Why is my house cold?

melanzana

I live in a nice terraced house. Never cold ever. (well maybe in Arctic conditions, but so is everyone).

Have double glazing, insulated attic space, some nice insulated stuff under the wooden flooring too.

I think terraced housing helps. Just two outside walls, back and front and they have secondary insulation too.

Gloomendoom

melanzana wrote: »

I think terraced housing helps. Just two outside walls, back and front and they have secondary insulation too.

My wife used to live in an end of terrace house. 20 minutes after the heating went off it was freezing. We now live in a rambling old house with thick stone wall. Despite no double glazing, it is cosy. It does take a while to get it warm though.

The OP says they’d live in a North facing house so it is cold. Surely it can’t be all North facing.

Zither

thescouselander wrote: »

Sounds to me like you're not leaving your heating on long enough. You need to get heat into the structure of the house otherwise you'll just end up heating the air in the room and then the heat will be immediately absorbed into the walls.

Thanks - I did wonder this. I wondered if I needed to just leave the heating on one day all day to 'warm the bones' of the house up. After this it might stay at a warmer temp generally (with top ups).

Or have I just made this up in my head?

Zither

Gloomendoom wrote: »

My wife used to live in an end of terrace house. 20 minutes after the heating went off it was freezing. We now live in a rambling old house with thick stone wall. Despite no double glazing, it is cosy. It does take a while to get it warm though.

The OP says they’d live in a North facing house so it is cold. Surely it can’t be all North facing.

Yes, north facing garden. The south front of the house with big windows is warmer than the colder north back, but not by much.

I'd love to live in a stonebuilt house.

melanzana

Gloomendoom wrote: »

My wife used to live in an end of terrace house. 20 minutes after the heating went off it was freezing. We now live in a rambling old house with thick stone wall. Despite no double glazing, it is cosy. It does take a while to get it warm though.

The OP says they’d live in a North facing house so it is cold. Surely it can’t be all North facing.

End of terrace has three outside walls. Just like semis I suppose.

Anyway, thick walls will help too.

My house is South facing but the front is North. Still never feels cold.

I dunno, might be just lucky or something.

getmore4less

Zither wrote: »

Thanks! Well, I have to admit that I try to use the heating as little as possible (especially so early on) but when I do switch the heating on, the house doesn't stay warm for very long.

Radiators aren't amazing but they do all warm up eventually and when they're on they're take-your-hand-off-hot to the touch.

Maybe my perspective is wrong - I'd think that once a house is warm it would retain the heat for several hours...ish?

TY

Z

it will when it is warm, you seem to be heating the air in the house but not letting the structure get up to temp. when the heating goes off it will cool down in 10-20mins the building will feel like it i sucking the heat out of the air.

My relatively modern house after a long(days/weeks) shutdown in the winter where the temp has dropped <12c , takes upto 24hr to get to where you can start to leave the heating off for longer periods and only lose a few degrees.

I lost 1c(19>18) last night(23:30->5am) last Sunday it was colder outside I lost 2c.

I have the min temp set to 15c to stop it getting too cold when the outside weather gets really cold to avoid too long warm up times.

Try leaving the heating on longer let the thermostat do its job.
It may be worth setting it bit higher to do the structure warm up a bit quicker then set back to normal temp when the boiler cycles get longer.
check the boiler temp is set high enough.

make sure you don't let it get too cold when not around and overnight.

once the structure is upto temp then you will get a better idea where the losses are.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Alter_ego wrote: »

Photo booth - thermal camera.
This on iPad air, 5 yrs old.

Wow.

It’s a visual effect. You don’t seriously think it’s a real thermal imaging camera? Are you on a wind up? :rotfl:

Davesnave

Zither wrote: »

Thanks! Well, I have to admit that I try to use the heating as little as possible (especially so early on) but when I do switch the heating on, the house doesn't stay warm for very long.

Maybe my perspective is wrong - I'd think that once a house is warm it would retain the heat for several hours...ish?

Our detached bungalow has cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and some of the floors are insulated too.

The thermostatically controlled radiator heating comes on at 7am and goes off at 9am, and for the rest of the day we've been comfortable.

As it gets dark around 5pm, the heating's back on at 4.30pm and goes off around 11.30pm. So, a total of about 8 hours heat input in 2 periods and 20- 21c is maintained in typical November weather. It probably drops a bit more in the small hours, but we're asleep!

I don't know if that will help your perspective on this, but it's what's happening here at present. We do get solar heat added via the conservatory on many days, but against this, our living room 21' x 13' has no heating whatever, because the radiators aren't connected yet and I've not bothered to light the woodburner.

Zither

Davesnave wrote: »

Our detached bungalow has cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and some of the floors are insulated too.

The thermostatically controlled radiator heating comes on at 7am and goes off at 9am, and for the rest of the day we've been comfortable.

As it gets dark around 5pm, the heating's back on at 4.30pm and goes off around 11.30pm. So, a total of about 8 hours heat input in 2 periods and 20- 21c is maintained in typical November weather. It probably drops a bit more in the small hours, but we're asleep!

I don't know if that will help your perspective on this, but it's what's happening here at present. We do get solar heat added via the conservatory on many days, but against this, our living room 21' x 13' has no heating whatever, because the radiators aren't connected yet and I've not bothered to light the woodburner.

Wow 21c! That’s amazing. I turned the heating off here a couple of hours ago and it’s now about 12 degrees inside the house. I appreciate I’ve only had it on for 1.5h ish this evening though compared to your 7h. Can we swap??

I’m not on housing benefits/similar but I can’t afford to run the heating too much each day (as I live alone). Are there any obvious charities/trusts that do free energy/house appraisals for any improvements the house may be eligible for?

Davesnave

Zither wrote: »

I appreciate I’ve only had it on for 1.5h ish this evening though compared to your 7h. Can we swap??

I’m not on housing benefits/similar but I can’t afford to run the heating too much each day (as I live alone). Are there any obvious charities/trusts that do free energy/house appraisals for any improvements the house may be eligible for?

I think the time it's on makes a difference in the way that the fabric of the house heats up and then releases that heat to some extent, like a giant storage heater. We also have draught-free windows and doors, which may help.

The loft insulation has made the most noticeable improvement here. Prior to 2014 we only had about 100mm, which was then completely removed and Freecycled, because we needed to replace all the ceilings and re-wire. We were 2 years without any insulation at all and we felt it!

If you look at the link below, there's up-to-date info about free loft insulation deals. We got one, and we're too 'rich' to receive any benefits, other than state pension. There's about 270 - 300mm up there now.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-cavity-loft-insulation