Solutions for cold house

jvjack

Does the 'ground floor diner lounge' reach 20/21 degrees ?  
Edit; removed my question about the living room realizing its a diner and lounge together.
Was just wondering if there has been enough time to warm up the room with the heating.
But laminate flooring advice looks good.
 

Rosa_Damascena

I find laminate to be very uncomfortable. Get a good sized rug and your problems will be sorted instantly without troubling your thermostat. You'll be able to find something decent on the second hand market I am sure.

F1001

twopenny said:

Is there a void under the floor as per older houses?
Is there any insulation under the laminate?
What direction n,s,e,w does the room face?

I'm not sure what's underneath I still need to find a board or something to pull up (that I can put back). The room faces East and doesn't get a lot of light fully through to the back of the room so will always be a little bit colder than other rooms I guess. I was hoping the morning sun would help with some of the heating but the neighbour's extension has ruled that out!

The house was built by Barratts in 1997 in case anyone knows whether they would have added insulation at the time?

F1001

jvjack said:

Does the 'ground floor diner lounge' reach 20/21 degrees ?  
Edit; removed my question about the living room realizing its a diner and lounge together.
Was just wondering if there has been enough time to warm up the room with the heating.
But laminate flooring advice looks good.
 

Thanks - yes i've had the heating on for hours and it is never getting warm enough - warmer but not warm enough. Have put the thermostat up to 24 degrees just to check and still same issue. 

ComicGeek

F1001 said:

twopenny said:

Is there a void under the floor as per older houses?
Is there any insulation under the laminate?
What direction n,s,e,w does the room face?

I'm not sure what's underneath I still need to find a board or something to pull up (that I can put back). The room faces East and doesn't get a lot of light fully through to the back of the room so will always be a little bit colder than other rooms I guess. I was hoping the morning sun would help with some of the heating but the neighbour's extension has ruled that out!

The house was built by Barratts in 1997 in case anyone knows whether they would have added insulation at the time?

At that time they built cavity party walls between terrace houses, but didn't insulate them - so outside air circulates between the houses, virtually making the uninsulated party walls act like external walls in terms of heat loss. That was never factored into heating calculations for sizing radiators, so a lot of larger ground floor rooms like yours have undersized radiators - there's probably a lot of party walls in your layout, compared to first floor bedrooms above, so has much more of an impact.

If you post some information on the size of room and size/type of current installed radiators, that can be checked.

F1001

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

twopenny said:

Is there a void under the floor as per older houses?
Is there any insulation under the laminate?
What direction n,s,e,w does the room face?

I'm not sure what's underneath I still need to find a board or something to pull up (that I can put back). The room faces East and doesn't get a lot of light fully through to the back of the room so will always be a little bit colder than other rooms I guess. I was hoping the morning sun would help with some of the heating but the neighbour's extension has ruled that out!

The house was built by Barratts in 1997 in case anyone knows whether they would have added insulation at the time?

At that time they built cavity party walls between terrace houses, but didn't insulate them - so outside air circulates between the houses, virtually making the uninsulated party walls act like external walls in terms of heat loss. That was never factored into heating calculations for sizing radiators, so a lot of larger ground floor rooms like yours have undersized radiators - there's probably a lot of party walls in your layout, compared to first floor bedrooms above, so has much more of an impact.

If you post some information on the size of room and size/type of current installed radiators, that can be checked.

Ah I thought being a mid-terrace I might be warmer being surrounded on both sides! The room is 5.56 x 3.84 , there are two radiators about 90 cm long with front panel and grill - one near the french doors to the garden near the stairs, and one at the back of the room. Not sure how to upload a floorplan :S

F1001

Another related question - I am changing the boiler for the house to a combi - at the moment there is a Baxi system boiler with pump but the hot water pressure is awful and I want to use the space in the loft and airing cupboard that is taken up by tank and storage cylinder, so was suggested a 28KW combi using the online heating calculators. Given its a small 2 bed 2 bath house - both bedrooms have ensuites, a downstairs cloakroom, <10 radiators in total, is 28KW combi boiler too big? It's the # of showers that is suggesting the larger size boiler - am not too worried about both showers being used at the same time so would 26kw be ok?    

ComicGeek

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

twopenny said:

Is there a void under the floor as per older houses?
Is there any insulation under the laminate?
What direction n,s,e,w does the room face?

I'm not sure what's underneath I still need to find a board or something to pull up (that I can put back). The room faces East and doesn't get a lot of light fully through to the back of the room so will always be a little bit colder than other rooms I guess. I was hoping the morning sun would help with some of the heating but the neighbour's extension has ruled that out!

The house was built by Barratts in 1997 in case anyone knows whether they would have added insulation at the time?

At that time they built cavity party walls between terrace houses, but didn't insulate them - so outside air circulates between the houses, virtually making the uninsulated party walls act like external walls in terms of heat loss. That was never factored into heating calculations for sizing radiators, so a lot of larger ground floor rooms like yours have undersized radiators - there's probably a lot of party walls in your layout, compared to first floor bedrooms above, so has much more of an impact.

If you post some information on the size of room and size/type of current installed radiators, that can be checked.

Ah I thought being a mid-terrace I might be warmer being surrounded on both sides! The room is 5.56 x 3.84 , there are two radiators about 90 cm long with front panel and grill - one near the french doors to the garden near the stairs, and one at the back of the room. Not sure how to upload a floorplan :S

How tall are the radiators?

What type of radiator is it - typically 3 types as below:

ComicGeek

F1001 said:

Another related question - I am changing the boiler for the house to a combi - at the moment there is a Baxi system boiler with pump but the hot water pressure is awful and I want to use the space in the loft and airing cupboard that is taken up by tank and storage cylinder, so was suggested a 28KW combi using the online heating calculators. Given its a small 2 bed 2 bath house - both bedrooms have ensuites, a downstairs cloakroom, <10 radiators in total, is 28KW combi boiler too big? It's the # of showers that is suggesting the larger size boiler - am not too worried about both showers being used at the same time so would 26kw be ok?    

A modern combi would be a good solution IMO. The heat from the boiler feeding the radiators modulates down to the required output, so no problem that it's larger. Personally I wouldn't put anything smaller than a 30kW combi into a property, regardless of number of showers, as it needs to provide sufficient hot water flow in winter when the incoming water main is much colder to start with.

FreeBear

When specifying combi boilers, you need to first look at the flow rate of your cold water. If you have a low flow rate (say less than 10l/min), a 24-28KW combi may be sufficient. With a 14l/min flow, you'd probably want to look as a 32KW or even a 35KW boiler.

The next step is to measure up the radiators and total the output - This will give you the maximum demand for the central heating, which will be much lower than you need for hot water. Once you have found a boiler that will fulfill the maximum demands, make a note of the minimum output - The lower the better for two reasons. a) When the heating is ticking over, it won't be short cycling which means better reliability. b) Many (most ?) boilers are more efficient when running at part load.

When I replaced an old Baxi back boiler (~12KW) earlier in the year, I chose a Viessmann 050 30KW model. With a 10l/min cold water flow rate, this boiler has plenty of oomph, and will modulate down to 3.2KW for heating. Got around 10KW of radiators, but for much of the time, the boiler is running at 12-15% of capacity. Not seen it short cycling, so is well matched to the heat load. I'd also taken the opportunity to replace most of the radiators (increasing the size by 30-50%), and run at a much reduced flow temperature. Data from the boiler is being recorded so I can chart what it is doing and attempt to see if it can be made any more efficient.