Cold house help :( reaching max 11 degrees C

[sophsh]

I'm new to mumsnet so hello everyone

We live in a rented terraced house and with the heating on 6 hrs a day, downstairs only reaches 11 degrees. The kitchen is so cold and doesnt have a radiator so that everything freezes in the cupboards in winter - you dont really need a fridge living here sob sob

Does anyone have any tips on how to get the house warmer without major changes as its rented? We have wooden floors throughout & double glazing.

Is there any solution to this (legally?) that the landlord has to do? I'm at home all day and it's honestly miserable.

thanks for all replies!! xx

Well, six hours a day isn’t very long when it’s freezing outside.

You’ll have Mumsnetters posting to say that having the heating on 12+ hours per day is a travesty and they couldn’t possibly afford it, but assuming you aren’t seriously struggling for money (you haven’t said you are) you need to have the heating on for longer.

Get rugs down on the floor and put heavy curtains up. Keep one room warm with a portable heater and don't leave doors open.

It must be terribly insulated if the heating isn't getting it warm, at all. I lived in some absolute dives, way back, as a student, and even with damp and single glazing they weren't nearly that cold.

A terrace should warm up more than that though, Haworthia

Do the radiators heat up? Is upstairs warmer? Do you keep kitchen door closed all the time? Rugs on floors. Find draughts.

Have you tried oil filled radiators to warm up rooms you are in?

That sounds really low for a terrace -you usually get heat and protection from the elements from the neighbours. Are all the radiators actually getting warm? They might need bleeding if only partially warm. Are they turned down on the know at the side? Or is your boiler temp turned down?

If you have single glazing you can get insulating clear - ish wrap to go over them. Or if they are loose fitting (like old sash windows in wooden frames) then you can buy a sort of plasticine strip that can plug the gaps.

Internally, close doors to any rooms not used regularly and live with them being cold. We have little blow heaters and electric blanket on the sofa, as we have no central heating - they're pretty effective in small areas. Wear layers - for me, an outfit for the office is nowhere near warm enough for the house. Base layers from uniqlo or marks are easy to slip under things. Snuggle under a cheapie fleece blanket.

Also, once you've cooked leave the oven door open to maximise the use of energy.

You would do better to keep the heating on but turn the thermostat down at night and part of the day. It is taking 6 hours to get to 11 degrees because the temperature is dropping to freezing when you turn the heating off. You will be using a lot of energy without the benefit.
Obviously check that the radiators and pump are working properly and that there is adequate insulation in the roof, doors and windows.

Is it damp? If so, buy a dehumidifier - damp air is colder and more unpleasant than dry air. Otherwise keep one room warm with an oil-filled radiator and spend all your time in there. Buy warm clothes including thermal underwear and woolly jumpers. And get yourself a slanket or warm blanket (IKEA is good for this).

What sort of boiler/heating system is it? Can you turn the dial up a bit on the actual boiler? Is it on all the time trying to heat or is there a hidden thermostat somewhere that is set low? I presume the radiators themselves are turned up and feel hot?

Something isn't right. My mil lives in a mid terrace. She has a gas fire in her front and back room and no central heating. She has electric heaters for elsewhere and whilst it is cold it is not that cold. Even when she was in hospital over winter it never got that cold.

So either your heating isn't sufficient or you are losing your heat somewhere.

The wooden floor won't help at all, especially if it is just exposed floorboards. Some type of flooring and curtains should help.

Whar temp do you have the heating on at? Six hours a day is not much, it means 18 hours a day there is no heating at all in there, so of course it's cold,

The floorboards are a culprit though, get rugs down, and also your kitchen buy a. Portable fan heater or radiator, as if that stays cold it will just suck the heat from the other roooms.

In addition when you say you have the heating on. What rooms? Is it all of them? Because if you're just heating a couple of rooms, then warm air rises and those couple of radiators will basically be trying to heat the whole house.

