Heating takes ages to heat up - small house

rosamy52

I rent a 2 bed mid terrace which is a former miner's house, I think around a 100-120 years old. It has double glazing and was renovated by my landlord about 6 or 7 years ago. It's always been tricky to heat and the old thermostat was temperamental. It had stopped working completely a couple of months ago and has been replaced. I'm at home a lot, mostly in the living room with one door to the hallway closed and the other to the dining room/kitchen slightly open because of the cats needing access.

The boiler is a Duo Baxi boiler. The thermostat (a portable one) was supposed to be at 13 overnight this morning but it hadn't gone on, probably me not setting something properly, but it was 10.5 and it took an hour to go up 1.5 degrees. Even if it's on for four hours in the evening it rarely gets to 18 degrees. The radiators seem fine, there are no valves apart from on one upstairs.  The boiler radiator temp is set to 65. I don't think I can afford to have the heating on more than I do. 

I'm not sure if anything is wrong or if it's just slow or if something is wrong. Any pointers of where to start would be super helpful or should I just get in touch with the lettings agency straight away? 

WBJB

We live in a 150 year old Victorian semi, with solid walls.  Sadly, houses with sold walls (as I guess you will have)  lose heat quite fast, and the double glazing will make only a relatively small improvement.  Our semi needs about 17kwh of heat input to keep the temperature at 20º - if you are a small mid terrace, I would guess you need rather less.  We find it takes much the same sort of time to warn the house up as you experience.  The heat capacity of the solid walls is high, and it takes time to warm them up. 
We have to keep the heat on much of the time to stay warm in sub-zero temperatures.  
Ideally you should make a heat-loss calculation (Use google to find  how to do this) and then compare this with your radiator output and boiler output.   That would give you evidence to negotiate with your landlord if the heating is inadequate.  Keeping the bills down sounds important also.  Can you live in a reduced number of rooms?  ie only heat the rooms you need?  Check if you can improve the loft insulation, also thick curtains and draft exclusion can help also.  

WIAWSNB

Hi Rosamy.
Good info 😺 
You say the radiators 'seem fine'? I'm guessing by this that you mean they heat up as expected? Could you confirm, please? 
The boiler rad temp is set to 65oC. This is shown on the boiler? That's a fair temp - ie, in most circumstances it is high enough to get the rads similarly hot, in which case they should heat their rooms as designed. It's also not 'too' hot to make the boiler inefficient. 
60/65oC is 'ouch' hot - Ie, you cannot leave your hand on the rad for more than a second or so. Is this the case?
If it is, then it's clearly working as it should be, and your house is just difficult to heat.
That isn't helped by you allowing it to become cold at other times - that will always give the rads a bigger task to heat the place up. 
So, in general, it would appear that your system is working ok, but it just needs more - higher - heat and for longer. 
But you say you cannot afford this. How much are you paying pm at the moment?
Can you clarify what you mean by 'there are no valves apart from on one upstairs'? Could you take a pic, please? You can surely shut off rads when you don't need them? 
What does the house's EPC say about energy efficiency?

Vitor

Suggest OP contact the letting agent now, clearly and calmly, describing the symptoms: very slow warm-up, inability to reach 18°C, boiler flow set at 65°C, and no TRVs on rads. Ask for the system to be checked and balanced, and for the boiler output and radiator performance to be assessed. This is not an unreasonable request and is not “complaining”; it is routine maintenance.

QrizB

Vitor said:

Suggest OP contact the letting agent now, clearly and calmly, describing the symptoms: very slow warm-up, inability to reach 18°C, boiler flow set at 65°C ...

None of that is unreasonable.

Raising the temperature by 1.5C an hour is normal. 65C flow temp is normal. "Inability to reach 18C" is simply because the OP won't run the heating for more than four hours.

rosamy52

WBJB said:

We live in a 150 year old Victorian semi, with solid walls.  Sadly, houses with sold walls (as I guess you will have)  lose heat quite fast, and the double glazing will make only a relatively small improvement.  Our semi needs about 17kwh of heat input to keep the temperature at 20º - if you are a small mid terrace, I would guess you need rather less.  We find it takes much the same sort of time to warn the house up as you experience.  The heat capacity of the solid walls is high, and it takes time to warm them up. 
We have to keep the heat on much of the time to stay warm in sub-zero temperatures.  
Ideally you should make a heat-loss calculation (Use google to find  how to do this) and then compare this with your radiator output and boiler output.   That would give you evidence to negotiate with your landlord if the heating is inadequate.  Keeping the bills down sounds important also.  Can you live in a reduced number of rooms?  ie only heat the rooms you need?  Check if you can improve the loft insulation, also thick curtains and draft exclusion can help also.  

Thanks, really daft question but how do I know/work out what the inputs are? 

