Loft insulation or something else?

[Eeksteek]

I’m broke AF at the moment, but have a job lined up for the winter, and am selling a few things, so will have some ready cash soon. There are a few things I need to fix and I can’t do all of them, but I’m not sure to which to choose! Should I spend a couple of hundred on…….

Loft insulation. I’m pretty sure nesting starlings have disturbed/flattened/removed some and (for some reason) there’s very little around the extractor fan, and we get condensation in the bathroom.

Having the gas fire professionally removed and properly blocked off. There’s a howling gale through a massive vent. I’ve stuffed it as tight as I can, but it’s a problem. I’m hoping to have a wood burner fitted, but it won’t be this year.

Replacing the sitting room radiator. It’s a silly decorative thing, doesn’t heat the sitting room well, can’t have a smart valve on and could be sold on. Along with the fire, the floor and the front door, it means the sitting room is freezing and we barely use it outside the summer as a result.

Doing Something with front door. It’s bowed, I think, and very draughty. Could possibly be adjusted, but probably needs replacing and I doubt I can afford that. I packed it full of foam tape last year and it helped a bit.

Carpeting the sitting room. I think a lot of the problem is that the draught cools the stone fireplace, which radiates cold into the floor and the room. The floor is LVT, like the rest of downstairs, but MUCH colder. You can feel the temp drop as you walk into the room.

Getting more smart valves so I can control room temperatures. I have them in the bedrooms, my office and the dining room so those rooms can be heated individually, which is a huge help, but the kitchen/diner, stupid sitting room, hall, landing, spare room and all the bathrooms are lumped in together. Being able to just heat (or not) some of those spaces independently might help.

Save the money, spend it on gas….

Something else I haven’t thought of. I don’t actually know what the biggest heat loss is, I’m only guessing. But other than buying a thermal imaging doo-dah, how would I tell? I HATE being cold. I don’t care about not going out, only eating at home, not having beauty treatments, new clothes, fancy cars or tech. But I want my house to be warm and to be able to afford hot baths, and nice food and while it may be a luxury in this day and age, it’s hardly decadent or wantonly wasteful! I couldn’t afford it in March and it was awful. I want to be warmer this winter if it is at all possible.

Any thoughts? I’d love to do it all, but it’s not going to be possible.

Put in a large lined curtain over the front door. You can also pack it with the tape and foam to plus the curtains. You can buy cheap ones in B&M or charity shops.
We put in extra insulation in the roof last year on top of what was already there. It made a big difference in holding the heat in the house it’s also a long term fix.
Carpets are expensive but do make a big difference heat wise to a room.
Short term could you pick up second hand rugs off Facebook or local selling sites?
If you put them where you sit so your feet are on the rug to help keep you warm.

If the house itself is very draughty I don't think topping up the loft insulation is going to help.

Address the draughts, and don't forget to look for gaps at the tops of doors - if daylight can get through the gap, so can warm air.

The stone fireplace won't be 'radiating' cold - heat doesn't work like that. If anything it will be absorbing heat, although it sounds as if the room is cold through lack of heating anyway.

Temperature valves on all radiators sounds a good idea. But how much will that cost (professional job?) and can they be installed without draining the whole heating system?

Look at draught excluders on internal doors. There's a type called double draught excluders (difficult to explain but Google it to see photos) that slide under the door and move with the door when it opens and closes.

Do you have a loft hatch? Check that for gaps too.

Have a look at Stormguard seals and draught excluders. They have a wide variety of types/shapes and they're longer-lasting than the very cheap foam strips.

eg www.toolstation.com/ironmongery/door-seals-draught-excluders/c682?brand=Stormguard

You might be pleasantly surprised by the benefit of plugging draughts. We have single-glazed Crittall windows in our kitchen, one of which is slightly warped. I finally got round to stuffing some insulation into the gap last winter and was amazed at the difference - the kitchen was noticeably less cold first thing in the morning, something I thought only double-glazing would achieve.

Measuring heat loss and working out where it is worst is tricky (it's my day job!). Honestly your best bet is to hire a thermal imaging do-dah (some local energy savings organisations or community eco groups have some for hire) which, if you use it on every facade will give you a clear priority for work.

But yes, heat loss through drafts will be a big contribution, so absolutely deal with chimneys, doors and windows. Check around the outside edge of window and door frames, that can often be a problem area if these elements were poorly installed. Maybe consider a curtain inside the front door?

Bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms are trickier as they need ventilation to remove warm moist air, so unless you have a howling draft in those I would prioritise other rooms.

Loft is a no-brainer, especially around the hatch.

Actually 'radiant cold' is a term used in the heating / cooling industry, but as Plexi says it's generally the result of a large thermal mass (bricks, stones) absorbing a lot of heat from the surrounding air. If your fireplace and chimney have a significant draft (which they should have to operate as a fireplace) then I expect they will be cooling faster than the rest of the room, so blocking the vent is a double win.

Carpet will help a little, but what is under the LVT? Timber or solid floor? If timber again check whether there is any scope for drafts into the room from the floor (by skirting boards?) but do not block ventilation into underfloor voids as that way mouldy madness lies 😞

If it's solid floor then I fear you may have a more substantial heat sink problem and would need to think about some sort of insulation layer under the carpet if you want to make a difference.

