How to Heat my Home

Niklia

We’ve been in our ‘new to us’ 1970 semi for 12 months now and still recovering from the mortgage deposit and recent wedding we’re on a pretty tight budget. However our house is freezing in the winter months so we’re looking for the cheapest solutions that give maximum benefit to keep the 5 of us toasty warm.
We have, what I think is the original boiler, glow worm space saver mark 2. Energy efficiency (not rated) 65%. Old style radiators with top clips, some with no thermostat. Heat control panel switches on/off twice a day. No thermostat. External walls under the windows behind some radiators have no insulation and are timber stud walls. The roof is a chalet style so the children’s rooms have sloping roofs with no insulation, which cuts through the room, so some flat ceiling which is insulated and some sloping ceiling and a wide external wall with no insulation. The loft is insulated. The building is brick.
We have just added a radiator to our room which previously had no heating and I’ve bought radiator foil to put behind the current radiators.
What would you prioritise with a small budget? What would make the biggest difference to the warmth in our home without breaking the bank. I’m hoping you clever lot have the solutions :T

Doozergirl

Insulation. As much of it as you can, everywhere you can.

There are still a couple of free incentive schemes. I think Eon has one of them. There are details on MSE main site somewhere.

Niklia

We’ve looked at insulating the roof, which involves taking off the roof ��but if this gives us a huge benefit it’s definitely cheaper than a new boiler. But I suppose it’s pointless heating up the house if you’re loosing the heat ��!♀️

DaftyDuck

Are you sure you need to take the roof off????

Sarastro

Agree - insulation is the way to go, then replace the boiler. Can't see why you would need to take the roof off!?

Furts

Niklia wrote: »

We’ve looked at insulating the roof, which involves taking off the roof ��but if this gives us a huge benefit it’s definitely cheaper than a new boiler. But I suppose it’s pointless heating up the house if you’re loosing the heat ��!♀️

It is a no brainer. Your boiler is working so it would be foolish to replace it. You will get an efficiency saving with a new boiler yet have an outlay of what to achieve this? - perhaps £1000.

You need to set your heating to more twice per day, as there is no point your system going flat out for that on periods. But that assumes you are not roasting during that time.

Pipe lagging and cylinder jackets will give minor savings, but the huge gain will be loft insulation.

J_B

I'm a little confused dot com

You say that you know that some of the loft is insulated (?) so presume you have a hatch to look up there (?)
Why would you need to take the roof off???

Get looking for some 'supported' schemes to add loads of insulation.

Doozergirl

For those that don’t understand why the roof might need to come off, the OP has rooms in the eaves which are uninsulated. They have enough pitch though to have what a I presume is a smaller loft area that can be filled cheaply with rockwool insulation.

If the membrane is in poor condition, the long term solution would be to replace the lot and act as if converting the loft, complying with building regulations.

Solid insulation for lofts isn’t cheap at all so if you do it once, you really want to do it right. It’s probably the most cost effective way of doing it in one go and also, I suspect the most efficient way of achieving a nice tight fit.

One could attach insulated plasterboard to the existing slopes but it’s a bit of a false economy.

I suspect that half the job would be okay on a room by room basis, ripping out plasterboard from inside, potentially increasing the size of the rafters so as to accommodate a correct ventilation gap and good thickness of Celotex, then re-board. Not cheap, and it still leaves the existing mebrane for another day, but the fabric of the house is sorely lacking and the modern approach is indeed ‘fabric first’ or you’re heating the air above the house. As Furts says, loft insulation is the first priority.

If it were me, I’d bite the bullet and do the whole thing.

silvercar

With a really small budget, I would be throwing some more loft insulation into the loft area, to increase the thickness to say 10 inches. Also add the reflective insulating panels behind the radiators. That may keep you going for a year while you save for something better.

We have an old home with solid walls rather than cavities . We replaced and improved the insulation in the loft and now the house stays warmer for longer.

silvercar

Article from the main MSE site on grants for improvements to homes here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/grant-grabbing

Furts

Niklia wrote: »

. External walls under the windows behind some radiators have no insulation and are timber stud walls. The roof is a chalet style so the children’s rooms have sloping roofs with no insulation,


without breaking the bank.

This is the elephant in the room, and the brutal truth is a complete strip out is required if one is to rectify matters. However this will be costly and disruptive. Obviously less so if done piecemeal on a diy basis.


Going way back to when the house was built, it would have been cowboy, or jerry built by todays standards and probably by the standards then. Insulated cavity walls were a requirement in the early 1970s and clearly this house does not meet this criteria. Again a brutal truth, but it is no better insulated than an old shed sat in a back garden and folks would not welcome living there on cold nights! Yes it has a brick outer skin, which gives wind chill protection but there is little positive about the overall construction.