Period property, impossible to insulate, impossible to heat, and ridiculous hot water pipe configuration. Help all round please!

[Jux]

The house is Georgian and not in particularly good repair. We have no dosh atm so no point thinking lavishly, I have given up on the idea of decent insulation. No matter how many newspapers are stuffed in window gaps, up chimneys (all capped at the top so unusable except by the wind), no matter how many draught excluders we put down or fix to bits of door that don't fit well, it's not going to be a place with no draughts. I can take that; we've been here quite a few years and managed to cope with the draughts even in bad winters before. When we could afford the heating of course!

The place has gas central heating. It's a big old house and I reckon the boiler's a bit small and the hot water tank is definitely too small. 5 floors, high ceilings. There are adequate radiators except on the ground floor which is mainly not heated except for the kitchen. We have been OK with using halogen heaters in the other rooms when in use, but the halogens all had to be replaced from time to time and they all died deaths a few years ago, the light they gave off was annoying anyway; so instead of buying more of the same I persuaded dh to lay out for a couple of oil filled electric radiators. Worked pretty well last year and we'll be having to use them again this year.

Today even dh was cold so the gch has gone on.

My first question is this>
Is it cheaper to run it 24 hrs a day on lowish or to have it on twice a day at a higher temperature? We will probably have to use the electric radiators too anyway, esp if we just have the gch on low as I am disabled, pretty sedentary and get very cold which makes me more debilitated.

So now, our hot water situation.
The boiler is in the basement and we think the pipes run to the first floor where the hw tank is and then up to the 3rd floor, from where they come down floor by floor until they finally reach the kitchen. We have worked this out by timing how long it takes for the water to run hot, on each floor when we first moved in.

We are appalled at the waste of water as it sits in the pipes going cold, and all the cold water as the pipes empty of it when we are waiting for hot water in the kitchen. I am not fit enough atm to struggle with the hose and fixings to get that water into the barrel so it can be used for the garden. I almost salivated the first time I saw a qooker!

Anyway, we want one of those instant hot water things you put above a sink/bath which is plumbed into the cold feed, thus cutting the kitchen out of the hot water loop altogether. You know, one of those things that so many rented flats had over the bath which meant you either got a swimming pool temperature bath quickly, or ran the hot tap so slowly you could cook, serve, eat and clean up after a 5 course meal for 20 people while the bath ran! I don't even know what they're called!

Next month we could probably scrabble about 50 quid together, so it would need to be a cheap one. Can anyone recommend anything that's not going to be too hard to install oneself and isn't too expensive. We could wait until Jan when we might have a little more spare dosh (but not much more!).

Thank you.

In Australia we commonly use flow through gas hot water systems. You place them near to where you use the water and it heats the water up as you go, and as it is near to the water use you don't waste the cold water or gas by heating water needlessly.

I've seen electric hot water systems for showers when I lived in the UK but think they can be quite expensive to run.

If you search for "Flow Through Water Heaters" you should find some information to at least start with!

Ascot water heater. Memories 🥶

Though, frankly, 5 stories of coldness and you have a disability, I’d be tempted to sell up and buy a nice warm new-build or flat.

Exactly. These old ice boxes are really for the rich. Who wants to not only have a Georgian house to maintain but also the Georgian living experience?
FWIW I live on 2nd floor of an old, uninsulated house (rental). The LL has a pressurized hot water system in the cellar and we get near instant hot water.
Sounds like you may as well boil kettles.

Argh. Just typed a huge reply and then lost it.

Electricity is about 4 times more expensive per unit than gas so it is always cheaper to heat you house/ water with gas than electricity.

You need to lag your pipes. It is pretty cheap but will involve taking floor boards up to get to the pipes. A plumber could come and do it and could for some thermostatic valves on your radiators at the same time which would allow you to have them on lower levels.

We love in a draughty georgian house so I feel your pain. We have put underfloor heating on the downstairs floor and have zoned heating for each floor so we can just turn them on for short perioda when we need to.

Have also put 300mm of loft insulation down, replaced single glazed glass with thin double glazed units and am working round the house putting secondary plastic glazing in which you can hardly see, and thick interlined curtains.

There is a lot you can do and with the cost of heating it makes financial sense.

Why don't you see if you can get a grant for upgrading your central heating?

How many people live in the house @Jux ?

You could consider a boiling water tap for the kitchen, I suspect it will be more than £50 but it would save you money on kettles etc going forward. The only disadvantage might be that it has a push and turn' tap for safety reasons, rather than a tap you just turn.

