Freezing house | How to improve heat

Arsenal2019

gzoom said:

Arsenal2019 said:

Please see above 

If your Hive readings are right your house is losing up to 1 degrees a hour, maybe even 2 when the inside temperature is high. Not sure what the outside temperature was when you did the Hive screen shots but in our kitchen, which is double height and has loads of glazing when it's zero outside, heat loss is about 0.5 degree per hour, so almost half what your showing.



HOWEVER heat loss isn't everything, how much energy it takes to heat things up is what really drives costs. You mention you're heating bill was £80ish for a month?? This is our heating use for one of the cold days in December, we are paying 5.5p/kWh for gas.....So despite having a house that losses heat slower than your house, our heating bill is much much higher as energy needed to heat up the house is much more!!

Hi thanks for the reply.

Your kitchen is definitely warmer than mine… sometimes I feel as though I could get rid of the fridge and just lay everything out in the kitchen haha!

I believe those screenshots were taken from when we had temps of like 2/3 degrees outside 


oh yes you’re right. You’re using a considerable amount more. However that may be due to the fact I’m stingy with money and there’s only two of us here. We aren’t ones to have the heating on all day and with us both working shifts, we can be out of the house sometimes when it’s at the coldest temperatures 

silvercar

Our house is noticeably colder and takes longer to heat when we’ve been away and turned the heating off. I would guess that having the heating on one day to warm the fabric of the building could make a noticeable difference. We have the heating on for two hours in the morning, starting from an hour before we get up. This makes a big difference to having the heating come on around the time you get up. We then leave it off all day and have it come back on around 4pm, again to heat the house before we notice it is too cold.

Arsenal2019

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly; shock it’s a new build and 2) I’m very tight with my money 

Albermarle

Arsenal2019 said:

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly; shock it’s a new build and 2) I’m very tight with my money 

This is an MSE forum, so most posters will be on the tight careful side with money.
However shivering in your own home, to save maybe a couple of quid a day, for maybe 3 months of the year, is not sensible. 

QrizB

Arsenal2019 said:

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly

It might not be poorly built; it does however seem to have a very low heat capacity. It heats up quickly but then cools quickly when you shut the heating off.

Do you know what it's built of? A brick or dense concrete block house will have quite different thermal characteristics to a timber-framed one.

ThisIsWeird

Albermarle said:

Arsenal2019 said:

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly; shock it’s a new build and 2) I’m very tight with my money 

This is an MSE forum, so most posters will be on the tight careful side with money.
However shivering in your own home, to save maybe a couple of quid a day, for maybe 3 months of the year, is not sensible.

Absolutely.

Arsenal is already paying a fair amount for bare comfort. His annual bill will be, what?, £1400-ish? For little more - say £100 or so - he can have a significantly greater level of comfort; one degree, for example, will be very significant.

And, if he turns off all the rads that aren't actually needed, the cost difference is likely to be minimal.

Your house sounds quite normal, Arsen :-)

Arsenal2019

QrizB said:

Arsenal2019 said:

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly

It might not be poorly built; it does however seem to have a very low heat capacity. It heats up quickly but then cools quickly when you shut the heating off.

Do you know what it's built of? A brick or dense concrete block house will have quite different thermal characteristics to a timber-framed one.

From the survey report -“ The walls are of cavity construction with a stone outer leaf. Although the wall at very low level is brick. The inner leaf isbelieved to be block. “

FreeBear

Arsenal2019 said:

QrizB said:

Arsenal2019 said:

Thanks all. It seems as though 1) my house may just be built poorly

It might not be poorly built; it does however seem to have a very low heat capacity. It heats up quickly but then cools quickly when you shut the heating off.

Do you know what it's built of? A brick or dense concrete block house will have quite different thermal characteristics to a timber-framed one.

From the survey report -“ The walls are of cavity construction with a stone outer leaf. Although the wall at very low level is brick. The inner leaf isbelieved to be block. “

The inner leaf is probably an aerated cement block (often called breeze block) - If you drill in to the wall, a grey powder comes out, and it is relatively soft.

In theory, your walls will have a much better thermal performance than my 1920's mix of cavity & solid brick. The two biggest areas of heat loss that we both suffer from is loft and windows/doors. I've got 300-400mm of loft insulation, and new (most dating from 2020 or later) windows & doors. No patio doors though (huge heat loss through those things). Having the biggest windows facing South helps when the sun is shining.

