Cold room - Move radiator?

cpbackhouse

Hi

We have a bedroom which we are hoping to move my daughter into but it's often quite cold and I'm trying to see what I can do to improve that.

The layout is below. It has 2 external walls, though one has some eaves storage as a buffer first. Part of the room is an extension with a sloping roof. 




The 2 things I am thinking about are the insulation in the extended part of the room and the radiator.
The wall to the eaves storage area is always cold to the touch and the insulation is just relatively thin layer of rock wool style insulation. My plan was to pull that out and insulate it with solid board style insulation. Given the other "interesting" work we have uncovered around the house I would guess the same is true for the sloping roof area. We are thinking of putting a Velux style window in the room as its quite dark. Would the gains be worth pulling the ceiling down and swapping out the insulation if we find rock wool type insulation when we do the work?

I was also thinking about the radiator. Its currently an old 1100mm(ish) single panel radiator with no fins. I was thinking at minimum of looking to see if I could swap it out for a type 21 radiator (first checking we have capacity on our boiler). The other thing I was wondering about though was the position of the radiator under the sloped part of the roof. Would there be any benefit in moving the radiator to another position in the bedroom? The floor creaks unbelievably and if its anything like the other bedrooms in the house I'm expecting to find a bad jigsaw of chipboard under the carpet. So as I'm half planning on having to replace the floor anyway, moving the radiator to a better position would be doable if it would make a difference. 

Thanks for your help

Phil4432

Double rad closer to the window should do it. 

ThisIsWeird

cpbackhouse said:

Hi

We have a bedroom which we are hoping to move my daughter into but it's often quite cold and I'm trying to see what I can do to improve that.

The layout is below. It has 2 external walls, though one has some eaves storage as a buffer first. Part of the room is an extension with a sloping roof. 




The 2 things I am thinking about are the insulation in the extended part of the room and the radiator.
The wall to the eaves storage area is always cold to the touch and the insulation is just relatively thin layer of rock wool style insulation. My plan was to pull that out and insulate it with solid board style insulation. Given the other "interesting" work we have uncovered around the house I would guess the same is true for the sloping roof area. We are thinking of putting a Velux style window in the room as its quite dark. Would the gains be worth pulling the ceiling down and swapping out the insulation if we find rock wool type insulation when we do the work?

I was also thinking about the radiator. Its currently an old 1100mm(ish) single panel radiator with no fins. I was thinking at minimum of looking to see if I could swap it out for a type 21 radiator (first checking we have capacity on our boiler). The other thing I was wondering about though was the position of the radiator under the sloped part of the roof. Would there be any benefit in moving the radiator to another position in the bedroom? The floor creaks unbelievably and if its anything like the other bedrooms in the house I'm expecting to find a bad jigsaw of chipboard under the carpet. So as I'm half planning on having to replace the floor anyway, moving the radiator to a better position would be doable if it would make a difference. 

Thanks for your help

When you go in to the eaves storage, what can you see?

Look at the back of the 'ashlar' wall where the door is - is it boarded on the other side too, or can you see what insulation is there? When you look up when inside the eaves space, is the the sloping roof open at the top of that low wall? Can you see up between the sloping ceiling and the actual roof?

Anyhoo, as you have clearly sussed, the key word is 'insulation'. 

If you are going to fit a 'Velux', then wait until then and take down that section of sloping ceiling plasterboard - this will barely be any extra work for the builder, and it might even make it easier for them. Once down, you will see what depth of rafter you have; you must leave a min 50mm ventilation space against the underside of the roof, but that might still allow some amount of rigid insulation board to be fitted in between the rafters, and you should also add another layer over that before the new p'board. 

How much to add? If you fit, say, 2" of Celotex-type insulation, it'll simply transform the insulation value of the ceiling. Anything you add above this will help further, but less so, and you'll lose headroom. Your call.

Then there's the ashlar wall itself. That should be a doddle to add insulation to.

Then there's the Biggie - the external walls. Simplest way is to add insulated p'board, again with 2" showing a dramatic improvement, more than this being better, but with a resulting loss of room space. Your call.

And then there's the floor, which you will be checking out in any case. Here, the main culprit is draughts, so an easy solution is to line the floor (after screwing down the squeaky boards) with insulated fibreboard (as used for laminate underlay), sealed at all edges. This will give a useful level of added insulation, but more importantly will seal off any draughts. Once you add underlay and carpet, it should be fine.

