AIBU to think my house is too cold?

[myhouseistoocold]

My kitchen today is 11 degrees C, my hallway is 14 (no radiators in either). My dining room where I'm working from home is currently 16. My bedroom is usually 18 or 19 in the mornings (these last two weeks).

Is it normal for Victorian houses to be this cold? We bought this house 4 years ago and I just can't ever get warm here in winter.

Are these normal temps for a UK house in winter or should I be trying to move (or somehow impossibly save up for a zillion-pound extension with triple glazing and under floor heating)?!

[ChariotsofFish]

You can get the single brick bit well insulated, though it will still be colder than double brick. But it would only make sense to do it when you’re having the kitchen replaced. Whatever else you do your kitchen will stay chilly if part of it is single brick.

[CostanzaG]

Our house is freezing....we have very pretty sash windows that the previous owners had restored at great expense but you can feel even the slightest breeze through them. The kitchen has a stone floor and is in the cellar so is freezing even in summer!

We've got shutters where we can, put carpets down and got a new front door. We also use the log burner a lot.

Still I love my house even though i bloody freeze every winter!

[Drum2018]

Radiators may need bleeding or actually flushing, if they are years old. We need to get ours seen to as some are not heating fully. Neighbour had theirs flushed and said the amount of gunk that came out was gross. Seal around older window frames with silicon. Keep door to your workspace closed to keep the heat in there at least. If you have a letter box seal it and get a post box on the wall instead. And layer up - when kids aren't home I tend to put up with the house being a bit colder so I'll put on a fleece over a jumper. I'd put the heat on when they are home from school.

[Drum2018]

Also, is your attic well insulated? Lots of heat is lost through the roof. You'd need a good thick layer and can get spray insulation too which made a difference to our upstairs.

[TowerRingInferno]

My house is Georgian and freezing. No insulation, single glazed windows, high ceilings etc. Hallway currently at 12 degrees. Room over the garage was at 6 last time I looked.

I heat certain areas effectively so they are warm (20 degrees) - multifuel stoves in sitting rooms, aga in kitchen, electric oil-filled radiator in the study, but the actual central heating achieves little.

[justasking111]

Towerring. I understand what you are saying which is why we dry lined all the rooms, in a couple of cases having the old plaster hacked off first. An old house will never be as cosy as a modern one.

I was at a new one the other day, upstairs, I felt quite ill at the temps. upstairs. Had to leave the room.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Victorian house here, and it used to be cold (and it still is if you leave the heating off for long.) The coldest rooms can hit single digits if left to their own devices.

However, we have found that in our house it was worth switching to having the heating always on and thermostatically controlled instead. The temperature never drops below about 17 degrees and is more like 19-20 during the day. The funny thing is that the cost difference for us has been minimal compared to doing the more traditional approach - it's hard to be certain because of supplier and rate changes but it maybe costs us £10 more a month averaged over the year to have the house always warm.

[Roomba]

My Victorian house is pretty cold too. If I get up before the heating has come on in winter, it's 14 degrees in my living room when it's mild out. 12 or less when it's cold out! That's in the warmest room in the house. My kitchen has no radiator so no heating, except a pull cord fan heater that I use very rarely, so it's usually below 10 degrees in there in the winter at 5am! Bedrooms are probably around 12/13 degrees first thing. Of course, once the heating has been on for an hour, it's much better! I set mine to 17.5 so it turns off at 18.5. Upstairs is a couple of degrees cooler - but I don't like being too warm tbh. It could be much warmer in here I'm sure but my bank balance wouldn't thank me.

Things that have made a huge difference to how long the house actually retains the heat once it's warmed up:

• Double glazing and new composite front/back doors. Much warmer when there isn't a 1 inch gap under the front door, and curtains don't blow around when it's windy outside
• Free loft insulation - no idea who put ours in as it was a while ago, they knocked on the door asking about it. Immediate massive difference in warmth. There's none above the bathroom due to no access - it's always cold in there because of it.
• Putting insulation boards on the ceiling of the cellar - the living room above it used to be freezing and is now the warmest room.

My house is perfectly warm enough for us, we're used to it. I do long for underfloor heating in that kitchen though...

[Rio18]

I've got a 1950's house and a fancy system that controls my heating for me.

It turns off automatically when we're out and I can see the average temp of the house at the moment is 16.
We're very well insulated, double glazed etc, it's just bloody cold.

It dropped to 15 overnight and only got up to 17 this morning when i had the heating on to get up.

I've just turned my heating on from my phone so it's warm when I finish work soon.

[Jux]

Get to Lidl, buy an oil filled radiator - 40 quid - our sitting room has actually been warm FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 13 YEARS!!!!!

[MacarenaFerreiro]

Oil filled radiators are a great solution and very effective.

