How does anyone retain heat in an Edwardian House?

thedrumdoctor

In 2004 I bought a semi-detached 4-bedroom Edwardian house in need of some modernisation. I ended up having a loft conversion due to its generous roof-space which gave us another 2 rooms plus a bathroom.

As part of the conversion, the roof and loft floor were freshly insulated to the building standards at the time. In fact, the loft rooms are the warmest in the building (heat rising to the top floor and all that) and judging by the unmelted ice on the Velux windows, seem to be retaining the heat at the highest point. The house has double-glazing throughout and a new GCH sealed system was installed with a total of 14 thermostatically controlled radiators. We still have the same (by now inefficient) non-condensing boiler, likely burning more gas than its modern successors.

Condensation has always been a huge problem due to the double glazing and our natural desire to stop heat escaping during the winter. Opening windows has helped but the huge game changer here was an expensive Meac dehumidifier which collects a lot of moisture. But due to the build of the house with its high ceilings and no cavity walls, heat retention is hopeless during the cold times. These houses were designed to be heated one room at a time with an open fire and a constant supply of coal and wood.

'Character', these houses may have, but 'character' doesn't retain heat in the winter. Our energy prices have literally doubled, compared to December 2021. Anyone can imagine the horrific bills I'm on the receiving end of!

I've looked at electric heat pumps but no matter what the efficiency of the system of heating, it all seems a bit futile if your house was never designed with heat-retention as a priority. It seems the only way of stopping heat escaping from an inefficient house 'of character' is to do something to the outside walls. Mine has had its brick exterior rendered at some point in the past, but this has likely been a cosmetic/waterproofing exercise rather than one of heat efficiency.

I'd be interested to hear what other people living in similarly built houses have done to make the best of 100+ year-old builds when trying to retain heat. Right now in January 2023, if it was at all possible (it isn't!), I'd have the building demolished and rebuilt to modern heat-retention standards.

elsien

Do you still use any of the fires, and if not have you got a Chimney Sweep to block some of the draughts from there? Although if you’ve got a condensation problem then that would seem to imply lack of ventilation?

i’ve got a terrace which was built in about 1910. So I suppose in theory I get the heat from either side but it’s only partially double glazed and the front door come straight into the living room so it’s not the warmest at times. At the moment I’m concentrating on trying to deal with the draughts coming up the floor from the air brick, better use of thermal curtains, door curtains et cetera.

Magnitio

Do you have sufficiently large rooms for internal wall insulation? Or would that affect the "character" of the rooms? You might find this of interest:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019707/iwi-guidance.pdf

Novice_investor101

My house is an 1895 mid terraced, typical 2up2down style with tall ceilings etc. my boiler was new 9 years ago & I get insulation of sorts by the houses either side being heated. The warmest room is the spare single bedroom because it has the smallest external wall space & a double glazed window with the radiator underneath. Washing dries overnight in there. It really warms up with the sun shining in, too. 

When the temps have dropped to the current freezing levels & stayed there, the boiler (on its current settings) struggles to get the house warmed up quickly. It’ll go from 13c overnight to 16c pretty quickly then takes an age to get to 18.5c before the thermostat clicks it off. In December I turned the flow temp up to max instead of 70c just to get the building heated up again quickly. The insulation was to code in 2013 when a new roof went on. The frost on the roof doesn’t melt any quicker than other house though. 

The cellar under the lounge & the stone tiles of the kitchen floor seem to be what keeps the downstairs cold. I’m looking forward to the weather warming up next week. 

macman

Everyone's energy bills have doubled since December 2021...and then some.
I'm wondering why you spent out  on replacing 14 rads, but haven't changed the boiler? If it's non- condensing then it's now a minimum of 18 years old. Condensing boilers became mandatory in 2005, so maybe much older than that? Replacing it with a condensing boiler with a decent programmer and weather compensation could well reduce your space heating gas usage by 20% or more. That would get you payback quicker than any other measure you can still take. You won't retain any more heat, but you'll burn a lot less gas.
Assuming the draught proofing is OK, which it probably is if condensation is now a problem, there's not much else you can do with such a property, short of thermal cladding at substantial cost.

