How cold is an old house?

[letsleepingbabieslie]

Looking at buying a lovely 1860s farmhouse in Dorset. I think it's wonderful, but notice that it has solid walls (no insulation) and single-glazed sash windows. EPC is an F rating (27!).
I hate being cold. OUr current home is so cosy that we don't even need heating on most winter days.
If we can't spend a fortune on adding insulation and changing windows (which will ruin most of the character of the house) is it total madness to buy it? If you live in a similar property, how cold is it?!

And yes, like @Anatomical we’ve sorted the insulation in the roof out. Our house is 1870’s.

I also wouldn’t live anywhere else

On the bright side, you’ll be able to have an AGA!

Hot water bottles every night in bed from October - April.

Sounds grim described like this but I still love it (mostly).

Ours is 1600s and has very thick walls, which are not insulated. However we had very good insulation put in when we replaced the roof and the new windows and doors are snugly fitted and the windows have strengthened glass. We do need the heating or log burner on when it's cold but it's certainly not draughty. It also has its benefits - the dining room used to be a dairy, it's on the North side and is lovely and cool in the summer (but fine with heating in the winter). If you love the house then just make sure you factor in a healthy budget for renovations in an old place.

Ours is old, and cold. But it's beautiful and beautifully cool in the summer heat.

With the heating constantly warm it gets warm, and then gets cold again. We've had ice on the inside of our windows, with the heating on. When it's windy the internal doors rattle and curtains move.

We draught proof, wear hats to bed, sit next to the Aga and warn guests to bring a jumper.

Our house (date uncertain) was a fucking ice box when we first lived here. We've added a lot of secondary glazing, put insulation under some weatherboarding, replaced open fireplaces with woodburners, added insulation in the loft. We have another loft we should insulate, but it's gone from fucking freezing to merely cold. The living room and bathroom are warm in winter.

I lived in an 1800s cottage, but it was terraced and very exposed south facing, I never remember being cold. However a detached farmhouse is a different game. I would say it depends on the size, exposure and what systems are currently installed. However being EPC F it seems redundant to being cold without further works.

As everyone had said - cold. Does it have an Aga? That helps.

I've lived in newer houses where I could walk around in shorts in winter - and I know what I prefer.

You get used it it and adapt pretty quickly to layers/throws (heated throws are the bomb) hot water bottles and actually dressing for winter. Thick curtains. Pets

I still have windows open if it's above freezing.

Carpets help. I've got stone floors in this house with no heating under them (not even pipes). That's nippy in winter.

I should add, we have friends who live in a Georgian pile in the middle of the countryside, and they have a warm kitchen and a warm living room and a glacial corridor between the two. I can image what the upstairs is like from how robust their children are.

Yep cold. Ours was 1800 and similar constructions
Front room was warm with wood burner which was on 24 hours a day. We upgraded to one which stayed alight all night (just) and added fuel first thing in morning.
If you have an aga the kitchen will be okay.
Bedrooms would go down to about 10 or 11 on a very cold night….
Underfloor heating in the bathroom was a must.

The main issue was condensation especially in kitchen.

Mind you it’s lovely in the summer in a baking day. Blissfully cool.

Another thing to think about is whether or not you like entertaining and having people to stay. Nobody will stay with us from November to April because they find it too cold. This is a huge bonus!

Our house isn't as old as that, but it was bloody freezing, because of the crappy old pvc windows and rubbish sludge filled heating system.

It's miserable being cold. It's also a big house with open plan layout and a front door that opens into that space and radiators that were too small.

We're currently ripping the house apart to fix this. New windows, changing layout, moving front door, new replacement radiators, adding radiators, changing flooring, adding log burner.

Our gas bills have been enormous. I hope this all helps make the house feel cosy, as well as reduce monthly spend.

I wouldn't want to buy another cold house. Covid makes me want to hibernate!

Cold. Very cold. I imagine if you hate being cold you are mad to consider it. You will spend winters,if not the whole year thinking how cold you are trying to get warm. You will.move about the house covered in a blanket. You may even have to wear a hat to be in winter. You will spend an absolute fortune heating it,yet hardly notice the difference. This was me until I moved to a lovely cosy bungalow with insulation and double glazing. I literally unfurled my body and was happy again.
The other thing is that epc c F is ridiculously low. In the drive to reduce carbon emissions, there is likely to be govt relations requiring improvements. well there will be here in Scotland. EPC or equivalent and better will become the standard to aim for. People will increasingly be put off ever buying a propery with that rating. Even if you manage some energy efficiency improvements,could it ever reach C?