Replacing doors & windows is an expensive undertaking. although you could replace the sealed units with modern high performance ones for a lot less - Most of the heat loss is through the glass, and the frames contribute very little in comparison. But if the rubber seals are damaged, any cold draughts will make matters worse. You can get cheap secondary glazing that sticks to the existing frames for not a lot of money - That will help on the bigger chunks of glass. Perhaps pick one room as a test subject before doing all the others ?

Loft insulation, as has been mentioned, is a low cost fix, and most able bodied people can lay a few rolls. But if your loft is boarded out and/or filled with "stuff", it can be a bit of a challenge (you also need to be very careful where you put your feet lest you go through the ceiling).

Arsenal2019

The inner leaf is probably an aerated cement block (often called breeze block) - If you drill in to the wall, a grey powder comes out, and it is relatively soft.

In theory, your walls will have a much better thermal performance than my 1920's mix of cavity & solid brick. The two biggest areas of heat loss that we both suffer from is loft and windows/doors. I've got 300-400mm of loft insulation, and new (most dating from 2020 or later) windows & doors. No patio doors though (huge heat loss through those things). Having the biggest windows facing South helps when the sun is shining.

Replacing doors & windows is an expensive undertaking. although you could replace the sealed units with modern high performance ones for a lot less - Most of the heat loss is through the glass, and the frames contribute very little in comparison. But if the rubber seals are damaged, any cold draughts will make matters worse. You can get cheap secondary glazing that sticks to the existing frames for not a lot of money - That will help on the bigger chunks of glass. Perhaps pick one room as a test subject before doing all the others ?

Loft insulation, as has been mentioned, is a low cost fix, and most able bodied people can lay a few rolls. But if your loft is boarded out and/or filled with "stuff", it can be a bit of a challenge (you also need to be very careful where you put your feet lest you go through the ceiling).

Yeah I believe it is breeze block then after what you’ve said. 

I do have a large sliding door at the rear of the property and this is south facing. We do have a large thick blackout curtain which covers the sliding doors and more and it drapes down to the floor. 

Replacing the door next month so I hope that helps. I know i won’t know for certain Until next winter now as due to the temperatures slowing increasing. As for the rubber seals, they all do seem fairly soft / spongy so my guess is that they’re fine. As for the window frames & double glazed windows, I would guess that they’re fine. The property is 20 year old and I don’t believe the windows have beeen changed. However they do seem fine and I don’t ever notice any condensation between the two panes of glass.

I’ll certainly have a look at the additional glazing 

My loft is not boarded and I only use it for storage: there’s also a water tank up there and I could definitely look at putting more insulation up there as the current insulation does appear to be quite thin. 

FreeBear

Arsenal2019 said:

The inner leaf is probably an aerated cement block (often called breeze block) - If you drill in to the wall, a grey powder comes out, and it is relatively soft.

In theory, your walls will have a much better thermal performance than my 1920's mix of cavity & solid brick. The two biggest areas of heat loss that we both suffer from is loft and windows/doors. I've got 300-400mm of loft insulation, and new (most dating from 2020 or later) windows & doors. No patio doors though (huge heat loss through those things). Having the biggest windows facing South helps when the sun is shining.

Replacing doors & windows is an expensive undertaking. although you could replace the sealed units with modern high performance ones for a lot less - Most of the heat loss is through the glass, and the frames contribute very little in comparison. But if the rubber seals are damaged, any cold draughts will make matters worse. You can get cheap secondary glazing that sticks to the existing frames for not a lot of money - That will help on the bigger chunks of glass. Perhaps pick one room as a test subject before doing all the others ?

Loft insulation, as has been mentioned, is a low cost fix, and most able bodied people can lay a few rolls. But if your loft is boarded out and/or filled with "stuff", it can be a bit of a challenge (you also need to be very careful where you put your feet lest you go through the ceiling).

Replacing the door next month so I hope that helps. I know i won’t know for certain Until next winter now as due to the temperatures slowing increasing.

My loft is not boarded and I only use it for storage: there’s also a water tank up there and I could definitely look at putting more insulation up there as the current insulation does appear to be quite thin.

Both B&Q have 200mm thick rolls at £27 each. I've used Wickes before and had free delivery (not sure if B&Q will charge as a bulk delivery).

Adding Insulation to a loft usually returns the biggest improvement for the lowest cost. But don't forget to wrap a load of insulation around the water tank so as to minimise the risk of it freezing. Also worth adding some loft legs and boarding so that you can get to the tank to do routine maintenance (greasing the pivot point on the ballcock being one such task). Wickes do XL loft legs at a reasonable price, so grab a few boxes when ordering the insulation.