Powerful central heating in the back room (5)
I believe the answer is:
motor
'powerful central' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'heating in the back room' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found within the answer.
an anagram of 'room' is 'moor' which is present in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for motor that I've seen before include "Make good progress" , "Machine that converts energy into motion" , "Car (colloq,)" , "Wheels" , "(Transport using) engine" .)