[namechangechanger]

I don't know how cold my house is but most days in winter I have a coat, hat and scarf on indoors and blankets over me on the sofa lol. We put the heating on until house is warm and very soon after we turn it off the house is freezing again, can't afford to keep it running constantly though 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Blooger]

You need to seriously prioritise overhauling the heating system in your house and getting some extra radiators, plus having the system 'bled' so that air pockets don't impede its functioning. Also double glazed windows needed throughout--do the most important rooms first if money is an issue. And ensure you have thick enough insulation in the loft. That made a huge difference to our house. In every case, good contractors can advise you of the best systems.

[Onlyjoinedforthisthread]

If you've turned your heating down to 1 and don't have radiators in some rooms, single glazing in others and it is 1 degree outside your house will be cold, Victorian or brand new. How do you can you expect it to be warm?

[LakieLady]

Dining room has surprised me being so cold. It does have a radiator and new double glazed windows, though I only have the heating on 1 today as had a message from the energy company yesterday saying they were putting up my bills. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the '1' setting on my heating in this room!

Do you mean 1 on the radiator knob? If so, I'm not surprised it's cold. My radiators barely heat up at all on 1.

[Onlyjoinedforthisthread]

1 on the radiator is little more than a frost setting

[LakieLady]

At the moment the radiators on the top floor don't ever go beyond lukewarm (even if heating is on full whack).

This doesn't sound right, OP. Do the radiators need bleeding? If they are warm at the top but much colder at the bottom (or possibly the other way round), they definitely do. How long is it since they were flushed out? Are the valves at both ends fully open?

Is your thermostat in a place that is unusually warm, so the heating system is tricked into thinking it's warmer than it is and turning it off when the room isn't up to temperature?

If you have a combi boiler (which you almost certainly do, unless the boiler is pretty old) it will probably have 2 controls on it: one for water temperature, with a tap symbol, and one for radiators, with (surprise, surprise) a radiator symbol. These control the temperature for the water in the 2 parts of the system.

If you've eliminated all the above problems, try turning the boiler temp
control for the rads to a higher setting and see if that helps. Mine has never been up to getting all the rads warm at the manufacturer's recommended setting, but works a treat a bit higher. But then it is a heap-of-shite Weissmann and I'll never get another one.

[LakieLady]

You need to seriously prioritise overhauling the heating system in your house and getting some extra radiators, plus having the system 'bled' so that air pockets don't impede its functioning.

Bleeding the radiators is a doddle, even I can do it, and a bleed key is about £1.

The only thing you need to know is which rads are furthest from the boiler: you start with the one that's furthest away, then to the next one and so on. It's usually easy to work out, unless your heating was put in by a mad plumber.

[LakieLady]

Moved from a Victorian house to a 1920s terrace, there isn't a lot of difference. Boarding the loft and having a new roof helped a lot - there was thick insulation already but it definitely cut the draughts.

During a power cut, when I was crossing the landing with a candle, I noticed we had a shocking draught coming through the loft hatch. Putting draught excluder round the opening made a massive difference to the temperature upstairs. I can't believe I'd never noticed it before, it was so stroing it almost blew the candle out.

You often get a draught from chimneys if you have unused open fireplaces. You can buy chimney balloons for sorting that.

[flapjackfairy]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned that you can get insulation plaster board that goes on the inside of the outside walls. We have a Victoria house and have insulated each room as we have gone along and it makes all the difference

[DillyDilly]

You need to find a way to have some sort of heating in the hall. Otherwise every time you open a door into the hall, the cold air will flow through to those rooms.

Maybe get engineer in to see why the radiators aren’t warming up ?

[Seniorschoolmum]

Agree with drum2018. You should have 20cm of loft insulation on the joists over the rooms on the top floor. Take a torch, poke your head through the loft hatch & have a look. Ideally also a lined roof & insulation panels between the rafters.

My house is 1830s and after having that done, it’s as warm as a modern house.

[LeSquigh]

I am in a Victorian terrace but the houses either side aren’t heated due to the circumstances of the occupants (long story!) insulation is terrible because there is no wall cavity but the loft is insulated well. Ours does warm up fairly well but as soon as the heating goes off it gets cold again so on all day here at the moment.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

In Victorian house, paying attention to draughts is a good first step. If nothing else, strips of newspaper twisted into long thin sausages work well. Try all round the window frames (if you choose a cold windy evening to do this, you'll get a good idea of where draughts are coming in), tops of skirting boards join between skirting board and floor, gaps between floorboards (thick carpet underlay or even sheets of newspaper better than nothing). Check whether you're getting draughts under doors - if so use a "sausage" or a rolled up blanket. Draughts round door edges will need proper stick-on draught excluder.

Have you any open chimneys? They need blocking when not in use.

[Holidayshopping]

Oil filled radiators are a great solution and very effective

How much do they cost to run?