Why is my living room so cold!

[Batferg]

It's double glazed with thermal curtains, including over the door (which is new and no discernible drafts). It has a radiator at each end and a woodturner in one end with an open fireplace (chimney blocked and insulated as the aerial wires come down it). It is next to the utility which has a thermal curtain over the door on each side!

The house is 18/19 century brick and flint with loft insulation in every part of the roof we can access.

Even if the fire is in overnight, the room is the coldest in the house! What can I do to make it more pleasant?

I have my eye on a heated blanket but making do with double tog weimaraners at present.

Is there a vent by the fire?

Is it....haunted?

Is it north facing?

Sorry but I do love the idea of your own personal wood turner entertaining you with beautiful carved designs through the winter to distract you from the freezing cold😄
Is it chilly because the walls aren’t thick/insulated? Can you have them lined?

Ghosts. I recommend an exorcism.

You mean you don't have one? He's an affable chap... [facepalm]

Is there any damp in the walls? That makes a room chilly - it acts like a big fridge.

No! The kitchen is and that's toasty!

The room is South facing but it has three external walls, two south facing windows and one east.

What is on the floor? Carpet will insulate the floor more than hard flooring. You can insulate under floorboards if that’s the problem. Do the walls and or the floor feel cold?

No vent.

I think I will have to look into wall insulation, maybe on the big wall without windows would be a good start. Bloody money pit this place.

Sounds like our old house.

Second the flooring. Originally it was tiled directly onto a mud floor, yes no foundations! We insulated it and installed new flooring, sealed the chimney around the log burner and did our best with other measures but the fact remained it had 2 external, single course brick walls and unless we were prepared to lose another 12 inches or so insulating it internally, it was always going to be cold.

Could well have been haunted and damp too.

Slate floor with cowskin at one end and a crochet cotton rug the other end. I don't think we want to carpet it because of the dogs but could look at an additional rug or two.

They do feel cold to the touch if I'm honest. Just been googling wall insulation!

Wool carpet (much warmer than synthetic) or underfloor insulation is probably less disruptive than either internal or external wall insulation. I think it's probably all the external walls though. How often do you use the room and do you have the woodburner on all the time to keep it cosy?

Anaglypta do some thermal liner that's probably worth looking at for the walls rather thn internal wall insulation.

On another thread recently, they were saying you can hire some sort of thermal imaging device to see where the cold spots/ non insulated areas were, that might help you to work out the exact problem.

Do the radiators need bleeding? Touch them when they are on, if it's hotter at the bottom than at the top then they need doing.

Slate flooring probably explains it, to be honest.

Yeah, it seemed like such a good idea at the time!

Some fab tips for me to explore on here. @LuckyCharmz great idea. There's a blocked off "once used to be a front door" which is in my suspect line up.

@Batferg I house-sit as part of my business and the coldest houses are the ones with slate floors I'm afraid,though that could be because they're generally older anyway.

I grew up in a really old house, it was beautiful looking but it never felt warm. My mate lives in a Victorian house and it’s just the same.

If the floor feels cold it is making the room cold. If nothing else it will make your feet cold which makes you feel colder. The walls probably need to be insulated too. In our current Victorian house we have insulation on the inside of all the external walls which has made the rooms smaller, but it is cosy.

Our old house was always freezing because the suspended floor had a howling gale circulating below. The new owners have ripped out all our thick wool carpet and polished the beautiful floorboards. They are not going to enjoy winter.

There's defo space to insulate probably 50% of the walls. Just need to work out the best way to do it and obviously consider any damp. I think there's damp in one corner so will have a good hard look.

Am skint in any case so won't be able to do anything until the spring, apart from drape myself in blankets and dogs.

I live in a Victorian cottage and my gable end living room was always like a fridge, despite the wood burner and central heating until I got internal wall insulation.
Makes a huge difference.

Did you DIY it? What type did you use?

You really need to be careful with insulating old properties though as it can lead to problems with the damp just sitting in the walls. I live in a old Victorian school and we have been advised not to insulate the walls as we will just be giving ourselves an expensive headache down the line.
In the biggest room (an old school room!) it was utterly freezing the first two winters despite thermal curtains, draught excluders and a decent woodburner. But there was a lino floor. We carpeted it the spring after. That next winter was absolute luxury. In fact it made such a difference that we could rely on the radiator in here to keep it warm enough for all but the coldest weather, and massively cut down on wood use on those days too.
Sorry to say it, but that slate floor of yours is probably your best friend in a heatwave....not so much in cold weather.

Do the kitchen/other downstairs rooms have the same kind of flooring?

My downstairs floors are concrete, I think, painted and sealed in some kind of black glossy stuff. They are covered in laminate but very, very cold and granite-hard - I don't think I've ever dropped a cup or plate that's survived.