One chilly room!

barnstar2077

Hi,

I have one room in my house that feels several degrees colder than the others. It is an upstairs bedroom that shares a wall with my neighbour, as my place is semi detached. I have insulation in the loft above, both between the rafters and back over the top perpendicular to the rafters. I also have secondary glazing in that room. The radiator in their is okay at best, but even when the room is heated to toasty levels it seems to lose the heat quicker than the other rooms! The only thing I can think of is that it hasn't been decorated in over ten years. I know it sounds ridiculous, but could ceiling paint that is peeling in places really make a room lose it's heat so quickly?

Thanks,
Barn

Nick_C

Most likely explanation is that your neighbour doesn't heat the adjoining room.

You could look at internal insulation on the party wall.

somethingcorporate

Paint won't make any difference. I agree with the above poster, you could insulate your side of the wall for a couple of hundred quid and upgrade the rad if it's small.

barnstar2077

Thank you for your replies, which product should I use to insulate the wall?

DRP

I would get a new, bigger radiator.

Would be cheaper, less disruptive, and would work - rather than guessing that interior wall insulation might fix the problem.

Mr.Generous

look for gaps and cracks anywhere letting a draft in, just below window ledge, around skirting, poor fitting windows? These are things you rectify when decorating so could be the cause. If the adjoining wall feels really cold you can get polystyrene wall liner to go under wallpaper, it used to be called warmaline I think. B&Q do it near wallpaper section.

silvercar

As you are a semi-detached there most be other rooms that have more outside walls than the problem one. Even if the neighbour isn't heating their room, the fact it isn't an outside wall should provide more insulation than an outside wall. So more likely it is the radiator that is either not heating properly (sludged up, not balanced or end of the run?) or too small for the room.

FreeBear

Mr.Generous wrote: »

If the adjoining wall feels really cold you can get polystyrene wall liner to go under wallpaper, it used to be called warmaline I think. B&Q do it near wallpaper section.

Toolstation do the Wallrock thermal paper - General opinion is that it is barely worthwhile as it adds little in the way of insulation to a wall.

ComicGeek

Depending on the age of the houses, it may be a cavity party wall between the two houses - these were traditionally left unfilled and unsealed. End result is that you then have cold air circulating in the cavity.

Your bedroom (and your neighbour's bedroom) then essentially has an uninsulated wall which makes it so much colder.

If you can bear losing some space in the room, best way is to be install insulation internally on this party wall - either insulation packed between timber battens with plasterboard over, or an insulated plasterboard product from Celotex, Kingspan, Gyproc etc