Cost of heating an older house?

[wanderingduckling]

DH and I are currently looking to move out of London. We're trapped in a cladded flat and cannot sell so we're venturing back into the world of renting.

We have an appointment to view an old 4 bed detached house with sash windows which looks lovely. However, we've just had a look at the EPC and seen that it seems poorly insulated. Given we're going from a 1 bed new build we really don't have any idea what the cost of heating such a place would be. I'm sure the letting agent won't be honest, what does mumsnet think? We'd be working from home and it's gas heating. Any guesses?

note the assumptions - that's EPC's for you. Letting agent won't know.

is it exposed to wind? how much sun does it get (tricky to assess in January, but you can make some guesses) How warm do you like your rooms? How many windows aren't double glazed? How old is the boiler? Do those windows actually work?

what is the EPC rating?

assuming it is currently empty: when you view, go over it as if you were buying it. Turn taps, look at gutters, test heating etc etc. If things look unmaintained, walk away. Landlords that don't fix things between tenancies (the easiest time) will never fix things.

as an aside does this mean you'll be renting out the current place?

We had similar in our last home. It had very thick loft insulation and double glazing in every room though and had three bedrooms. The gas was £1400 a year, electric was £1300. I was bloody sick of the heating bills. The other issue we had with the solid brick walls was that they got cold. Really cold. This caused a lot of black mould from condensation behind any furniture (which in turn wrecked the furniture). On the one hand we are told we need to secure furniture to walls for safety for the kids and on the other hand we have to move it regularly to air it? We couldn't win. The EPC means quite a bit to me now. This house is less than half the gas and electric costs but the size is the exact same.

Sea front ancient house here.. Currently 300 + a month for both..

Are the windows the original single glazed sashes without secondary glazing. Could you feel the cold coming in all around the openings? Did you check if they work or were painted sealed? How about chimneys in each room are they open?

Thanks all for the responses, they're very helpful! It sounds as though we'd be looking at 300-400 a month then. Ouch.

@wanderingduckling

Thanks all for the responses, they're very helpful! It sounds as though we'd be looking at 300-400 a month then. Ouch.

That sounds about right, mum's house looks charming but is expensive to heat and horrendously cold without the heating on.

Our bills are horrendous but there's a payoff in that the mortgage (previously rent) is so much cheaper out of London. So if you're spending £200 a month less on rent, and it goes on heating, then it's swings and roundabouts. Depends what you can afford.

It will be much more expensive to heat. Our last house was double the amount is costs us now to heat an apartment. But you will have more space!

I’m a member of the clergy, so working from home is the norm for me. I have no choice in the house I live in, as it’s provided by the church. I do have to pay the energy bills though!

My advice would be to prioritise warmth as working from home in a cold, expensive to heat house can be miserable.

Or you could do what I do, which is layering up with thermals, scarves, woolly jumpers, thick socks and clutching at least one hot water bottle at all times.

Some of that is easy to fix though - put some loft insulation in, done.
Have sashes refurbished - done.

Both of those will make a massive difference on how cold the house is.

Plus you actually have mains gas - luxury!

I don't pay nearly £3-400 on heating a 3 bed Georgian house with electric only. Boosted up the insulation then put a jumper on.

DH is at home all day, he's fine.

I think you mean you are moving into a rented house, so will not be able to do alterations.

the report says it has some insulated cavity walls and some solid. I will guess that the house is built 1930's or earlier in 9" brick and there is an extension is cavity. So most of the house will be solid and very cold. Furniture, especially built-in wardrobes, on these solid walls will be prone to condensation and mould inside. You can put a pipe heater in a built-in wardrobe and run it during winter months.

The pitched, assumed no insulation is, I guess, a back addition such as an added-on kitchen or bathroom. "assumed" suggests there was no access for the surveyor, so you will probably not be able to insulate it. It will be astonishingly cold.

You can put the temporary plastic double-glazing film over your sash windows. It usually attaches with sticky tape. It does not stick to dirt or to old flaky paint, but sticks well to clean glossy paint. On new paint it sticks so hard it will not come off and the glue stays on the paint.

I think in winter you have to accept that the house will be cold and expensive to heat. You might consider a small oil-filled electric radiator in bedrooms overnight rather than leaving the radiators on, but electricity costs about four times as much as gas, so use the central heating controls to come on in the morning. Buy electric blankets.

use your extractor fans to the full to reduce condensation. Open windows on sunny or mild days.

