Help me work out why my house is so cold

[benning]

Bought a 1930s semi last year. We’ve made several upgrades after a very cold and miserable winter last year.

BUT - it’s still cold and I’m gutted.

Csn anyone work out why the house is still so cold?

We’ve had:

New double glazed windows
New Underfloor heating
Brand new radiators and all pipes replaced
New boiler

There is also cavity wall insulation and loft insulation (not sure how thick though).

It is still not what I would call warm, even with the heating on.

Any thoughts?

Or am I using the heating all wrong? (thermostat set to 20 degrees)

Have you checked for draughts? Checked where the house feels colder?

Put door sweeps under exterior doors and double sided draught excluders under interior doors. Seal around windows and door frames with insulating tape.

Chimneys, bathroom vents etc let in cold air - get products to fix those. Put thermal curtains on windows, rather than blinds.

I did these and the temperature probably went up a couple of degrees.

I had this. I found a small hole in the wall under the gas box below floorboard level which was basically refrigerating the ground floor.

When you put the heating on, how long is it on for and when? How are you using the central heating and underfloor heating?

What flooring do you have where?

Can you feel any draughts around the windows? Sometimes when uPVC windows are fitted there is beading used to cover gaps and the gaps themselves need filling.

We live in an Edwardian semi with mainly single glazed windows and no cavity wall insulation, but it does get warm with the heating on.

20 degrees isn't very warm. Try setting it to 22 or 23 and see if it feels warm then.

Before I get people moaning, I know 20 is plenty warm enough for many people but it's worth a try to see if it does fix the OP's problem of "not feeling what I would call warm" or whether there is an actual problem with the heating not being sufficient for the room size, drafts etc.

Have you closed chimneys you're not using?

Depends on your version of "warm". What type of housing are you used to living in? If a modern highly insulated home then it was probably never truly cold inside.

What has been the outside temperature where you are? My house has been 21 degrees during the day with no heating on, so if the thermostat had been set to 20 degrees the CH wouldn't have come anyway.

What’s your front door like? Our front and back doors were always the areas where draughts would come in.

Do you have hard floors? If so then you need rugs, hard floors are practical but there is a reason why in days gone by they used enormous rugs that were practically wall to wall. There is also a reason the rugs were wool.

what are your curtains like? I see so many pictures of homes that are all hard surfaces, laminate, tile, wooden blinds etc. You need rugs, lined curtains plus fabric blinds, throws, cushions etc.

Underfloor heating takes ages to heat up. If you've turned it off over the summer it could take as much as a few days to heat up. You often need to leave it turned on all the time for all but a few months of the year. There are a lot of variables on how underfloor heating works and you are likely to have to do a bit of research on your system and experiment on how to get it to work well for you.

Yy to the underfloor not helping. As above solid floors are colder than carpeted. If you add rugs now you are putting insulation between you and the heating.

Light a candle and put it in different parts of the house. If the flame flickers you have a draught

What flooring do you have?

Tiles are freezing cold.

I see you have underfloor heating but how long are you leaving it on?

We have the same problem, except our house is 1990s! We used to live in a 1930s semi, it was much warmer than this house 😩

Are you cold already now or do you mean last year? It hasn't really got cold yet has it?

Try a thermal imaging app on your phone, which could help identify a potential source

Seek Thermal is one we've used at work

I would suggest checking how much loft insulation you actually have, and if possible installing another layer. Insulation compacts over time and can become less effective. In addition, the recommended amounts have increased so if it was installed a couple of decades ago you may not actually have much there at all by today's standards.

A quarter of all heat is lost through the roof, so if the loft insulation isn't up to scratch then the effect is enough to offset the benefit of any other improvements - which sounds like what could be happening here.

Where is the underfloor heating and where are the radiators ? Is it underfloor downstairs and radiators upstairs? What's the layout of your house? Are their rooms downstairs or is it open plan?

Is there any furniture in front of the radiators etc?

How old are the front and rear doors? Any patio doors? Consider a curtain over any doors to stop draughts. Do you have blinds or curtains over the windows?

What heating is there in the bathroom? My previous house only had a towel rail in the bathroom that did FA and meant all of the cold air from the bathroom went through the whole house.

What temperature does your thermostat say it is inside your house without the heating on? Is the thermostat in a area that's likely to be warmer than the coldest area of the house?

Last but not least, it might simply be a case of needing the heating on higher or longer. I live in a new build house which is well insulated. But I still have our heating set to 21c.

It's haunted

Do a thermal imaging survey.

Thank you all. I am going to check the loft insulation as I’m not sure how thick it is, although the house stayed cool in summer so it must be decent.

There are no draughts around doors or windows - the windows are brand new and aluminium.

Maybe I will try having the heating on for longer to see if things warm up and perhaps turn it up to 22. Scared of the cost but I’d rather be warm!

I’m just very disappointed as we’ve spent thousands trying to not be cold. Our old house was a very old cottage with solid walls and rubbish windows and it was absolutely toasty in winter. It makes no sense.

For ref, we’re in the UK and yesterday evening it was around 6/7 degrees outside where we are.

Flooring is luxury vinyl so not cold. We don’t have rugs yet but we have good curtains. The underfloor heating is in the kitchen diner only.

Does anyone know how long we need to have it on to feel the benefit?

I take it back about not being cold yet - I've just got out of bed!!!

Where is your thermostat? Is it in a fixed position or is it moveable? Remember that it only measures the temperature of the room it's in, not the rest of the house.

What about the boiler?

Not quite sure how underfloor heating works but our house felt a lot warmer when we got a new boiler last year.

Is the house damp? That would make it feel really cold.

Just dropped my ds off at school (Rugby match) it was 7 degrees!! 🥶

I agree with this. I would say I have a “warm house” as it heats up quickly from cold. But I have my thermostat set higher then 20 (sorry!)

I "feel the cold" (I even get mild cold shock when I go in public indoor swim pool) and I'm usually ok in the house at temps about 17-18. What temp is it actually inside your house right now, OP, without heating on?