Thanks for everyone's replies so far :)

The radiators are the single slim type and are scalding to the touch and bled regularly... It's a combi boiler but the dial only has an on/off setting it can't be programmed to come on at certain temps so we've just got it on a timer.

I've mainly been living upstairs as it is slightly warmer but venturing downstairs to cook/clean/live is awful and you can see your breath at times!! I do sit wearing max layers with a dressing gown and get in the bed. Having to do this is quite depressing though :( It's gotten bad lately with the weather so just needed to vent...

And unless there is a problem with the boiler, or heating system then legally no there is nothing for him to legally do. It's up to you to heat it.

Why six hours a day though, is that six hours straight or in small blocks, ie two hours in the morning etc?

I think you would be wise to rent something else if you can.

In the meantime, interlined curtains help a lot, as does carpet and obviously extra heating hours.

You need to put the heating on more. I had only had mine on for a couple of hours early evening for DC bedtime until this freezing snap. Now I've left it on all day at 16 while we're out, and turn it up when we get home. It would just never heat up if i didn't leave it on, I have wooden floors too.

OP I realise your question was about legality....but having lived in one of these myself, I'm pretty sure that legally there's nothing the landlord has to do.

Rugs, thick curtains, draft excluders etc are all going to help though.

Yes agree that you need to leave the heating on longer. We keep ours on all the time currently (on a medium/low temp) and the house is warm enough to sit around in leggings and a jumper.
BUT came back from a holiday last weekend and the house was freezing as we'd left it off for the week away... took 2-3 days to heat up properly! Six hours isn't going to cut it.

Is there insulation in the roof? Go outside and look at your roof. Is there snow on other roofs and not on yours? Means heat is escaping through top of house.

Is there a reason you can't keep the heating on for longer OP? 6 hours isn't very long.

Yes we leave ours on all the time now too. Low at night and higher during the day, if we switched it off, it would take ages to get it back to warm again,

We also have bare floorboards down stairs, albeit with rugs, and we also have old drafty windows as it's an old listed building.

I think sometimes you just need to accept there is a few weeks old jthe year there is higher heating costs, ie when it's a cold snap like this.

However if the issue is cost and you can't afford to heat it, then I'd probably also look to move, as if you can't budget for this, then you don't want to be doing this every year.

If there's no thermostat, I understand why you wouldn't want the heating on while you're out.

I live in a draughty old house and, even this week, if the sun has been out I've had windows open because it's been pretty warm. Our heating was broken when we moved in, though, and it took a few weeks of having it on all waking hours to get it to a point where it felt warm fairly consistently. That was in weather conditions pretty much like what we have now.

I think even only heating six hours a day the house should warm up to more than 11 degrees. Ours drops to about 13/14 if we’re away for a week or two in winter and it only takes a couple of hours to get up to twenty.

When you say wood floors, do you mean stripped floorboards? Do they have big gaps? Is the kitchen single brick?

Watching with interest! We are having building work done and dont have central heating in half the house currently. So so cold. Baby monitor keeps beeping at me and ds room has a working radiator. He is under a thin fleece blanket and duvet and is plenty warm but the room itself is clearly not!

6 hrs should be plenty of your house is properly insulated and your windows and doors aren’t draughty. This is how much heating we’ve used this week to keep our 3bed house at 20 morning and evening and 17 over night.

Have you checked for draughts?

Why on earth don't you have a conversation with your landlord? It sounds horrendous and they may not even realize there is such a problem? If you were my tenants I would try to help in any way I could!

Hi OP it sounds horrendous. We have a similar situation here - moved into a new house in Sept and it cost so much to keep this place warm. The rent is reasonable though so we calculate it will even out over the year. There are massive draughts in our house so we have draught excluders (even old towels) everywhere and keep the kitchen door closed as much as possible. When we moved in we had the heating on a few hours am and pm and the prepaid meter was sky high. Now, I just leave it on but lower (each radiator on a lower setting, no themometer) and the gass costs less somehow! The landlord is also coming on Sunday, she had no idea the house is bleeding heat like this and seems quite keen to help so might be worth having a chat.