My house is so cold!

[MissIndecisive2023]

House was built in the 1980's. It's a 3 storey house - I'll attach a floorplan. One side of the house, which faces south, is usually ok/warmer comparatively to the side of the house. The other side of the house not only faces north, but has the garage (which is not well insulated) on the ground floor, and 2 bedrooms above it (one on each floor, so one above the other). The garage and 2 bedrooms "stick out", so they each have 3 outside walls.

The heating in the house doesn't seem to be terribly efficient, but we had the boiler serviced less than a year ago and it didn't make any difference. The radiators are tall ones that go from almost floor to ceiling, but don't ever seem to feel very hot, regardless of what I set the boiler radiator temperature to be. I can't set the max temperature to be any higher on the thermostat - not the temperature that it is aiming for, but there is some sort of maximum boiler/hot water/heating temperature that the heating engineer had a look at on the thermostat monitor thing, and it's already on the max.

My DC's room on the top floor is so cold! I came home from work today at 2pm and it was 12 degrees. I've had the heating on ever since, and it's currently at 14.5 degrees almost 5 hours later. I have a fan heater which I will put in there later before bed, but the temperature drops very quickly once it's turned off.

I don't know where to start with trying to improve things.

I've recently become a single mum, so I don't have a lot of money to increase the amount I have the heating on, which at the moment is 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night. I could try leaving the heating on and put it on a thermostat, but it never seems to reach the required temperature anyway so I feel like it would be on 24/7 which I can't afford.

Do I try and better insulate the garage and hope that it helps with the rooms above it?

Do I get someone into the roof to see if I can insulate it better?

Do I change radiators?! Would that make any difference?

My DS has ASD and due to sensory issues won't wear any pyjamas, so he is waking up cold in the night (not surprisingly!). I've got an electric blanket to put on his bed, but again due to sensory issues I'm not actually sure he will tolerate it very well.

What else can I do?

Floorplan

Do the rads have thermostatic valves and if so, are they turned up?

could it be useful to start here? (you said it'd been serviced recently but could offer useful info)

https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/boiler-efficiency-how-efficient-what-boiler-do-i-have/

They have a valve on the side between off and 5, if that's what you mean? Yes, they are all on max

Have your bled your radiators? Are they full of air?

Before you change radiators, check the KW output of your boiler. A common cost-cutter some developers use, is to put in an insufficiently powerful boiler. Changing radiators won't help if that is the problem.

I'd look at insulating the ceiling of the garage and the ceiling of the top bedroom/in the loft. Ideally 20cm of loft insulation plus more between the eaves.

Could the radiators need bleeding?

No, I’ve done that.

Thanks I’ll take a look at that

Is the KW output of the boiler on the boiler or do I just look on Google?

Do you know who I would contact for insulating the ceiling of the garage?

Check the temperature flow on your boiler and see what it is set at, there
will be a setting for water and a setting for radiators. I had my boiler serviced this week and the person who did this told me he had turned it down from 75 degrees to 60 as the boiler would work more efficiently.
The problem with this I quickly noticed is that I have a very large living room and it was taking many more hours to reach the temperature I had set the thermostat to. I have turned it up to 67 degrees and during this cold snap I still don't think it is set high enough. Hope this helps.

I think you've let it get too cold. We went on holiday for two weeks and came back it was 9 degrees inside. It took nearly three weeks of heating on 24/7 to get it back up to 20. Put it on as often as you can and it will start to warm. We just heat one room now and the heather towel rail does the bathroom.

That’s just a normal valve. Not a thermostatic valve. We have thermostatic valves connected to the smart home system which means specific rooms are heated at specific times. Like right now 720 pm it’s only heating the kids bedroom and all other radiators in the house aren’t being heated. 1 hour ago it was the living room being heated.

We’ve got the HIVE ones my mum gave them to us a Xmas presents last year but here’s a screw fix example https://www.screwfix.com/c/heating-plumbing/thermostatic-radiator-valves/cat831012

Quick fixes

Hot water bottles for bed (I use them the next day to defrost the car to save the water)

Turning heaters off in rooms not used

Make sure doors in room at the bottom are gap free - even if's just putting a towel down for now - same for windows if you can feel any coldness can you get thick curtains for windows or doors (charity shop tend to have these in). Even if its a bit make shifty it might help keep the heat in. Putting thick curtains on doors that you do not go into - I've a spare room that I do not use and it's like narnia when I open the door - putting a thick curtain over it helps the rest of the house a little.