I'm in two minds about the smart thermostats: we had them but have now removed them. The only thing they did that a TRV can't do was to allow us to put different radiators on different schedules, and we found that we didn't use the house that predictably.

It sounds as if you simply need to control individual radiators and I think a TRV would do that for you fine.

Oh cock I've completely missed the point of your post. Sorry...

In your position I think I'd go:

• block sitting room fireplace
• draft proof front door plus curtain if possible. Check windows
• carpet with insulating underlay
• check draft proofing on sitting room door and windows
• TRVs on all rads sharing the same circuit. Turn off all unecessary rads.
• loft insulation

And I'd swap out the radiator only once I was completely confident that 1) there isn't some sort of balancing problem that is preventing it from operating at full chat and 2) it really can't heat a room where the worst heat loss has been dealt with.

Thank you @Plexie. I know the fireplace doesn’t strictly ‘radiate’ cold, it conducts heat away, it’s just that’s how it feels. You can put your hand near the fireplace and feel the cold. The air temperature drops as you walk into to the sitting room and if you (foolishly) walk around in bare feet, you can feel the floor temperature cool as you walk closer to the fireplace. It’s a perfectly designed cold bridge! It’s a gas fire and it doesn’t even work.

I have a smart heating system, and the valves are about £40 each. £32 on Black Friday. I can fit them myself, and the system doesn’t need draining. I’d need another 6 to completely independently heat each room. The sitting room radiator can’t have one, which means it’s heating the sitting room whenever the kitchen, hall or bathrooms need heating at the moment m, and that seems wasteful. Last year I just closed off the sitting room and didn’t go in it. It’s was too cold, I’d rather go to bed.

I just sold my kid’s old bike, which means I have £200 to spend on keeping us warm. I think keeping the sitting room closed again this year is the only sensible option. It needs too much doing in one go for a room we don’t much use.

Loft hatch is a good point. I’ll look at that. I do think some insulation where the birds have been is a good idea, but maybe not a general thing. Do I need to worry about lights underneath it?

Internal doors have home-improvised draught excluders which work well (Although I know the kind you mean). The front door is an issue at the top, not the bottom, but only on the opening side, not the hinge, which limited what I could stuff in it. It seems seems to have bowed. It’s wooden and I can’t afford a new door. Although actually I reckon I could make one of those double draught excluders for it.

I’ve also had a brilliant idea. I can do a (crude) smoke test. I’ll get some joss sticks or similar and see where the draughts are going. I don’t think it’s generally draughty, just the fireplace and front door (and maybe the loft hatch and dryer vent) but we’ll find out. Although I don’t think there is much I can do about the fireplace anyway.

You can download thermal imaging camera apps on Google Play that work with a smart phone camera

What a fascinating job, @gizmo I’ve no idea what’s under the floor. I assumed concrete, but don’t know. The rest of the ground floor is also LVT and isn’t nearly as cold, though.

I think what’s happening is that the floor/fireplace are being heated, but the vent is, well, venting it to outside and consistently cooling them, sucking heat out of the room, even though I’ve blocked
up the active draught. It a perfect cold bridge. It’s several degrees colder in the sitting room than the rest of the house as the radiator is a designer affair which looks pretty and doesn’t heat well, and it has big doors too. (You couldn’t design a colder room.)

Love my smart rad valves. I love having a warm bedroom to get up in then no heat in it for the rest of the day. Love a cool kitchen/sitting room and warm office all day, and would love a cool office in the evening and would like a warm sitting room in the evening. (Only it isn’t). I like that it has away mode that just turns the heating off when I’m out too. Although I feel a bit sorry for the dogs. I know rad valves could give you background heat all the time, but there’s just two of us, so I know where we’ll be and it’s super easy to boost via Alexa in most rooms if we go off piste.

We do get some condensation in the bathroom, which I think is because the insulation is pants around the extractor fan. Is there any risk with topping that off? I wonders if the lights would get hot - is has those recessed spots that are a bloody pain.

I’ll get the fireplace removal process priced up and get some rugs. (I don’t like rugs. It’s hard to clean around them on a hard floor). I’m tempted to block up the front door, but it’s where the dogs go out.

@Kitkatandcoffee Do you really think door curtains make a difference? I can see how they do in windows because the cold air isn’t moving, but the gaps the cold air is coming through are much smaller than a curtain gap would be and it’s blowing. And I’m letting the dogs out forty times a day, so it would be a significant inconvenience. And the kiddo would never bother with it. (And one of them will certainly pull it off sooner or later!)

I think I’m going to be closing the sitting room down for the winter again, until I can get the woodburner installed. Maybe I’ll try and make the study more cosy and sit in there. At least it’s warm.

I found a curtain made a big difference. Used it years ago in an old house when we had to wait for a new door. I made a big difference. My daughter uses one in her house although she has a dog and is always opening and closing it but it does make a big difference to the droughts and the whole room seems warmer.

Then I will give it a try. Always happy to take a personal recommendation.