Sounds colder than mine ever gets. I've got a 1750's farmhouse, solid 18 inch walls so no insulation but I do have double glazing.
My gas/electricity is £180 a month, split equally over 12 months (for reference I use approx £2.80 a day in the summer months) and I have either one or two wood burners on every evening in the winter. Sometimes I'm still very cold...and I have a baby due in November so I'm dreading what my monthly direct debits go up to 🙈

Ours is a 1820 5 bed detached former Manse. Currently taking all the walls back to original and fitting insulation sheets. I can tell a massive difference between upstairs and downstairs now upstairs is done....

What makes ours liveable (1830's farmhouse, solid walls, stone mullioned, leaded single-glazed windows, 3,600sq ft) is that it has underfloor heating throughout.

Heating/cooking bills (electric, ground source heat pump) average around £450pm. We keep those down to that level by using log-burners for spot heat when the GSHP is in hot-water only mode (no underfloor heating for the summer).

I have an old house. I've spent the last 10 years carefully having the windows replaced, having the lofts insulated, repointing all the foundations, and fitting thick thermo-lined curtains and/or blinds.

Plus I've added a log burner that warms the central chimney stack as well as heating the sitting room.

Sorry OP but if you aren't keen on the cold, you will need to deal with the lack of insulation.

OP is it listed? That will make a difference to which changes you can make.

I’m also reminded of friends of ours who had the coldest house ever (Victorian pile). God it was a miserable place to stay; lovely people, beautiful house, but they couldn’t afford to heat the place. They eventually gave in and put it up for sale. Their buyers- just before exchange - finally asked, how much does it cost you to heat? They answered truthfully - I can’t remember the exact number but let’s say it was £3000 per year for oil and another £1,000 for logs. The sale completed. Whilst they did answer truthfully, what they didn’t say was if they could have afforded it they would have spent double.

Secondary glazing and log burners are essential and an aga or everhot if you can afford it.
It will be fabulously cool in the summer
I thought hot water bottles were normal in bed for all but the hottest months.

Thanks for all the responses. They are making my heart sink but I guess it's good to be realistic. Can any of the PP share their EPC rating, so I can get a sense of the scale we're talking about? i.e. the one we're looking at is rated F (27) and our current home is B (81).

Mine was E(48) - mainly driven by the GSHP and low energy lightbulbs.

I suspect ours would not have been dissimilar to yours before this - at least for the older part of the house. The newer half of the house is of more modern wall construction, but still has the single-glazed windows.

Three storey 4 bed house 1880s house here, BUT terraced, well insulated loft, dry lined walls and double glazing. Very cheap to heat (prior to current anticipated hike in price of energy).

I have a stone house built early 1800s. It was an F when I bought it 8 years ago and now it's a D. I added internal solid wall insulation removing a lot of the old (crumbly) lathe and plaster, replaced boiler, put a woodburner in instead of an open fireplace. It already had wooden double glazed sash windows. So cosy in the winter now. I also have an oil fired Aga that eats oil in the winter but helps hugely in the annual powercut as independant of electric supply. It is still expensive to heat but can be much cheaper if you're willing to put time and energy into chainsawing windfall trees, seasoning the wood and splitting into logs. I did get a grant that covered two thirds of the insulation costs (nearly 6K) and I think there is a variety of government programmes to help finance green energy improvements.

We’ve lived in everything from a Norman church to our current new (Edwardian) house.

Our current house is colder than the church was. We have double glazing now but we don’t have the 3ft thick walls and handmade leaded windows.

If your solid walls are thick (in Dorset I’m picturing stone?), they will keep the temperature reasonably constant.

Single glazing is an issue but it would be anywhere. If the house is in a conservation area though, you will need to replace with wooden, double glazed sashes which don’t come cheap.

If finance isn’t an issue, it’s easily sorted.

Friend of mine lives in a 2 up, 2 down stone mid terrace from the 1800s. Solid stone walls and single glazed windows. House is tiny and even so she says it’s freezing. It’s rated F. Saying that she has only had central heating fitted last week….it had those weird radiators before….economy 7 heating things? So hopefully with central heating it might be better. But with a bigger farm house it could be bad.