Heat loss assessment 22 January at 4:36PM in Energy 7 replies 412 views

CinderKona

Hi all,
Having previously lived in flats it's been a bit if eye opener moving to a house but one thing is obvious is it's very cold and looses heat very quickly.
Is there any professional that can look into where heat is being lost? Thought about a heating engineer but they may not look into insulation etc.
Thanks 

matelodave

You dont really a professional to tell you where heat gets lost. It's through the walls, windows, roof, floor and because of draughts. So do your own audit of what you've already got rather than paying for someone else to tell you the obvious.

Living in a flat you generally get the benefit of heat from other flats unless you are on the top floor where some gets out through the roof, or the ground floor where its gets conducted into the ground or even on a corner where you've got two outside walls. A house can have two, three or four outside walls, together with more windows and even a couple of doors (front & back)

A house (or even worse a bungalow because they are usually larger) loses a fair proportion of heat through the roof, so the first thing is to put something like 200+ mm of insulation up there. We've got 300mm. Insulating a loft is a relatively easy thing to do and will give you the most benefit for the cost. Everything else starts to cost more money

Depending on the construction of the house, most walls have a cavity which may or may not be insulated. Obviously insulation in the cavity will reduce the amount of heat loss so that's something to be considered however it need to be done properly to avoid damp problems.

Similarly you'll lose a lot more heat through single glazed windows than you will from double or even triple glazed. Even the type of frame can make a difference, UPVC is better than aluminium or even wood. Same with the front and back doors. But again the cost starts to ramp up

You can help mitigate heat loss by closing curtains and reducing or eliminating draughts, even hanging curtains over the front and back doors will help reduce it it. 

markin

Look at the EPC, that will tell you a good amount of info and what could be done.


https://find-energy-certificate.service.gov.uk/find-a-certificate/search-by-postcode?lang=en&property_type=domestic

CinderKona

Odd that the EPC rating for my house is the same as my old flat, which was infinitely warmer.

InvertedVee

CinderKona said:

Odd that the EPC rating for my house is the same as my old flat, which was infinitely warmer.

A few people on here have posted that their EPCs don't seem very accurate.

I actually think a professional service could be helpful. A quick Google Search for 'home energy assessment' or 'home energy audit' shows there are people that  do this.

I'm not sure if the government's Green Deal scheme is actually running. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Mstty

CinderKona said:

Odd that the EPC rating for my house is the same as my old flat, which was infinitely warmer.

What does the EPC specifically say to improve the rating?

Thats a good place to start

FreeBear

InvertedVee said: I'm not sure if the government's Green Deal scheme is actually running. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

The Green Deal is thankfully dead. It offered a poor deal for the home owner, and the only people to really benefit were the assessors and finance providers. The companies doing the work were also charging inflated prices and outsourcing to cheap subbies..

The next scheme in the pipeline isn't going to be ground breaking in its extent or remit - Looks like it is going to concentrate on low cost measures (loft insulation & draught proofing) at elevated prices. I suspect the charlatans are already lining up to get their snouts in the trough.

Might be worth contacting your local council's Warm Home team - They may be able to recommend a local consultant. Or if you are happy to do some of the groundwork, some councils have a thermal imaging camera loan scheme.

CinderKona

Thanks - I'll contact the warm team. Also, in answer to the above, I did go through the recommendations and will follow up but a new combo boiler might be a little excessive when the old one still works fine and the radiators are very warm.