I swap my rooms about through the year because of where the living rooms faces - it's south facing so come here in the winter and its a lot warmer during the day. Realise that's probably not practical when you are a family.

GROUNDWORK - environmental charity... they used to do something called Green Doctor where they would come out for free and provide you some nifty things to help with insulation etc. Might be worthwhile seeing what's available esp. if you are a solo parent.

The charity works across UK and probably has an office near you if you check them out

https://www.groundwork.org.uk/services/energy-efficiency-and-fuel-poverty/

Something for solo parents
https://ukenergysupport.co.uk/hardship-grants-for-single-mothers-uk/

Bit more info
https://www.singleparentswellbeing.com/blog/heatoreatenergycrisis

Hope you find some good solutions for the colder months.

I was just going to say that with a lot of space the 3 storeys when it's really cold and you have the heating off it takes so much longer to get up to a comfortable temp.
I find similar when I have 1.5 hrs morn and
1.5 in evening so added a boost at 3/4pm.
It's hard trying to keep costs low.
Can you have one room that stays cozy with a fire or electric fire?
Apart from improving insulation where possible can you look to have different rads down the line? Are yours those tall metal ones that look nice but maybe don't give off as much heat as the long white ones?
My DD's have those weighted blankets on top of their duvets that helps keep them snug and a hot water bottle.

The KW rating should be on the boiler but if not, just google the boiler model.

Any contractor who fits loft insulation should also know how to insulate above the garage. Depending on structure, they could fit insulation in the floor of the 1st floor bedroom, or possibly add a completely new layer of insulation on the garage ceiling.

There's a calculator here that allows you to enter the size of your house, and it shows you roughly what size boiler your house needs. It might help you rule out boiler size as the issue.

https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/products/boilers/find-a-new-boiler/tool/reason/?user_type=homeowner

When we moved back in our house after renovation it was a really cold snap and the house had been empty for a year. Honestly i could have cried it was so cold for weeks. I was really regretting our reno as we have quite a lot of
Open space now and i thought we had ruined our house as it was miserably cold everywhere. A year later, the house is toasty warm. So i agree with everyone about not letting the house get too cold. My boiler kicks on now if we drop under 19 but all the insulation means it retains that heat and our
overall soend has gone down. Sounds like you need to look at insulation too and go tound the house on your own and look for draughts. Our front door was letting in so much cold air and that meant downstairs was freezing.

To properly solve this problem you will have to throw some cash at it.

You likely need a newer, bigger boiler for such a large house which means a bigger meter and potentially bigger gas supply into the property this could be ££££ in cost.

To see if thats needed you need to add up your 'peak hourly load' which is how much gas all your gas appliances use at max (this info is on the appliance itself, usually in kwh)

If this exceeds 60kwh (average domestic meter and supply capacity) you likely need an upgrade.

I can see others have already advised on insulation ect

Also get one of those little oil heaters for dc bedroom. They don't cost much to run and you can put on a timer - better than heating the whole house if poor insulation in the roof is the problem.

2 duvets.

What are you talking about? The op's house is normal sized. My house is over 3000sq ft with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms and i have a normal boiler with a normal gas supply. All able to shower at the same time and house is plenty
warm. The only person i know with an upgraded supply has an enormous house over 3 floors with 2 boilers.

Op might need a new boiler though and it is v possibly undersized - but remeber the bigger the boiler the bigger the bills as it uses more gas.

Get a heating engineer out. You could have air in the pipe in one location and it’s blocking the whole system

Our house is freezing too, I've had the heating on for 2 hours and it's now 13 degrees! But we have single glazing (can't afford to replace)

Would DS tolerate extra blankets or a hot water bottle/heated teddy at the end of the bed?

I’ve put thermal linings behind the curtains and that plastic window glaze on one or two of the windows. It doesn’t look great but is very effective. I’m trying to keep doors closed to keep the heat in, have a heated blanket on the sofa and hot water bottle in bed.