Solutions for cold house

MeteredOut

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

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:

53cm in height , and Type 21 in this room

530mm tall would be an imperial 21 inch radiator, so a type 21 would be 844mm or 946mm wide normally. So somewhere between 1060W-1187W output with a typical boiler flow temperature of 75 degrees at that time.

With a room 5.56x3.84 (total room area of circa 21.4 m2), this would be between 99 W/m2 - 110 W/m2 output. Should be more than capable of achieving a good temperature in that room without any unexpected issues.

If your party walls are ventilated and uninsulated however, then the heat loss will be much higher than expected. Assuming that the 3.84m dimension is the party wall length in the room, then the extra heat loss from this could add an additional 950W to the heat requirement for room.

First I would check that the boiler flow temperature is set high enough - that would normally need to be around 75 degrees on the coldest days for older systems. It's great money saving advice to turn it down on milder days, but you're not going to warm up the house on the colder days unless it's set higher on older systems.

If that doesn't work then you could swap the existing type 21 rads for type 22 rads of the same width/height (Myson still make imperial size radiators which might be a direct replacement without having to modify pipework centres) - that would give an extra 600-700W of heat output. If you have space, you could also make them 690mm high which would give an extra 1200-1400W of heat output. You could experiment by using a 1 kW electric heater in the room for a couple of days to see whether this extra heat output solves the issue.

Thank you so much! Have spoken to local builder and we plan to check the walls in case we can insulate them rather than do the floor (I guess as they are party walls the neighbours might be open to share the cost to insulate?) , and will look into possible better radiators. Thank you for all your advice!!

Unless they are concerned about their heating bills, I can't see many accepting that offer.

ComicGeek

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

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:

53cm in height , and Type 21 in this room

530mm tall would be an imperial 21 inch radiator, so a type 21 would be 844mm or 946mm wide normally. So somewhere between 1060W-1187W output with a typical boiler flow temperature of 75 degrees at that time.

With a room 5.56x3.84 (total room area of circa 21.4 m2), this would be between 99 W/m2 - 110 W/m2 output. Should be more than capable of achieving a good temperature in that room without any unexpected issues.

If your party walls are ventilated and uninsulated however, then the heat loss will be much higher than expected. Assuming that the 3.84m dimension is the party wall length in the room, then the extra heat loss from this could add an additional 950W to the heat requirement for room.

First I would check that the boiler flow temperature is set high enough - that would normally need to be around 75 degrees on the coldest days for older systems. It's great money saving advice to turn it down on milder days, but you're not going to warm up the house on the colder days unless it's set higher on older systems.

If that doesn't work then you could swap the existing type 21 rads for type 22 rads of the same width/height (Myson still make imperial size radiators which might be a direct replacement without having to modify pipework centres) - that would give an extra 600-700W of heat output. If you have space, you could also make them 690mm high which would give an extra 1200-1400W of heat output. You could experiment by using a 1 kW electric heater in the room for a couple of days to see whether this extra heat output solves the issue.

Thank you so much! Have spoken to local builder and we plan to check the walls in case we can insulate them rather than do the floor (I guess as they are party walls the neighbours might be open to share the cost to insulate?) , and will look into possible better radiators. Thank you for all your advice!!

If you have any plug sockets on the party wall, do you feel any draughts coming through the socket when nothing is plugged in? That would give a good indication of whether the party wall cavity is cold and ventilated.

The advice normally wouldn't be to insulate within the party wall cavity, as that could cause issues for both you and your neighbour. But you could insulate internally onto the party walls on your side, which wouldn't affect your neighbour.

F1001

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

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:

53cm in height , and Type 21 in this room

530mm tall would be an imperial 21 inch radiator, so a type 21 would be 844mm or 946mm wide normally. So somewhere between 1060W-1187W output with a typical boiler flow temperature of 75 degrees at that time.

With a room 5.56x3.84 (total room area of circa 21.4 m2), this would be between 99 W/m2 - 110 W/m2 output. Should be more than capable of achieving a good temperature in that room without any unexpected issues.

If your party walls are ventilated and uninsulated however, then the heat loss will be much higher than expected. Assuming that the 3.84m dimension is the party wall length in the room, then the extra heat loss from this could add an additional 950W to the heat requirement for room.

First I would check that the boiler flow temperature is set high enough - that would normally need to be around 75 degrees on the coldest days for older systems. It's great money saving advice to turn it down on milder days, but you're not going to warm up the house on the colder days unless it's set higher on older systems.

If that doesn't work then you could swap the existing type 21 rads for type 22 rads of the same width/height (Myson still make imperial size radiators which might be a direct replacement without having to modify pipework centres) - that would give an extra 600-700W of heat output. If you have space, you could also make them 690mm high which would give an extra 1200-1400W of heat output. You could experiment by using a 1 kW electric heater in the room for a couple of days to see whether this extra heat output solves the issue.

