why is our back bedroom so cold?

[janek]

hi, we live in a victorian two up, two down with kitchen and bathroom out the back kind of a house. obviously the whole place is pretty draughty, although i'm trying to block up the gaps and it's making a huge difference.

but

my DDs' bedroom, the one at the back, is always really cold, even with the heating on. why might this be? it has no more external walls than the bedroom at the front, but it is generally a good 2 degrees colder.

i have considered getting a chimney balloon (there is a damper there at the moment, which has been there for years, so i'd need to get the chimney swept before i could even measure up for one to avoid any contact with potential bird carcusses), but is there anything else it might be?

it is wsw-facing, so of course it is cooler in the mornings, but it doesn't seem to heat up in the afternoon either...

tia

[Pannacotta]

Chimney balloon is a good idea as lots of drafts come via openm chimeys.
Are the windows ill fitting?
You could secondary galzing, this is not too obvious
www.365plastics.com/secondary-glazing/

[Dibbydab]

Could it be damp - you might not necessarily notice it on the walls etc, but enough moisture will make it difficult for the room to warm up. Try borrowing a dehumidifier for a few days and putting it in her room.

When we have ours on it feels like the heating has been on when it hasn't and the amount of water it pulls out is unbelievable.

[biffandchip]

I agreed with DD, might be condensation. Do you need extra loft insulation above her room? That might make a difference. Also I have double glazing but have found that when the thermal black out roller blinds are down that keeps the chill from the window out of the room and I know people who have put the plastic roll stuff on their windows to keep some heat in. Try and seal up all draughty skirting boards too and sorting out the chimney will help as it will draw air from the rest of the house. How about putting a draught excluder on the outside of her bedroom door? hth

[angel1976]

Hi,

My DS's son is at the back of the house and it is usually freezing in there. It's hard to say what the problem is. There is a slight damp issue in there (not visible but we measure it with a humidity thingy) that is going to be rectify but most of the wall is underground as well, which doesn't help. We have both a dehumidifier and an electric convector heater in there. The dehumidifier is great for days when it's not really heating season as ours remove moisture and blows warm air out at the same time. We were advised to use a convector heater as opposed to an oil-filled one as they are more effective at warming up the whole room fast. It's a great heater, I've just moved it from DS's room into the living room for the afternoon while he is in nursery and it makes the room lovely and warm! We set it to come on every few hours for 15 minutes just to keep DS's room nice and warm in cold weather like this. Good luck.

A

[fanjolina]

IS there less insulation in the loft at the back?

Or even less stuff in the loft at that part of the house? We noticed a difference in how warm the rooms became just by filling our loft with our junk!

[fanjolina]

Janek - B&Q have great loft insulation at half price at the moment - see here

I just checked with DH and he says it raised the temp by approx 4-6 degrees when we put that in our loft.