I don't use the spare bedroom or the dining room often but I don't know how I'd not heat them, the radiators don't have those valves which you can adjust. Though by the sounds of it from the next poster you can still turn those off which I genuinely didn't know. Most of my time is in the living room during the day with an electric blanket which helps. Most of the curtains aren't particularly thick, not my choice but what was here already. I do have double curtains in my bedroom and in the spare room. I don't have a head for heights so hate going in the loft plus it feels a bit dangerous when it's at the top of the stairs and I'm on my own, so I don't really know how much insulation there is, there's some from memory but maybe not enough. 

Reassuring though to hear it could just be the age and style of house though, thank you. 

rosamy52

WIAWSNB said:

Hi Rosamy.
Good info : 😺 
You say the radiators 'seem fine'? I'm guessing by this that you mean they heat up as expected? Could you confirm, please? 
The boiler rad temp is set to 65oC. This is shown on the boiler? That's a fair temp - ie, in most circumstances it is high enough to get the rads similarly hot, in which case they should heat their rooms as designed. It's also not 'too' hot to make the boiler inefficient. 
60/65oC is 'ouch' hot - Ie, you cannot leave your hand on the rad for more than a second or so. Is this the case?
If it is, then it's clearly working as it should be, and your house is just difficult to heat.
That isn't helped by you allowing it to become cold at other times - that will always give the rads a bigger task to heat the place up. 
So, in general, it would appear that your system is working ok, but it just needs more - higher - heat and for longer. 
But you say you cannot afford this. How much are you paying pm at the moment?
Can you clarify what you mean by 'there are no valves apart from on one upstairs'? Could you take a pic, please? You can surely shut off rads when you don't need them? 
What does the house's EPC say about energy efficiency?

I've just checked the EPC and it's just expired just before Christmas. So it is E rated and was done just over ten years ago before the house was renovated as it mentions single glazing etc so it's well out of date and not much use. I should probably ask for a new one to be done. 

Re radiators yes they are hot to the touch and at the top, there don't appear to be any cold patches etc. I genuinely didn't know that you could turn off radiators which don't have the numbered valves, but after reading what you've said I did a bit of brief reading and found this. December's bill for gas was about £60 which I realise may seem perfectly normal for some but it's high for me. It sounds like the house may just be difficult to heat? 

rosamy52

QrizB said:

Vitor said:

Suggest OP contact the letting agent now, clearly and calmly, describing the symptoms: very slow warm-up, inability to reach 18°C, boiler flow set at 65°C ...

None of that is unreasonable.

Raising the temperature by 1.5C an hour is normal. 65C flow temp is normal. "Inability to reach 18C" is simply because the OP won't run the heating for more than four hours.

There's a big difference between won't and can't even if the outcome is the same. 

rosamy52

Vitor said:

Suggest OP contact the letting agent now, clearly and calmly, describing the symptoms: very slow warm-up, inability to reach 18°C, boiler flow set at 65°C, and no TRVs on rads. Ask for the system to be checked and balanced, and for the boiler output and radiator performance to be assessed. This is not an unreasonable request and is not “complaining”; it is routine maintenance.

Thank you, I may well do that. I just wanted to check I wasn't missing anything obvious but it sounds like I'm not apart from possibly being able to turn off the radiators which don't need using.

plumb1_2

QrizB said:

Vitor said:

Suggest OP contact the letting agent now, clearly and calmly, describing the symptoms: very slow warm-up, inability to reach 18°C, boiler flow set at 65°C ...

None of that is unreasonable.

Raising the temperature by 1.5C an hour is normal. 65C flow temp is normal. "Inability to reach 18C" is simply because the OP won't run the heating for more than four hours.

Tend to agree with quizb, the walls will loose heat rapidly in these conditions. 

The op can inform the agents, but they’ll be a slow response as it’s a working system and most good heating engineers will working flat out doing breakdowns. Young plumb1 has been doing 12 plus hours a day over the last 2 weeks. About 50% of that subcontractor for BG.

on a personal level my heating is on from 06-30 to 23-00 , thanks to the triple lock 😊 and wfa.

sheenas

There are few things here. As another has said, what do you mean by the radiators are ok? It should be hard to keep you hands on at 65c. 
Leaving the doors open allow cold are to circulate and suck out warn air from the hotter rooms. What I am saying if you have rooms/halls with the radiators off or low and others hot then you will need to effectively over heat the warmer rooms, I hope that makes sense.
The lack of thermostatic valves means the boiler has to work harder and maybe you only have small radiators. Locating the thermostat is the lounge away from cold walls or direct sunlight.
In an old house with solid walls the damp gets into the walls and temp. in the rooms does not rise much until the walls have dried out, hence slow and expensive to heat. Running the heating for longer and keeping room to at least 16c is most likely your answer.