Struggling to heat my new home.

SilverSix

I recently moved out in to my new home at the end of October, a Hillier build by Taylor Wimpey,
http://www.taylorwimpey.co.uk/newhomes/east+midlands/willowcroft/hillier/
and have been having some issues heating it as of late. For the first month or so the heating wasn’t a priority and the house was warm enough whilst I settled in and did some DIY so I never raised any eyebrows.

Since the weather got colder I noticed that two of the windows upstairs weren’t sealing properly, I had the window fitters come and correct this and now to my knowledge all the windows in the house have good seals. The back door has a slight draft through the keyhole but I have a blackout curtain up in front of door to stop any cold or draughts. The front door, facing out to open fields and being made of metal, get’s quite cold and was very draughty. I have put a draught excluder along the bottom and placed more draught proofing strip around the frame. There is now a tiny draft which is masked by another blackout curtain. I do have tiles covering the entire floor downstairs apart from the lounge. Any vents on the windows are closed as are all the doors to rooms I’m not using upstairs and the radiators in these rooms are turned down low. I have ceiling extraction fans to remove moisture but I don’t think these should be removing heat?

I have plenty of radiators, a double one approx 500mm x 1500mm & 1 x 600mm x 500mm in the kitchen and another small one in the hall (600x500) and then two roughly 600mm x 1000mm in the lounge (which also has blackout curtains at both ends).

As some radiators are under windows the curtains are up on the windowsills with blackout linings so I’m not heating the window instead of the room.

My boiler works perfectly fires up as programmed by the timer and cuts out/fires by the thermostat in the hall. The thermostat on the boiler is set to about 85%. My radiators get too hot to touch both at the top and bottom and I can feel hot air wafting out the top of them. (I do have the plumbers coming to fix a rattle in the airing cupboard and diagnose why some radiators need regular bleeding of air).

It seems to be taking, quite literally an age to heat the house. I currently have it around 15/16 degrees because any higher just seems to have the boiler firing and the house not getting much hotter. I did a little test yesterday and it took around an hour from the house to go from 15 degrees to 17 degrees thermostat set at 20 degrees (thermometer on my electricity monitor). I also checked this by lowering the stat down and it clicked off at 17 degrees.

Previously I had the CH on for 1 hour in the morning and 5 hours in the evening. I am currently trying the 24/7 approach and will take a meter reading. I’ve not had a chance to speak to the neighbours to see how they are getting on but the assistant site manager hasn’t had any complaints from them.

Does it seem like an awful long time to be heating the house? I know it is quite large and quite cold at the moment but with a decent boiler and plenty of brand new radiators boiling hot I didn’t think I would be having any issues. I plan to time tonight to see how long, if it manages, to reach 20 degrees from the current setting of 15/16%.

The only things I can think of it being is the vast amount of cold tiles I have on the floor downstairs though the showhome had tiles very similar to mine, also with no underfloor heating, and from memory was very warm. It did have a fair few halogens (I have LED’s). Struggling to put my finger on what it could be. Perhaps it is just a case that the house will take a very long time to heat up.

The size of the house 1227 sq. feet (114 sq. metres) and floorplans can be found at the bottom of the page provided in the link above.

Appologies for the long post but hopefully that is all the information I can give!

Any input would be very welcome!

Thanks,

Ben

macman

Lots of info, but nothing at all on how well your house is insulated. Cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, double glazing? The first two are the priorities to sort out if not installed or inadequate. But in a new build, these should all be up to modern standards.
Make and model of your boiler? Though production of heat doesn't see to be the issue-you are not retaining it.
Running your heating 24/7 will massively increase your gas bills and should not be necessary.
The extractors will remove warm air-that's where the moisture is suspended!
Any fauts in the plumbing or heating system should be covered under your NHBC 10 year warranty?
Bear in mind that a large detached property is inevitably going to be more expensive to heat than a semi or terrace.

HappyMJ

It's a rather large house and will take it an hour or more to get it up to temperature from a reasonably cool 12 degrees or so assuming that's where your house ends up at about 6am in the morning after switching off at 10pm the night before. So set the timer to come on an hour before you need the heat. An intelligent thermostat will be able to time it perfectly to get the house up to temperature for when you need it. It will cost quite a bit more if you leave the heating on 24/7. The heat loss of your house is around 10kW per hour at 21 degrees so leaving it on 24/7 will cost around 35p an hour or about 30% less than that if you are comfortable at 18 degrees. Most people are quite happy at somewhere between 12 and 15 at night when sleeping and that will cost much less.

SilverSix

macman wrote: »

Lots of info, but nothing at all on how well your house is insulated Cavity wall insulation, loft insulation, double glazing? The first two are he priorities to sort out if not installed or inadequate.
Make and model of your boiler? Though production of heat doesn't see to be the issue-you are not retaining it.

The walls are:

brickwork, 100mm solid filled cavity, thermoblock, plasterboard.

Windows are double glazed.

The loft has very thick insulation.