Thank you so much! Have spoken to local builder and we plan to check the walls in case we can insulate them rather than do the floor (I guess as they are party walls the neighbours might be open to share the cost to insulate?) , and will look into possible better radiators. Thank you for all your advice!!

If you have any plug sockets on the party wall, do you feel any draughts coming through the socket when nothing is plugged in? That would give a good indication of whether the party wall cavity is cold and ventilated.

The advice normally wouldn't be to insulate within the party wall cavity, as that could cause issues for both you and your neighbour. But you could insulate internally onto the party walls on your side, which wouldn't affect your neighbour.

I can't really feel much when placing hand over the sockets. I don't want to reduce the space internally - builder suggested putting beaded insulation in the walls?    

FreeBear

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

F1001 said:

ComicGeek said:

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:

53cm in height , and Type 21 in this room

530mm tall would be an imperial 21 inch radiator, so a type 21 would be 844mm or 946mm wide normally. So somewhere between 1060W-1187W output with a typical boiler flow temperature of 75 degrees at that time.

With a room 5.56x3.84 (total room area of circa 21.4 m2), this would be between 99 W/m2 - 110 W/m2 output. Should be more than capable of achieving a good temperature in that room without any unexpected issues.

If your party walls are ventilated and uninsulated however, then the heat loss will be much higher than expected. Assuming that the 3.84m dimension is the party wall length in the room, then the extra heat loss from this could add an additional 950W to the heat requirement for room.

First I would check that the boiler flow temperature is set high enough - that would normally need to be around 75 degrees on the coldest days for older systems. It's great money saving advice to turn it down on milder days, but you're not going to warm up the house on the colder days unless it's set higher on older systems.

If that doesn't work then you could swap the existing type 21 rads for type 22 rads of the same width/height (Myson still make imperial size radiators which might be a direct replacement without having to modify pipework centres) - that would give an extra 600-700W of heat output. If you have space, you could also make them 690mm high which would give an extra 1200-1400W of heat output. You could experiment by using a 1 kW electric heater in the room for a couple of days to see whether this extra heat output solves the issue.

Thank you so much! Have spoken to local builder and we plan to check the walls in case we can insulate them rather than do the floor (I guess as they are party walls the neighbours might be open to share the cost to insulate?) , and will look into possible better radiators. Thank you for all your advice!!

If you have any plug sockets on the party wall, do you feel any draughts coming through the socket when nothing is plugged in? That would give a good indication of whether the party wall cavity is cold and ventilated.

The advice normally wouldn't be to insulate within the party wall cavity, as that could cause issues for both you and your neighbour. But you could insulate internally onto the party walls on your side, which wouldn't affect your neighbour.

I can't really feel much when placing hand over the sockets. I don't want to reduce the space internally - builder suggested putting beaded insulation in the walls?    

Having insulated a couple of walls internally, I doubt very much you will notice a 50-75mm loss of floor space.

The box room here was (nominally) 2.4m x 2.7m, and I've lost ~75mm on both measurements. Have yet to notice it feeling cramped as a result, but the improvement in comfort level sure makes up for it.

F1001

Hi everyone, 
So combi boiler now installed and more insulation in loft so it does feel a bit warmer already I now am considering moving one of the radiators in the living area from an internal wall to a vertical one on the exterior wall (pic below). I also borrowed a thermal imaging camera and the photos showed that actually the concrete floor with barely any insulation doesn't look too bad. I am wondering whether it is poor adhesive application when putting in the plasterboards... Am also getting a new plinth heater as the old one seems busted and only blows out dusty cold air.

Any views on changing and moving the radiator to a vertical one on the external wall? Builder suggests that is always how they should be installed (i.e. on the external wall not internal - is how they do in other cold countries). New builds apparently put them on interior walls because its easier.

Appreciate any thoughts or advice please?

@FreeBear
@ComicGeek

F1001

I should mention that the projections in the left side of the living room are the soil pipe, and a plugged in electric fireplace (which I have now removed). I borrowed a thermal imaging camera and floor and walls don't look that bad - not blue! Front door looks awful, and the bottom of the french doors (can put in extra heavy curtains). 

jonnydeppiwish!

Op, have you checked the seals around the doors? Almost 30 years old so they might benefit from being replaced. Cheap and simple DIY fix and will definitely reduce draughts

F1001

jonnydeppiwish! said:

Op, have you checked the seals around the doors? Almost 30 years old so they might benefit from being replaced. Cheap and simple DIY fix and will definitely reduce draughts

Thanks @jonnydeppiwish! The seals around and esp at the bottom look pretty bad so will look to replace - thanks!