Heat loss from home

erm28

Hello

Excuse me if this is obvious, but I’m looking for some advice on house heat loss. We bought our two bed, mid terrace house in March of this year and this is the first time we’ve put the heating on and realised that there’s an issue!

We’ve had the heating on the past couple of days and within a couple of hours, the temperature has dropped. For example, this morning the heating was on for 3 hours, set at 20 degrees and I’m sitting here now cold with the temperature showing 13 degrees. We 
have electric radiators which have been set to 18-20 degrees for 4-7 hours per day, split between morning and evening. 

All window vents are shut and we added extra insulation into the loft when we moved in, so I can’t imagine that we’re losing as much heat as we are through the loft. The only thing I can think of is that the heat is being lost through the doors (we have an open plan living/kitchen space) and or the windows? Please can someone advise how we can figure this out, and how to fix the issue?

Not only is it important that we’re not wasting money on electric, but we have a 9 week old baby who needs to be kept warm.

Thank you in advance.

kimwp

Houses generally aren't insulated enough to retain the heat inside (unless you've got one specifically built for this purpose with thick walls.) The air in most houses is completely refreshed something like eight times an hour. You'll be losing heat through the loft, the walls, the floor, as well as windows and doors. 

Blocking drafts under doors, putting thick curtains over windows and doors will help though. 

ThisIsWeird

erm28 said:

Excuse me if this is obvious, but I’m looking for some advice on house heat loss. We bought our two bed, mid terrace house in March of this year and this is the first time we’ve put the heating on and realised that there’s an issue!
We’ve had the heating on the past couple of days and within a couple of hours, the temperature has dropped. For example, this morning the heating was on for 3 hours, set at 20 degrees and I’m sitting here now cold with the temperature showing 13 degrees. We 
have electric radiators which have been set to 18-20 degrees for 4-7 hours per day, split between morning and evening.

All window vents are shut and we added extra insulation into the loft when we moved in, so I can’t imagine that we’re losing as much heat as we are through the loft. The only thing I can think of is that the heat is being lost through the doors (we have an open plan living/kitchen space) and or the windows? Please can someone advise how we can figure this out, and how to fix the issue?
Not only is it important that we’re not wasting money on electric, but we have a 9 week old baby who needs to be kept warm.

Hi erm.

More info, please;

1) Make and model of boiler

2) Ditto for the controls - room thermostat, etc

3) Do the radiators actually become 'hot'? If so, how hot? Can you keep your hands on them? If so, for how long?

4) How many rads are there in the room concerned? What size are they? Could you post the plan of the house showing these rooms - taken from your sales partics - and add where the rads are, please? And perhaps add pics of all the rads.

5) Any idea what type of floor construction you have - is it suspended timber, or solid?

6) Age of house?

7) Are the other rooms - say the bedrooms - ok? Do they heat up as required?

Thanks.

EssexHebridean

Exact details of your heating system are going to be a key thing here I think - I'm really hoping that you don't have either an electric wet system, or electric panel heaters of the alleged "magic dust" fallacy type... 

One easy win for heat loss though - as son as it gets dark, go round the house and close all blinds, pull all curtains. If you have curtains that hang over radiators, then as long as by "radiators" you do mean the traditional central heating style ones, tuck the curtains behind them. If we are talking panel heaters, see if you can tuck the curtains up on to the window sill instead. 

Go round doors and windows feeling for draughts - and any you find can then be dealt with. 

Open plan certainly can be harder to heat, although it's not always the case - our downstairs is mostly open plan and we don't have too many issues, but that is with decent insulation. 

ComicGeek

Terraced houses built between circa 1950-2010 lose large amounts of heat through the party walls, as they are typically ventilated cavity party walls with zero insulation. A mid terrace house has an even bigger problem with this, as they have large areas of party walls. Quite often the installed heating system isn't large enough to deal with this.

This could be up to 30% of total heat loss, before you look at external walls, windows, door, roof, ventilation, air leaks etc.

People might think that a mid terraced house is going to be lovely and warm as it steals heat from its neighbours - but that's not the case with a particular era of construction.

FreeBear

Niece has herself a 2 bed Victorian terrace and manages to keep it fairly warm. I myself have a late 1920s semi that was always difficult to heat. In recent years, have spent quite a bit making improvements where I can. The old windows (1970s vintage), despite being double glazed sealed units were absolute [redacted]. Very poorly fitted, with huge gaps across the top of the bedroom windows. Replaced all the windows and exterior doors with modern uPVC ones and ensured all gaps were properly sealed. Place is so much easier to heat now. Also been adding insulation to the walls - Difficult to guage just how much of an improvement the extra insulation has made, but every little bit helps.