My boiler is an 'Ideal - Logic' I'm not sure if it is the +system or heat only. I think I remember the plumber saying I have an immersion heater for the water, though I could be wrong.

There is quite a lot of space to heat in the house. The only window downstairs which doesn't have a curtain is the rear kitchen window which has a blind.

The house will quite comfortably sit at around 15/16 degrees with the boiler coming on as and when. The heat up time just seems to take an absolute age!

the radiator in the hall is right next to the kitchen door which is normally open. I will try closing this tonight to see if all the cold floor in the kitchen wiping out heat from the hall and lounge.

SilverSix

HappyMJ wrote: »

It's a rather large house and will take it an hour or more to get it up to temperature from a reasonably cool 12 degrees or so assuming that's where your house ends up at about 6am in the morning after switching off at 10pm the night before. So set the timer to come on an hour before you need the heat. An intelligent thermostat will be able to time it perfectly to get the house up to temperature for when you need it. It will cost quite a bit more if you leave the heating on 24/7. The heat loss of your house is around 10kW per hour at 21 degrees so leaving it on 24/7 will cost around 35p an hour or about 30% less than that if you are comfortable at 18 degrees. Most people are quite happy at somewhere between 12 and 15 at night when sleeping and that will cost much less.

I plan to buy an inteligent thermostat so I can have the temperature drop overnight to around 13/14 degrees and automatically come back up to temperature when I require it.

I know the house can get very hot as on a final visit to it during the last stages of the build all the radiators were on to dry the house out and the heating was on full blast and the house was very hot, though outside it was around 15 degrees at the time not 0/-2!

I have another small raidator in the downstairs W/C which could help to warm up the hall if I were to leave the door slightly open.

HappyMJ

BennyC wrote: »

I plan to buy an inteligent thermostat so I can have the temperature drop overnight to around 13/14 degrees and automatically come back up to temperature when I require it.

I know the house can get very hot as on a final visit to it during the last stages of the build all the radiators were on to dry the house out and the heating was on full blast and the house was very hot, though outside it was around 15 degrees at the time not 0/-2!

I have another small raidator in the downstairs W/C which could help to warm up the hall if I were to leave the door slightly open.

I really don't see the point heating the hall. You are only in it whilst moving from one room to another. The more rooms you don't heat the cheaper it will be but you need to close the doors to them so heat doesn't escape from other rooms.

macman

You may have an immersion as a backup, but in a new-build your boiler must certainly be heating the hot water. Using gas to do that will be about a third of the cost of using electricity.
Ideal Logic...oh dear...
A decent digital programmer is a must on a new system like this.

SilverSix

HappyMJ wrote: »

I really don't see the point heating the hall. You are only in it whilst moving from one room to another. The more rooms you don't heat the cheaper it will be but you need to close the doors to them so heat doesn't escape from other rooms.

I think I am about to answer my own question but if I keep the door to the lounge closed it gets very warm in there very quickly. To keep the hall from being very chilly I have to have the doors to it open which would suggest I am loosing heat still through my front door.

I'll try closing the door to the kitchen and lounge and see if the kitchen heats up alright in which case I need to look in to some more extreme draftproofing measures for my front door.

macman

Sounds as though the system has not been properly balanced.
What kW rating is the boiler?

pinkteapot

BennyC wrote: »

I think I am about to answer my own question but if I keep the door to the lounge closed it gets very warm in there very quickly. To keep the hall from being very chilly I have to have the doors to it open which would suggest I am loosing heat still through my front door.

I'll try closing the door to the kitchen and lounge and see if the kitchen heats up alright in which case I need to look in to some more extreme draftproofing measures for my front door.

Our hall is extremely cold (there are no radiators in it) and if we have the lounge door open, the lounge is cold too. It only gets warm with the door shut. In winter, that door is always shut and we use a draught excluder along the bottom of it. As others have said, don't worry so much about the hall - you're in it for seconds at a time.

Even if you draught-proof the front door, it will always be a place where lots of heat escapes. It's a large chunk of wall where you just have a thin door, rather than a (hopefully) well insulated wall. I'd just focus on having the lounge and kitchen warm - you'll spend a fortune trying to heat the hall...

SilverSix

pinkteapot wrote: »

Our hall is extremely cold (there are no radiators in it) and if we have the lounge door open, the lounge is cold too. It only gets warm with the door shut. In winter, that door is always shut and we use a draught excluder along the bottom of it. As others have said, don't worry so much about the hall - you're in it for seconds at a time.

Even if you draught-proof the front door, it will always be a place where lots of heat escapes. It's a large chunk of wall where you just have a thin door, rather than a (hopefully) well insulated wall. I'd just focus on having the lounge and kitchen warm - you'll spend a fortune trying to heat the hall...

Thanks, I'll have to find a temperature for the hall where my other rooms (bedroom, kitchen and lounge) are also warm enough.

I will still try to minimalise the draughts around the front door and use the blackout curtain to keep any cold radiating off the metal door at bay instead of trapping draughts with it.