Stanton numbers, mean temperature profiles, and turbulent heat flux profiles are presented for thermal boundary layers which develop over a uniformly rough surface downstream of steps in wall temperature. Artificially thickened hydrodynamic layers were employed in order to create large unheated starting lengths compared to boundary-layer thickness, where the unheated starting length is the distance between the temperature step and hydrodynamic boundary-layer origin. Kernel functions for Stanton number distributions with downstream distance are presented which agree with measurements even when the hydrodynamic layers are significantly thicker than thermal layers. Other effects of unheated starting lengths on rough-wall thermal boundary-layer behavior are described, including significant alterations in profiles of mean temperature and turbulent heat flux. Both change shape as the magnitude of the unheated starting length increases, even though logarithmic regions of temperature profiles in wall coordinates and turbulent Prandtl number distributions are largely unaffected by unheated starting-length effects.