Advice on warming up a home

carolinevw

Hi all, 

I live in a 1930s three-bedroom detached property. In summer the property is absolutely fine but in winter it's really cold. We have no cavity wall To insulate. The property is double glazed throughout . I'm just fed up with the house been so cold and I really don't know what to do. I've been up in the attic but unfortunately it's boarded out so it is really difficult to see what insulation we actually have up there. Just wondering if anybody might be able to help me and give me some ideas as to what I can do to warm the house up as I'm really at my wits end. I'm at the point where I'm wondering whether it might be best just to move next year! We are currently using £60 a month gas to try and warm the property up and that's just having it on for a few hours in the evening the rest the time the house is freezing. Soon as the heating goes off within a couple of hours it's cold and my daughters bedrooms are going down to below 15° at night. 

neilmcl

Unfortunately this time of year you're going to need the heating on more than a "few hours of the evening". With solids walls the heat is always going to dissipate fairly quickly, all you can do is slow it down somewhat by keeping doors closed, drafts to a minimum, insulate where you can, you could always try insulating the roof space between the rafters. The house dropping to 15 degrees at night isn't really an issue if you're all tucked up under a cosy duvet, especially if you have the heating come on just before you get up.

rob7475

We live in a 1920's house and have similar issues. You just learn to live with it. Our heating is going most of the day during winter. However, what I've done is fit a Tado smart thermostat that uses geofencing to turn things down when we're out. It also regulates the temperature of the boiler to 3 different levels. The boiler runs at a lower heat a lot of the time which keeps the temperature steady at around 21.5. The only time it fires up fully is when the heating comes on first thing in a morning. Our gas usage for the last month was around £60 but we also have a gas hob which is used a lot.

Only advice I can give is to make sure your radiators are sized correctly and are heating up properly. If it's an old heating system, it could be a one pipe system which will take a lot longer to heat up so worth checking that out too.

FreeBear

Late 1920s semi. Part cavity wall, part solid brick. Also a vintage Baxi back boiler to heat the place. Not the best combination for a warm house....

Insulate the loft - A minimum of 200mm, 300mm is better. Make sure the insulation goes right to the edges so that you don't have any cold spot around the perimeter.

Draughts - Plug them as best you can. The small gap between skirting and floorboards is often a source of a cold draught. A foam applicator gun and a can of expanding foam will seal that gap - You only need a thin bead of foam which is much easier to put down with a gun. Check round the windows for draughts as well.

Any unused fireplaces ? Plug the chimneys with a balloon, chimney sheep, or old duvet wrapped in a plastic bag.

Heating - Fit a smart control. One that allows you to have different temperatures throughout the day. My "smart" control is set for a base temperature of 17°C all day & night. 20°C from about 9AM, rising to 21°C in the evening. Gas bill is currently around £30 per month. Also have a multifuel stove in the lounge which helps to boost the temperature.

Longer term, and more expensive options - Wall insulation. I'm fitting 50-75mm of insulation internally on the solid brick walls, taking the ceilings down, and adding yet more insulation. It is debatable whether insulating the ceilings on the ground floor is worthwhile, but a roll of fibreglass is cheap enough. Upstairs, I can ensure that the periphery is well insulated.. Done the walls in one room so far, and it has made a noticeable difference to the temperature in there. No more damp cold walls, and even on a cold night, the temperature is above 18°C. My budget is £1K per room doing much of the work myself. This includes new windows, insulation, plasterboard, and plastering all walls & ceiling.

The biggest and most expensive improvement has been the multifuel stove, but I feel it a worthwhile expense, and have a steady supply of cheap wood.

greyteam1959

The loft is boarded out you say ??
Chances are that the insulation, IF there

is any, is nowhere near thick enough.
Lay some more on top of the boards, 300 mm or more cheap easy DIY fix.

SameOldRoundabout

We live in an 1890s end of terrace, solid walls, double glazed (except original single glazed sashes in the living room) and insulated in the attic. The heating warms it up nicely in a couple of hours but the temperature plummets as soon as it goes off. I don’t really want to pay to heat the entire house while it’s just me working from home, or when the kids are in bed in the evening, so we fitted a log burner. It’s brilliant. The living room is toasty and it’s pretty cheap to run (we have free wood from work so only buy approx 50% of the logs/heat logs we would need otherwise, but Home Bargains etc sell very reasonable log bags at £3.99 for 10kg, which probably lasts a week or 2)

EssexExile

Most people in a house like that would have the heating on all day, many would have it on 24/7 as it takes so long to warm up once it is cold.

RelievedSheff

It doesn't sound like you are leaving your heating on long enough to heat the house through. It takes a long time to heat the fabric of the building from cold. Your boiler will be running full chat to try to heat the house. You may well find that it is cheaper to run the heating for longer but at a slightly cooler temperature on the thermostat. Once the house has warmed through the boiler will throttle back.

Jeepers_Creepers

£60 a month on gas during Winter is not a lot. It's probably less than average, since an annual gas bill will be around £600 and a lot less is used during the rest of the year. Basically, expect to pay £100+ a month during cold climes, and £30 pm when the heating isn't needed - something like that.

Cutting down draughts is the cheapest and most effective solution if this is part of the cause - it certainly is in our 1939 house. Can't be bovvered doing it now, but I wish I'd sealed all the floorboard joists and under the skirtings with frame sealant when we first moved in - my son's bedroom is a constant source of draught to the rest of the house, and that's with new double-glazing...

Also as said before, if you have an open chimney (we do, and it's pretty obvious it's what draws air from the rest of the house - but we do light fires so don't want to block it) then buy a whatsit to seal it off temporarily. Or shove an old squashy pillow (firmly tied to a string) up there. 

comeandgo

You have gas heating, one of the cheapest ways to heat a house, why are you restricting the times it is on and being cold?  Put it on and leave it on, adjust the thermostat to whether you are in or not.  Would it be so bad if your gas bill doubles for a few months?

maisie_cat

We had a 1930s detached with solid 9" walls, suspended ground floor and uninsulated loft. We insulated the loft, 100mm between the joists and 200 over, reduced storage but worked well. We insulated inside the brick walls with celotex and plasterboarded over. We also insulated the ground floor between the joists, then underlay and new flooring.
That lot made a lot of difference, but after that the biggest difference was persuading my husband to wear a fleece and trousers in the house rather than shorts and t shirt then complaining about the cold. We had the thermostat set to 15 degrees on constant and I thought it was quite comfortable.
We now live in a stone cottage with no central heating, so glad I trained him!.