Well considering how crap my experiences in the US were, I might be more spoiled here. Most of my flats had old timey radiators where the only control was turning the dial on the side. You couldn't turn the actual heat on and off. The maintenance guys must have set the building furnace to come on at certain times. In the flat I lived in the longest, the little dial wouldn't turn, and I lived on the top floor, so the heat would come on full blast and you'd have to strip down to a tshirt and shorts for an hour until the heat went off and the warmth escaped out the old drafty windows. Some mornings I could see my breath when I got up. The hot water was pretty much constant though.
But when I lived in places with oil furnaces and separate hot water heaters, they often had governors on them. I lived in a place like that when I worked second shift. It was set so that during the day when "normal people" were out, the hot water heater would only store a small amount of hot water. Before showering before work, I'd have to go down into the webby, grubby basement and override the governor. We could have probably taken it off, but we rented and it was probably not a good idea. At the time I was doing the "oh I am just a silly girl" thing, so I never bothered to learn if there was a way to set it differently, and I begged the man of the house to go down and deal with it most times. Now, it seems like it is the opposite. I don't even think my husband knows how to switch the boiler on.
