Saving heat with carpets?

michael079

markin said:

Are the doors to seal off the kitchen and hall? If so then the rad and carpet would be the cheapest option, And fit draft seals on the doors bottoms.

Just cheap carpet and underlay £12-15 a sqm? Plus fitting £250-400?

Rad is undersized or the room would be 30c! Used a a calculator and it recommended 2 600x 1400,  At 12,053 BTU each

"Room is 17 square metres and 2.64cm height."

Thanks, just to be clear, 2 x 60x140 cm?

I don't know if two that length would fit in the room, I'll need to have a look and measure 

ArbitraryRandom

I know I'm a little late, but I want to second rugs being a really bad idea. Even if the lady in question can only shuffle between a chair and a commode... rugs are a serious fall hazard - and for someone with poor mobility and other health issues, a single fall can be the start of a rapid decline in health and ability to maintain any kind of independence. 

It's not even the edges of the rugs that are the problem and the same issue can be had with carpets (depending on the pile) as the resistance against the foot or slippers can cause a drag that's enough to topple someone over. 

michael079

ArbitraryRandom said:

I know I'm a little late, but I want to second rugs being a really bad idea. Even if the lady in question can only shuffle between a chair and a commode... rugs are a serious fall hazard - and for someone with poor mobility and other health issues, a single fall can be the start of a rapid decline in health and ability to maintain any kind of independence. 

It's not even the edges of the rugs that are the problem and the same issue can be had with carpets (depending on the pile) as the resistance against the foot or slippers can cause a drag that's enough to topple someone over. 

Yeah agreed, however she never walks alone. She is only moved using a Sara Stedy, so rugs wouldn't be good for that either. I'm not even sure how a Sara Stedy would be on a carpet. Trying to find out as I feel that will help a lot

markin

michael079 said:

markin said:

Are the doors to seal off the kitchen and hall? If so then the rad and carpet would be the cheapest option, And fit draft seals on the doors bottoms.

Just cheap carpet and underlay £12-15 a sqm? Plus fitting £250-400?

Rad is undersized or the room would be 30c! Used a a calculator and it recommended 2 600x 1400,  At 12,053 BTU each

"Room is 17 square metres and 2.64cm height."

Thanks, just to be clear, 2 x 60x140 cm?

I don't know if two that length would fit in the room, I'll need to have a look and measure 

 1x 1200 could be fine depending on the room build. But elderly usually need it extra warm at 26c so more is better i say.


But use the calculator yourself.

https://www.stelrad.com/basic-heat-loss-calculator/

Room 4.3 X 4 = 17.2
window 2m?
1 external wall?
Solid double wall?

600 × 1200 mm K2 2078 W / 7095 BTU × 1

Chickereeeee

Largs said:

michael079 said:

FreeBear said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

A carpet and good underlay can truly make a huge difference.  Especially if by wooden floorboards you mean just the bare floor.

I covered the (suspended) timber floor in my lounge with aluminium foil - The extra wide stuff used for cooking your Christmas turkey. On top of that went 5mm woodfibre boards (the stuff used as laminate underlay), followed by 11m foam carpet underlay. The gripper rods around the perimeter of the room had to be screwed down rather than nailed, but this wasn't a difficult task (used 25mm screws). Once the carpet went down, it felt real nice under foot, and the room is so much easier to keep warm. Much of the reason for that is the multiple layers killing any draughts coming up through the gaps in the floorboards.

That sounds great, what a plan. Will the screwing be a lot of extra work for the carpet fitter? 

It would depend on the carpet fitter I suppose.  That example is a bit extreme in my opinion.  A good quality underlay will be fine for covering any "gaps in the floorboards"

Yes, that is a lot of unnecessary  work, but underlay by itself is generally air permeable.  A good, high tog, underlay (we used 10mm ecycled wool) over the thick, brown paper carpet fitters use, is all that is needed. Just nail the gripper rods as normal. Remember to seal the gaps under the skirting boards, of possible.

Another thought - is there an open chimney flue in that room? A LOT  of heat is lost that way.

michael079

Chickereeeee said:

Largs said:

michael079 said:

FreeBear said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

A carpet and good underlay can truly make a huge difference.  Especially if by wooden floorboards you mean just the bare floor.

I covered the (suspended) timber floor in my lounge with aluminium foil - The extra wide stuff used for cooking your Christmas turkey. On top of that went 5mm woodfibre boards (the stuff used as laminate underlay), followed by 11m foam carpet underlay. The gripper rods around the perimeter of the room had to be screwed down rather than nailed, but this wasn't a difficult task (used 25mm screws). Once the carpet went down, it felt real nice under foot, and the room is so much easier to keep warm. Much of the reason for that is the multiple layers killing any draughts coming up through the gaps in the floorboards.

That sounds great, what a plan. Will the screwing be a lot of extra work for the carpet fitter? 

It would depend on the carpet fitter I suppose.  That example is a bit extreme in my opinion.  A good quality underlay will be fine for covering any "gaps in the floorboards"

Yes, that is a lot of unnecessary  work, but underlay by itself is generally air permeable.  A good, high tog, underlay (we used 10mm ecycled wool) over the thick, brown paper carpet fitters use, is all that is needed. Just nail the gripper rods as normal. Remember to seal the gaps under the skirting boards, of possible.

Another thought - is there an open chimney flue in that room? A LOT  of heat is lost that way.

I've been asking around about a Sara Stedy on carpet, a lot of people are telling me it won't work well. So I may have to ditch that idea. Yes there is a open chimney flu, or was, I blocked it with an inflatable chimney blocker. I'm assuming it works