this year. The project replaces 212 km of pipes in five lots and costs 1.76 billion lei, of which 1.3 billion are grants.

From 1 to 23 October, 70% of block-days without hot water still came from the works; in July it had been 74%. When it named the winners in October 2022, City Hall said work would start in spring 2023 and take four years.

#Did the new pipes help? The data cannot say yet

On 14 September 2026 City Hall said 28 km of main pipe had recently been finished, 37 km were at an advanced stage and 63 km were still under way. Much of the new network is too recent to judge whether it fails less often. Still, 58 heat substations had their works shutdowns end by mid-2025, with a full year of data after the works.

At these substations, days with breakdowns on the primary network (the large pipes that the works replace) fell from 1,559 in the year before the works to 803 in the year after, 48% fewer. But breakdowns also fell elsewhere in the city, and the answer depends on the comparison.

Against substations still waiting for their works, those with finished works do better. Against substations that never had works, there is no clear difference. Neither comparison passes the checks set in advance. The substations without works were already cutting their breakdowns by 48% before the works began elsewhere, so they were not comparable. And on the secondary network (the pipes between substation and blocks), substations with finished works did worse than those still waiting, a sign that the two groups differ in more than the works. The test can be repeated once the network finished in 2026 has run for a year.

#The largest works shutdowns of 2026

One job shuts dozens of substations, with hundreds of blocks, at once. The table groups substations shut on the same day by the same notice and ranks them by length times the number of substations. The deadline is the first one Termoenergetica announced.

#Which firms the notices name

The five lots were won by consortia led by Elsaco Electronic (lots 1 and 2), Construcții Erbașu (3 and 4) and Energomontaj (5). Only some shutdown notices name the firm at work: 30% of works block-days since 2022. The table shows the firm exactly as the notice names it, with nothing inferred. Here block-days come from each shutdown’s length times its blocks.

#What you can do

The current state of your substation is on Termoenergetica’s “Starea sistemului” page and in its Termoalert app. Breakdowns are reported on the free 24-hour line 0800 820 002. For the history of every street, split into breakdowns and planned work, see Fără Apă Caldă (faraapacalda.ro), an independent project using the same archive.

#How I counted

Termoenergetica lists on its website the substations whose supply is shut off, with the blocks affected, the cause and an estimated restoration. An independent project has saved this page about once an hour since 19 December 2021; I used 27,401 usable captures, up to 23 October 2026.

The basic unit is a substation’s day: a day on which it appears at least once with hot water shut off (“Oprire ACC” or “Oprire ACC/INC”). Low pressure or temperature is not a shutdown and is not counted. Block-days multiply those days by the number of blocks in the notice; when only some blocks are shut, only those count.

The cause comes from the notice text. “Modernisation works” are notices that mention the EU-backed programme (POIM), a contract lot or work package (“obiectiv”), modernisation, rehabilitation or the joining-up of new pipes, plus notices that only name a firm at work. “Breakdowns” are unplanned fixes and repairs. The rest are maintenance at the plants, network manoeuvres and missing supply from the producer. I checked by hand the 60 most frequent texts in each category.

Years are compared over the same period, 1 January – 23 October. In 2026 the page was saved a little less often (15 captures a day against 17 before), so short 2026 shutdowns are, if anything, undercounted.

The test about the new pipes was written down before I saw the results, with the rule for what I would write. An independent check found an error in the second comparison; once corrected, neither comparison passes its checks, so the page draws no conclusion.

Download the data by substation and year (CSV) · The test as written, with its results

#Sources

• Termoenergetica București (the city heating company), its outage page with cause and estimated restoration
• Hourly archive of those notices since 19 December 2021 (FlorinPopaCodes/termoficare-data, copy of 24 October 2026)
• Bucharest City Hall, 14 September 2026: “95% of the heating building sites are done!” (Romanian)
• Bucharest City Hall, 6 October 2022: the five lots awarded (Romanian)
• City Council decision 452 of 30 October 2025, project value (Bucharest Official Gazette, Oct 2025, vol. 1, pp. 31–34)
• List of heat substations with coordinates (Termoenergetica, 951 substations)
• Fără Apă Caldă: the history of every street, split into breakdowns and planned work (Romanian)
• Buletin de București, 19 June 2026: after years of works, just as often without hot water (Romanian)
• Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)