Cold in the attic.

neilmcl

trailingspouse wrote: »

Now, of course, the lodger is there for long periods of time, particularly at the weekend, and he's feeling the cold. And I agree with him - the rads certainly aren't as warm as the ones in the rest of the house. The question is, what to do about it?

Have you tried following any of the advice we've given you, particularly the bit about shutting off all rads except the one in the attic to see if that makes any difference.

dunroving

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Am I missing something as I'd have thought that it would be the opposite.
If they have decent insulation then it would be cold in the attic as the insulation would be stopping the heat from transferring from the floors below whereas poor insulation would allow the heat to transfer into the attic space.
After all, if decent insulation allows the attic to be warm, what's the point of the insulation in the first place?

Surely it depends on where the insulation is? If the roof is insulated, warm air rising into the attic would warm up the attic. If the roof is not insulated, warm air will rise into the attic and out via the uninsulated roof, meaning the attic wouldn't warm up.

If the attic floor is insulated, then it's almost the opposite - warm air would not readily enter the attic to warm it up.

Hermione_Granger

dunroving wrote: »

Surely it depends on where the insulation is? If the roof is insulated, warm air rising into the attic would warm up the attic. If the roof is not insulated, warm air will rise into the attic and out via the uninsulated roof, meaning the attic wouldn't warm up.

If the attic floor is insulated, then it's almost the opposite - warm air would not readily enter the attic to warm it up.

Even if the inside of the roof is insulated, just about every house will also have insulation on the floor of the attic space. If they didn't then the owners would always be heating up the loft irrespective of the roof insulation.

dunroving

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Even if the inside of the roof is insulated, just about every house will also have insulation on the floor of the attic space. If they didn't then the owners would always be heating up the loft irrespective of the roof insulation.

I got the impression that in the case of the OP, the attic was a room, not a basic storage attic. Why would you insulate the floor of a room? Maybe in the case of an attic conversion, you'd still insulate the floor for some reason, in which case I'm happy to be educated.

(Separate note, but I read a thread the other day with people arguing about whether the correct term was attic or loft. First world problems. ;-))

Doozergirl

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Even if the inside of the roof is insulated, just about every house will also have insulation on the floor of the attic space. If they didn't then the owners would always be heating up the loft irrespective of the roof insulation.

Really? If a loft is a room, you insulate between the rafters. It isn't common historically to insulate between floors as well, certainly not common enough to assume it. There's certainly no requirement for it.

Living in a loft that is insulated from below but not above is definitely an odd thing as it's counterproductive.

FreeBear

dunroving wrote: »

I got the impression that in the case of the OP, the attic was a room, not a basic storage attic. Why would you insulate the floor of a room? Maybe in the case of an attic conversion, you'd still insulate the floor for some reason, in which case I'm happy to be educated.

The OP said the property is a Edwardian building - From this, I'd suggest that the attic space would have originally been servant quarters. Those areas would never have been particularly warm (no point in molly coddling servants). Insulation would be suspect, and certainly something to look at in the near future.

neilmcl

As above, this would probably be an original attic room rather than a loft conversion (after all isn't that what the OP has told us) and as such there probably isn't that much insulation in the roof space and definitely none in the floor.

G_M

Why is the OP not answering about insulation? This is most likely to be the issue - or at least a significant part of the issue.

Is there insulation?
Where? on the attic floor, preventing heat from rising into the attic room? Or in the roof above the attic, holding heat in the attic?
How much insulation and what type?

coffeehound

It might be one of those attics where the roof angles come down on one or two sides. In that case, it's more likely that these sloping sections of ceiling will not be insulated, and just the level section of the ceiling is insulated above.

jaizan

jk0 wrote: »

I don't think the pumps fitted to combi boilers are up to pumping 4 storeys.

The head is balanced, as there is water pressure from 4 floors on both sides of the pump. So the height is of no concern at all. The pump just needs to generate flow.