Brought house then discovered it wont heat properly and the seller hid damp

Albermarle

Robin9 said:

Any chance of the floor plans that were on Rightmove ?

How old is this property ?  You talk of "developers"  - to me that implies a very recent build

It was bought and sold in 6 months, so very likely a flipper and an upgrade done on the cheap.

OP - You will get some more useful feedback about the heating if you post more details about it. Such as
Make and model ( and KW) of the boiler?
Is it a Combi, or do you have a hot water tank?
What is the boiler flow temperature set at?
What is the pump speed set at ?

[Deleted User]

FreeBear said:

[Deleted User] said:

There's nothing there that's close to actionable. Find out why your radiators are not getting hot. It could be as simple as trapped air - five minutes to fix. Unless you live in a country pile, or a house with no roof, it's impossible for the radiators to be heating properly and the house remaining at under 14C.

A poorly balanced system could mean that some radiators are not getting sufficient water flowing through them.

Cold draughts coming in around windows could be sucking up all the heat.

And if the radiators are woefully undersized for the flow temperature, they will never put out enough heat to get the place up to temperature - Cranking up the boiler temperature will help in this situation at the expense of reduced fuel efficiency (assuming it isn't already at max).

Those factors would all contribute to suboptimal results but nothing like what's claimed. The OP states that 'not one room' exceeded 14.5C even with the heating on maximum, and attributes this to the radiators 'not being adequate to heat the space'.

And just to put it into perspective, three of my backrooms have no radiators or heating at all, they are simply warmed by being in proximity to the rest of the house that is set at 19.5C on Hive and 15C at night. I've checked and the lowest they reached was 15.3C, which I think was when we had several nights of -5C to -9C.

Maybe the OP lives in the Yukon.

gazfocus

[Deleted User] said:

FreeBear said:

[Deleted User] said:

There's nothing there that's close to actionable. Find out why your radiators are not getting hot. It could be as simple as trapped air - five minutes to fix. Unless you live in a country pile, or a house with no roof, it's impossible for the radiators to be heating properly and the house remaining at under 14C.

A poorly balanced system could mean that some radiators are not getting sufficient water flowing through them.

Cold draughts coming in around windows could be sucking up all the heat.

And if the radiators are woefully undersized for the flow temperature, they will never put out enough heat to get the place up to temperature - Cranking up the boiler temperature will help in this situation at the expense of reduced fuel efficiency (assuming it isn't already at max).

Those factors would all contribute to suboptimal results but nothing like what's claimed. The OP states that 'not one room' exceeded 14.5C even with the heating on maximum, and attributes this to the radiators 'not being adequate to heat the space'.

And just to put it into perspective, three of my backrooms have no radiators or heating at all, they are simply warmed by being in proximity to the rest of the house that is set at 19.5C on Hive and 15C at night. I've checked and the lowest they reached was 15.3C, which I think was when we had several nights of -5C to -9C.

Maybe the OP lives in the Yukon.

Came here to say similar. We live quite high up in a converted stone barn which while well insulated, does seem to get cold easily. We have underfloor heating in the downstairs rooms and there have been times when the pump has stopped working so the underfloor heating has not functioned (most recently over this past Christmas with bitterly cold weather). Even then, our thermometer only got as low as 14C so I can’t understand why, with radiators on, no matter how insufficient the radiators might be, your rooms wouldn’t get beyond 14.5C. 

Auti

have north facing Victorian rear L shape - kitchen/diner downstairs and bath/bed upstairs - because 2 outside walls the upstairs rooms can go down to 10 degrees on a cold night and did when boiler broke! Entire house went to 13 and below depending on room.

[Deleted User]

Confirm its not user error. On the boiler set the temperature to 75. Carefully check if the heaters are hot to touch. Tell us what boiler it is and how old it is. 

I once had a tenant who told me the heating wasnt working, he hadnt bled the radiator.

Robin9

OP -  you say you have a "Hive".       What are your on/off times and temp settings please?

silvercar

Get a gas safe engineer in to service the boiler and check the system. Turn the boiler temperature up to 75, set hive to ON with a temperature of 20 at least, turn the radiators on full. Leave the heating on for a good few hours during the day. Then report back what the temperature reaches.

AskAsk

as others have said, the heating is working but just not efficient so you need to get a gas engineer in to work out what the problem is and rectify it.  it is always a risk when you buy a property that the boiler won't work properly but most people will just get it fixed.

with the damp in the bathroom, the survey should have flagged that up and if not, then there is little that you can do.

but yeah, sold within 6 months may have been a red flag, did you not ask why they were selling so quickly?

BikingBud

[Deleted User] said:

Confirm its not user error. On the boiler set the temperature to 75. Carefully check if the heaters are hot to touch. Tell us what boiler it is and how old it is. 

I once had a tenant who told me the heating wasnt working, he hadnt bled the radiator.

Well it wasn't. The fact that it is a simple fix doesn't mean it was working. To some without any technical knowledge room not getting warm means heat not working.

Did you explain or demonstrate how to diagnose and fix? And ensure there wasn't a persistent problem so it would  not recur?

bouicca21

When I bought my last house we soon discovered that it was so cold that at night we had to sleep with coats and/or dressing gowns on.  The answer turned out to be simple - the boiler was the wrong size for the house.  Never occurred to us to try and get compensation.  Just scrimped and saved for a new boiler …