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?!

You can still insulate a house and allow it to breathe - we used compressed wood fibre insulation on the inside of the walls (is fairly thick and did reduce the room size slightly) and then plastered with lime plaster. We then had to also use a breathable paint. So not necessarily straightforward but certainly doable.

@XingMing

My late grandmother's house was 13th century and half timbered. Cold doesn't begin to describe it. The draughts were gale force, especially the one which hit you sitting in the bath. But when it was sold, and modernised with modern heating etc, the death watch beetle woke up.

Smiled at this! From a similar property (200 years newer), there wasn't a draught in the bathroom but the bath was quite old and not great quality. In winter you could have a good amount of hot water in it and still be aware that the bath walls themselves would stay icy cold for a bit (definitely above the waterline, and cooler even under the water in it), so relaxing right against them was not really something you would like to do for long.

Freezing!

You will need a log burner in the sitting room.
An Aga or everhot cooker in the kitchen and a
Boiler in the utility /boot room .
If you work at it you might get to 20 degrees.
Carpets , rugs and lined insulated thick curtains everywhere will help.

Don't do it if you dislike the cold! The difference between the EPC is 81 to 27, that is a huge difference. The thread has inspired me to check mine, it's an Edwardian mid-terrace and the EPC is around 67 with recent improvements since last EPC including completing the double glazing and insulating part of the loft. It still isn't as warm as a newer house and I wouldn't want to live anywhere colder, the kitchen is freezing in the winter, the floor feels like an ice rink.

@Alwayscheerful

You will need a log burner in the sitting room. An Aga or everhot cooker in the kitchen and a Boiler in the utility /boot room . If you work at it you might get to 20 degrees. Carpets , rugs and lined insulated thick curtains everywhere will help.

You need to see the house to decide that. 😂

I am a bit confused as some posters said their walls retains heat well, some said the opposite.. Can I conclude that stone wall with several feet of thickness is the former, whilst single skin brick wall with just 4.5 inch of thickness is the latter?

My old house was single skin solid brick and it was freezing. Outside walls are usually 9 inches thick.

Thick stone walls usually have a lot of voids inside them which reduces heat loss.

1850s stone built house which after a few years we have learnt how to keep it warm. Thermal blinds and curtains on windows (conservation area so can't change the windows). Extra insulation on all doors, a chimney sheep when the fires aren't in use and also lighting the fires as often as possible, heating the chimney stacks is fantastic for carrying the heat upstairs. Keeping the air dry so using a dehumidifier.

What does make a massive difference is a lot of sun in the summer which warms up the stone walls and then they radiate it back into the house over winter.

I'm also prepared to keep the heating on 24 hours a day because the house is easier to keep at the right temperature than it is to warm it up if it gets too cold.

I lived in a cottage built in 1800. It wasn’t ever cold, but then I’m not shy with the thermostat. And it had an epic inglenook you could sit on with a massive roaring fire.

It’ll be lovely!

Older houses aren't designed to be cosy, I'm afraid, unless you use fuel like there's no tomorrow (and you have unlimited funds).
When I was a kid in the 1960s, our 100-yr old (then) terraced house didn't have central heating, and there was ice on the inside of the bedroom windows in the winter.
Also, older houses don't structurally like being hot-cold-hot-cold. They like being mildly lukewarm all the time. One of our surveyors for our house (early 1900s but with some Victorian building methods) said keep the central heating at about 16-18 degrees, and if that's not enough, use supplementary heating just in the room you're in and only while you're in it.
Walking around a house freely with the doors open between rooms in your shorts and T-shirt all year round is something for modern, very, very well-insulated housing only. Older houses, you have to get used to putting on a woolly jumper and warm leggings if it's not like a furnace outside. (That's in the summer. Add thermals in the winter. )

@JemimaDucki

I am a bit confused as some posters said their walls retains heat well, some said the opposite.. Can I conclude that stone wall with several feet of thickness is the former, whilst single skin brick wall with just 4.5 inch of thickness is the latter?

Single skin brick would be freezing in cold weather. But foot-thick stone walls, though they retain heat more than single-skin brick, cost a bomb to warm up in the first place.