In your situation, the two things to look for are cold draughts around the perimeter of the room - If you have suspended timber floors, there is probably a gap behind the skirting letting cold air in.

Windows & doors - Single glazed sash windows are really bad if you want to keep heat in. Double glazed sash need regular maintenance, especially around the sealing brushes. uPVC and timber framed casements sometimes need slight adjustments. In all cases, if there is condensation inside a sealed unit, it should be replaced.

onomatopoeia99

Best way is to keep as much of the heat you generate in as possible.

You want minimum 275mm of the fibreglass roll type insulation in the loft. If you haven't topped it up to that, do so.

Are your external walls (front and back presumably as a mid-terrace) single skin or cavity? If they are cavity, look at having them filled with insulation if not already done. Insulating single skin walls is more expensive and disruptive but can be done DIY at the cost of some internal space, or externally which ismore expensive.

Windows and doors - are the windows double glazed?  If not, you're just pumping the heat out.  Same with external doors if they're very old. My house had a type 10 from about 1950 with a big single glazed pane of glass for a front door when I moved in, replacing it with a fully insulated 77mm thick steel door made a huge difference (was £££££ though).  Internal doors and being open plan aren't relevant unless you want to keep parts of the house colder than others.

Then there's the floor, which is massively disruptive and expensive to insulate if it's a concrete slab.  Really the last stop as the benefit is so small compared to the cost.

You mention electric radiators?  Do you mean storage radiators?  If so, are you on an Economy Seven type tariff?  Do you have a gas supply?  If you are using electric for heating, consider a heat pump.

Albermarle

More info, please;

1) Make and model of boiler

I suspect there is no boiler.

 We 
have electric radiators which have been set to 18-20 degrees for 4-7 hours per day, split between morning and evening. 

chrisw

It can't be too bad if you've only just put the heating on since March! The fabric of the building will be cold now so it might take a while to get the building warmed up and acting as a bit of a thermal store which might make it start to feel a bit warmer in there.

twopenny

"the two things to look for are cold draughts around the perimeter of the room - If you have suspended timber floors, there is probably a gap behind the skirting letting cold air in" - I had this in my lovely old house. I blocked the drafts and it made a huge difference.

It's a longish, fiddley job and not that exciting so put some entertainment on while you do it.

Also if you have a huge open space that's going to take some heating. Also as said, if it's only just gone on you need to furnishings and walls to take up the heat too.

A lot of things that are desirable by fashion like high ceilings and open plan don't take into account every day heating and cleaning. That;s why in the past it was more smaller rooms which you could shut off and heat well. Today, lower ceilings is a bonus too.

housebuyer143

erm28 said:

Hello

Excuse me if this is obvious, but I’m looking for some advice on house heat loss. We bought our two bed, mid terrace house in March of this year and this is the first time we’ve put the heating on and realised that there’s an issue!

We’ve had the heating on the past couple of days and within a couple of hours, the temperature has dropped. For example, this morning the heating was on for 3 hours, set at 20 degrees and I’m sitting here now cold with the temperature showing 13 degrees. We 
have electric radiators which have been set to 18-20 degrees for 4-7 hours per day, split between morning and evening. 

All window vents are shut and we added extra insulation into the loft when we moved in, so I can’t imagine that we’re losing as much heat as we are through the loft. The only thing I can think of is that the heat is being lost through the doors (we have an open plan living/kitchen space) and or the windows? Please can someone advise how we can figure this out, and how to fix the issue?

Not only is it important that we’re not wasting money on electric, but we have a 9 week old baby who needs to be kept warm.

Thank you in advance.

I suspect you are not heating it enough. 

I put my heating on in this weather 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon and my house heats to about 19 degrees and then drops to about 16-17 and stays there. My house has new windows and doors, a new boiler, 400mm loft insulation and cavity wall. I sealed every draft I could find and even with all this unless I heat it more those are the temps i get, with the kitchen being the coldest room. 

If you have sealed all the drafts then next would be to check the insulation. 

I used to live in a mid terrace and it was absolutely freezing and as soon as the heating went off it was icy cold. I suspect it had little to no insulation and had single glazed windows.