BUFF

Out of interest what temperature are you heating to & is that the same in all rooms?
Do you keep internal doors shut so that different spaces are at different temps.?

Unless you can get some form of grant it's unlikely to be cost effective to go with EWI unless you can put up with a likely ROI of 20+ years. (& that's assuming that you aren't prevented from doing so by being listed or conservation area)

as macman says a good condensing boiler & modern controls properly installed & run will make a significant difference to gas consumption especially if you are willling to make a few behavioural changes as well.

mumf

We are in a1904 terrace. Like others ,we have neighbours,and on one side one can feel the heat from their radiator (s) on the wall. That’s good! We have good loft insulation,double glazing. We also,unlike many of our neighbours,have carpets and curtains. Not laminate floors and blinds. It makes a difference. We also have rooms with doors! Many neighbours are ‘open plan’ which ain’t easy to heat! Our doors have draught exclusion and ‘sausage dogs’ too. We are all electric,along with two solid fuel stoves. That is excellent. We heat what we need. No point in heating rooms you ain’t in. And before any comments,our bathroom based water supply is digitally set to to stay warm enough so it won’t freeze. 

Another thing about ALL houses too : folks need to wear clothes!  The neighbour who heats that wall of ours is a fitness / bodybuilder. Only wears shorts and t shirt,then moans about bills! My wife has colleagues like that too. 

justwhat

You pull it apart and insulate. Even doing just floor insulation helps.

I have lived in a few period houses. In my opinion they are not built for the way we live today. So you need to either alter them or change your lifestyle.

Most in the past were heated with dry heat and the house was allowed too breath. These 2 things don't sit well with many peoples life styles.
High percentage of the heat is wasted by todays standards. 

What you have done with the attic conversion needs done in whole house and you may have condensation problems, unless addressed.

Raxiel

Our house is nowhere near as old (1950's) but it's an odd, prefab construction with (originally) a single skin of precast concrete downstairs and a timber frame upstairs, plaster inside, roof tiles outside, and a very thin layer of rockwool in-between.

The precast was replaced with an insulated cavity brick/block wall 20 years ago, but the upstairs still had nothing but that 70 year old thin layer of deteriorating rockwool.

We got internal insulation fitted this last summer. They added 62mm board (50mm insulation) to all the external faces.

Its made quite a difference to the temperature in these cold snaps. It used to be that downstairs was consistently warmer, despite heat rising, but now that's reversed and we use a lot less gas. It also blunted the impact of the heatwaves last summer which was a blessing.

Of course, it did result in a reduction in the internal volume of the rooms, but properly decorated you really don't notice it. We paid a bit extra to have the old board stripped off so the frame and old insulation could be inspected, as well as allowing me to run Ethernet throughout the house, but in retrospect it wasn't really necessary.

FreeBear

thedrumdoctor said: I'd be interested to hear what other people living in similarly built houses have done to make the best of 100+ year-old builds when trying to retain heat.

Not quite 100 year old property here. What I have done is replaced all the windows/doors with well fitted DG units. Gone round plugging all the draughts as/when I find them (between skirting & floorboards in particular). Slowly insulating the solid brick walls as I decorate each room - Even in the smallest room, the loss of 75mm of floor space is not noticeable. The only "period" feature to retain is the picture rails, skirting, and window/door architraves, so easy enough to remove & reinstate.

Unused fire places in the bedrooms got bricked up a long time ago, and having a stove in the lounge has made a big difference.

thedrumdoctor

elsien said:

Do you still use any of the fires, and if not have you got a Chimney Sweep to block some of the draughts from there? Although if you’ve got a condensation problem then that would seem to imply lack of ventilation?

All the fires have long been blocked up. We have a gas fire in one with the necessary vent in the chimney stack.

Condensation is indeed, down to lack of ventilation - though we had lots of new air-bricks installed when we bought the house because we had to have the floorboards on the ground floor replaced because of wet-rot (caused by condensation. We also had air-bricks put in the chimney flue parts of the gable-end because that side of the house got really damp. The condensation is 100% down to the double-glazing and years of being reluctant to open windows in the winter months. However, our Meaco de-humidifier has made a huge difference.