Central heating in an extremely cold house

Ronniebog74

My heating costs me a fortune to run in winter it gets very cold inside if not on 24 hours a day if you leave the house will go to about 5 or 6 degrees and when it's as low as that it takes the house 24 hours to warm up, the Landlord is not good at keeping his properties up to the standard I don't see any other way of keeping the house warm I have been in the house coming up to my eleventh year and I wanted to move. I would be interested to see if any other people have ideas.

ThisIsWeird

I guess this house is nowhere close to the required insulation levels.

What type of property is it?

Is your rent amount commensurately low?! Ie, does what you save on a cheap rent compensate for the increased bills?

If not, your choices would seem to be (a) move, (b) try and tackle the LL over this, with the aid of your LA (no idea how that will pan out), or (c) try and modify your living space to heat only what's required.

For (c), this will come down to things like, which rooms do you use, and when? Can you shut off the heating in any room that isn't actually required? Can you use things like a heated seat cover?

darrensurrey

"How do you heat an old house with poor energy rating?" will give you the same answer as "I didn't know you had dandruff!"

My focus is on keeping my body warm rather than my house warm. This means that whilst I do use the heating, it's only to stop the pipes bursting so it's set on 9C and when I'm getting ready, it goes up to 13C for 45 minutes (standing by a hot rad when you're wet from having a shower takes the edge off things even if the room is cold).

And when I'm WfH, I just have a hot water bottle on my lap to warm my blood - and in really cold weather I'll stuff it down my front under my gilet and over my jumpers. I also wear a hat and scarf indoors.

Warning: you will probably burn yourself so think before copying me. Ironic, really, considering how cold my house is.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Ronniebog74 said:

My heating costs me a fortune to run in winter it gets very cold inside if not on 24 hours a day if you leave the house will go to about 5 or 6 degrees and when it's as low as that it takes the house 24 hours to warm up, the Landlord is not good at keeping his properties up to the standard I don't see any other way of keeping the house warm I have been in the house coming up to my eleventh year and I wanted to move. I would be interested to see if any other people have ideas.

Our house is old and a fair size, before we insulated it the heat just disappeared as soon the source was turned off, obviously not owning the property means you most likely don't wish to invest in it so you I guess you could either have a look around to see if there are any improvement grants that would apply to your situation (local council might assist with this), check for things you can do at little cost (seal up gas where draughts are getting in, get thermal curtains, possibly not heat the entire house, or at least turn down the heating in unused rooms) or look to move I guess. 

Other option is to ask the landlord to improve the house somewhat, if not already present, loft insulation for example is usually on the cheaper and easier side and can, so they say, save you a few hundred on your bills. 

If the house is damp it'll be harder to heat, as well as avoiding drying clothes on rads, putting lids on pans when cooking, running extraction in bathroom and kitchen if present, you might find a dehumidifier assists as well, with excessive moisture removed from the air it should be cheaper to heat. 

FreeBear

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Ronniebog74 said:

My heating costs me a fortune to run in winter it gets very cold inside if not on 24 hours a day if you leave the house will go to about 5 or 6 degrees and when it's as low as that it takes the house 24 hours to warm up, the Landlord is not good at keeping his properties up to the standard I don't see any other way of keeping the house warm I have been in the house coming up to my eleventh year and I wanted to move. I would be interested to see if any other people have ideas.

Our house is old and a fair size, before we insulated it the heat just disappeared as soon the source was turned off

Was in the same position myself. Old house, difficult to heat. Replaced all the old windows, draught proofed just about everywhere, masses of loft insulation, and now adding wall insulation. With the old boiler (a Baxi Burmuda back boiler), could finally warm the place up. New heating system got installed last year.. But as I own the property, all of this work is an investment to improve my quality of life.

A landlord is only required to spend up to £3500 to improve the energy performance of a property. If this isn't sufficient to raise the EPC to an E, then they can apply for an exemption certificate - That kinda sucks for the tenant, and I'm of the opinion that this £3500 cap should be abolished. Having a place that can't be heated above 5-6°C is not good for health. Condensation would be a serious issue which could lead to health problems. A call to the council's environment health dept might see the LL getting served with an improvement notice. Long term, the real answer is to move to somewhere that has a much better EPC and where the LL stays on to of maintenance & improvements.

darrensurrey

darrensurrey said:

"How do you heat an old house with poor energy rating?" will give you the same answer as "I didn't know you had dandruff!"

My focus is on keeping my body warm rather than my house warm. This means that whilst I do use the heating, it's only to stop the pipes bursting so it's set on 9C and when I'm getting ready, it goes up to 13C for 45 minutes (standing by a hot rad when you're wet from having a shower takes the edge off things even if the room is cold).

And when I'm WfH, I just have a hot water bottle on my lap to warm my blood - and in really cold weather I'll stuff it down my front under my gilet and over my jumpers. I also wear a hat and scarf indoors.

Warning: you will probably burn yourself so think before copying me. Ironic, really, considering how cold my house is.

It's 12C in my office and my tummy is toasty.

NorthernKitty

In the meantime, do what you can do.
When I was in my rental-before last, it was freezing, (North of England) particularly when the boiler died and it didn't get replaced for 10 days so had no heating/hot water. DIdn't help it snowed for a week during this time.
I spent my spare time:
1) Sewing draught excluders from scrap charity shop fabric, with rolled up foam offcuts or fabric wedged inside.
2) Hanging up charity shop fabric/throws/fleece blankets safety pinned together on tension rods and tension wire above doors.
3) Lining my already-lined curtains with fleece fabric. Just used safety pins and clothes pegs. 
4) Put bubble wrap up (just spray with water or use double-sided tape) on windows and an additional fleece over the dormer window in the attic
5) Putting extra draught excluder tape on window frames and doors that already had it.
6) Turning off heater in rooms I wasn't using and just used bedroom and living room, ducking into kitchen for food on occasions.
7) Bathroom had cork bath mat which was briefly warm underfoot. 
8)  Bought extra rugs distributed liberally about the property, including draped over a banister rail that also cut a draught down

 And planned my escape! 
I was so cold (even with jumpers and woolly hats on in bed)  so didn't care less if any visitors thought my decor looked a bit odd. 

I managed to find a flat that was fairly new, insulated, and stayed there before buying my own house which has now got a patchwork quilt cut in half as living room curtains, and B&M fleece blankets on a tension rod above the front door which is keeping a draught out as I type!