Crikey Piglet you make it sound very bleak! The pictures of the house look beautiful and there are currently tenants in. Do you think if we view it as-occupied and there's no visible mould we have more hope that it's worth considering?

you could ask to see the gas bills

long ago, I had an old house with no loft insulation.

on a frosty night, I could run a 3kW fan heater continuously in the bedroom (12 ft square), and it would never get warm enough to take a jumper off. Insulated the loft and a 500W heater was enough.

I have an approx 200 year old house. It is absolutely freezing. We have double glazed it now, but the first winter when we had the old single glazed windows and doors it was beyond cold. Ice on the insides of the windows, could see your breath in the air in the mornings.
Sash Windows are even worse - I lived in a rented flat with them once.
We currently spend around £200 per month on electricity and heating oil and a further £60/£70 per month on coal and wood for the woodburner for probably 7 months of the year. Despite this, the house is never warm, only less cold.
We have ongoing problems with mould and condensation.

It really will be a shock after living in a modern, insulated apartment.

Old house (200 years old+), semi-detached, no double glazing, draughty floorboards, oil fired heating/logs/electric probably costs us around £180 in winter months and £110 in the summer. Rooms are kept at 18° between 7.30am and 9pm and 15° overnight, we have a baby in the house and are home all day at the moment..

The amount it costs to heat will also depend massively on your attitude to cold as well.
I only put the heating on when I’m actually cold, we don’t use the timer at all. If the heating is on we turn it off at 7-8pm every night and if necessary pop the fire on.
We pay £120 a month on gas and electric plus about £20 on coal/wood for the fire.
4 bed, semi-detached single skin house.

And where you are in the country.
We are in near London and rarely need to scrape the car in the mornings as it just doesn’t get that cold.

Our old house (4 bed Victorian) was around £300 per month in winter months for gas and electrics combined and £100 a month in summer months so maybe £200 per month on average, possibly £250 a month.

That was for all gas and electrics and we set thermostat to 20C and had it on all day and night - our boiler was outside. It depends a lot what temp things are set too and if you are say happy to manage with 2/3 duvets in winter at night over you rather than heating. Zoopla estimate the costs at £106 pcm - I would say if you set it to say 17C and just had no heating in the night (difficult for us with outside boiler and ASD child) and constantly changed to cheapest provider that might be achievable.

Our boiler was also around 20 years old, a newer one inside rather than outside would maybe have reduced costs a few hundred a year so say £200pcm average with our usage.

I only pay £250 a month for both gas/electric on a large 3 storey 120 yr old house, half single glazed.

aha - if it is tenanted then you can ask them all the info about heating costs, even if over the phone.

it should of course not be let at all if the EPC is below E. There is a consultation closing shortly about raising this to C as of 2028 - many older houses will never achieve that rating but it might stop the worst ones being rented out if tenants are aware.

My house was built in 1835 ish, fully double glazed, although the windows are about 40 years old in the main rooms. Oil fired ch, hw. I put £100 per month away for oil, and pay about £74 per month for electricity. It's a 4 bed stone detached, which we insulated in the 90s.

The main part of the property here will be the cavity filled part, as that is listed first, so that is the main property. The solid wall part will be the/an extension - usually originally an outhouse which has been incorporated into the main property. Often a gf bathroom or utility. It may only be a shed even, but if the separating door is not an external one, the 'outhouse' is now part of the thermal envelope of the main property, hence it gets included, and brings the rating down.

@EenyMeenyMinyNo

The main part of the property here will be the cavity filled part, as that is listed first, so that is the main property. The solid wall part will be the/an extension - usually originally an outhouse which has been incorporated into the main property. Often a gf bathroom or utility. It may only be a shed even, but if the separating door is not an external one, the 'outhouse' is now part of the thermal envelope of the main property, hence it gets included, and brings the rating down.

I don't understand why you say that.

It is very common for an old house, with solid, uninsulated walls, to have a modern extension added.

We rented a 1920s house a few years ago, moved in on Boxing Day. Sounds similar, original sash windows, beautiful high ceilings. The central heating system was relatively new but it needed to be on longer just because the rooms were so much bigger than we were used to and poorly insulated / draughty.

We had the heating on to maintain the same kind of temperature as we had in a previous (smaller 1960s house) and our first bill after 6 weeks for the gas and it was £500.

After that, we used it less and got used to the idea of wearing more clothes, higher tog duvets etc. It was about £200 a month after that, plus electricity of about £100. We did have ice on the inside of sash windows in a really cold spell as a pp has said, was a "cold" house but it was beautiful!