With these improvements, you may find the current rad's output is adequate, but consider moving it in to the main room area. I'd be tempted to fit a nice, tall column rad to the other side of that 'pillar', and make it a feature. Mind you, once you've insulated that external wall, the 'pillar' will no longer exist :-)

cpbackhouse

Thanks .... interesting when I'm in the eaves space (I just fit through that door!) I'm not convinced there's any gap to the to the underside of the roof. It may just be the way they have built the wall though I guess. Might just have to wait and see.

The sloped ceiling and little wall definitely feel cooler than main brick exterior walls normally.

ThisIsWeird

Do you know what the construction of the external wall is? Cavity? CWI? Inside surface p'board or plastered?

ThisIsWeird

cpbackhouse said:

Thanks .... interesting when I'm in the eaves space (I just fit through that door!) I'm not convinced there's any gap to the to the underside of the roof. It may just be the way they have built the wall though I guess. Might just have to wait and see.

The sloped ceiling and little wall definitely feel cooler than main brick exterior walls normally.

When you look at the 'roof' from inside the eaves space, what do you see? Bare rafters and 'felt', or is it smooth boarded? 

diystarter7

Hiya OP

Simple solution would be using a good heat reflector and a large as possible shelf over the top of the rad to decipate hear

Thanks

Doozergirl

I think we can imagine that the insulation up there isn't to scratch.   I think ThisIsWeird has got those questions pretty much covered but it is where most heat will be lost and so if you are prepared to create an envelope around that room - down the eaves and also inside the upstand, it will make a difference. 

In the meantime, your radiator is almost certainly undersized and old, so potentially full of muck and not working efficiently at all. 

There is a good webpage here to calculate and recommend the size of radiator you should have and it gives you options depending on the insulation in the room.    

https://www.bestheating.com/btu-calculator?gclid=CjwKCAiA3KefBhByEiwAi2LDHJrwTcTRayAJDcdwVDUEXwzkaOpdpJw3GHPMPaq0_8G7IEIH9RvavRoCv-YQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I don't think moving the rad will
make nearly as much difference as a better radiator, which is likely to be a cheaper job anyway! 

ComicGeek

What is it like in the summer when it's hot? No point doing lots of work and not tackling any over heating issues in summer.

cpbackhouse

Thanks all

The house is from 1988 so its a standard brick with cavity walls and there is an attempt at insulation in the cavity that I spotted when I was fitting an extractor hood in the kitchen last year.

There is just felt to the roof, no boarding when I look in the eaves space.

Thanks for the link, Doozergirl, I will check it out. When my Mum comes to stay we add an oil filled radiator in the room and it has generally been fine for her so I might be over thinking it all. Maybe a little better insulation and a better bigger radiator is all we need.

In the Summer it can get pretty hot but fortunately (not shown on my plan) there is an en suite that has a velux type window in it and opening that and the main window cools the room really quickly. Hoping that with a new velux in the bedroom it should be nice and cool in the Summer, thanks.

greensalad

Doozergirl said:

I think we can imagine that the insulation up there isn't to scratch.   I think ThisIsWeird has got those questions pretty much covered but it is where most heat will be lost and so if you are prepared to create an envelope around that room - down the eaves and also inside the upstand, it will make a difference. 

In the meantime, your radiator is almost certainly undersized and old, so potentially full of muck and not working efficiently at all. 

There is a good webpage here to calculate and recommend the size of radiator you should have and it gives you options depending on the insulation in the room.    

https://www.bestheating.com/btu-calculator?gclid=CjwKCAiA3KefBhByEiwAi2LDHJrwTcTRayAJDcdwVDUEXwzkaOpdpJw3GHPMPaq0_8G7IEIH9RvavRoCv-YQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I don't think moving the rad will
make nearly as much difference as a better radiator, which is likely to be a cheaper job anyway! 

Learn from my mistake with that calculator and bulk up those numbers. We used it for selecting our rads and I basically went with the closest rad for each BTU. I really wish I'd gone way over. You can always turn the TRVs down. But a lot of our rads feel quite undersized in terms of heat output. 

We survived this winter, so probably not worth changing now, but if I could go back I'd up them all to the next size up from the BTU recommendation.