Another option is an under sink storage heater, we have an Ariston because our pipe flow is ridiculously long too. www.screwfix.com/c/heating-plumbing/water-heaters/cat830974?brand=ariston#category=cat830974&brand=ariston&waterheaterlocation=undersink%3Bundersink_or_oversink

Rethink how you use the rooms- move into the warmer ones.

Use a kettle for hot water, it's more efficient. Add a little to a bowl for washing up, hands or dishes. Use a flask so hot water is always available/not wasted.

Get curtains across doors and windows to stop draughts.

Yes to lagging pipes.

Gas central heating- on for an hour or two three times a day to take the edge off.

Keep the people warm, not the space. Neck and wrist warmers, heated throws etc

I always laugh at the suggestion to install a hot water tap, especially for people who have no money - they cost more than a lifetime's worth of kettles.

Option 1 - sell up and move.

If option 1 not feasible, is there any scope to sell to a developer to turn the property into flats and allow you to continue to live on a floor or two?

If neither of the above are viable, close off some rooms/floors and live in the remainder.

Hot water taps cost £1000 and need an £80 service every year. Kettles for us all the way!

we live in an edwardian house over 4 floors and for us it is cheaper to leave the heating on all the time and turn the thermostat down at night so the house is never too cold. We have done extensive tests to see if this is cheaper than having it on higher morning and evening and using an electric fire during the day when the heating is off as it takes so long to get the house warm from scratch.

We have 2 disabled children that have to be kept warm so we have tried every solution to find the cheapest option and this works best for us.

I recently looked at moving to a bigger Georgian house. I earn a decent salary and the extra mortgage would have been affordable. I decided no because it would cost too much to heat and renovate.

Can you sell and move?

We heat our Edwardian house all the time and keep it fairly low. It's off in the summer and the place gets damp and i reckon smells slightly fusty. Leaving heating off not good for the house but with energy costs through the roof it didn't seem sensible to heat it in the summer.

One good thing about our old house is its cool in the summer. I looked at a more midern house with a massive glass skylight in the kitchen and just shuddered at what a sweaty stuffy place it would be in the heat!!

This stuff is good for insulating windows. I think someone else on here recommended it. Also easy to install
www.sheetplastics.co.uk/secondary-glazing

First, don't put your heating on on lowish 24 hours. We live in a 5 story Queen Anne house (ca 5500square feet) with decent insulation (loft, external walls, secondary glazing), highly efficient boiler on 55 degrees flow temperature and we had it calculated by boiler installers that at current prices keeping the heating on at 17 degrees would cost us 13k/year, or 15.5k from April. So if I were you, I would turn off the radiators everywhere at the valves and only heat 1 or 2 rooms ( your bedroom and bathroom when you use them). Get thick curtains for the windows (do you have window shutters left? They are best), add window film, and religiously close the doors. Don't use 2 oil filled radiators. Electricity costs 3times gas. Could you scrape maybe 300 pounds and have a plumber install 1 radiator in your living room (do you have a small snug? No point heating a huge drawing room. Sounds like you have a lower groundfloor. We have a family room on the lower groundfloor which, as in the ground, is naturally insulated and gets/keeps warm the easiest, so we use that room mainly in winter). For hot showers, I think you mean an electric immersion heater. They are cheap to install but 3x more expensive to run than your gas fired hot water, so think about it. Are your hot water tank and pipes insulated? Just wrapping them in insulation foam sleeves should make a difference. I think overall selling and moving into an easier to heat/maintain house would be your best bit. We have spent 100ks (incl. replastering/redecorating/reflooring) for new plumbing, zoned heating (we have 7 seperate zones, 1 zone (kitchen extension) connected to a heat pump), hot water pump/tank, electrics, floor and loft insulation, opening up blocked chimneys and reinstating log burners - and it is still cold (at least in many places - I can't and will not heat a 13m high large central staircase/hall with original roof lights at top or a 50sqm drawing room with 3.5m high ceilings/unused bedrooms/extra bathrooms; so the trick is to have a warm kitchen, snug, bedrooms, 1 bathroom and close off all the remaining rooms and put on a coat while walking through hall/corridors)).

www.toolstation.com/triton-t30i-instaflow-handwash/p50110 this sort of thing - they also have them at screwfix

Excellent advice from @NellyBarney. We’ve just spent £8k on a new condenser boiler and replacing all the radiators in our 400 year old house. This winter we’re heating our snug, kitchen, shower room and bedroom. We have a log burner in the sitting room.

We’ve just accepted the draughts as the price of living in an old house but we’re fit and healthy and have the money to make changes to improve it. I think if I were you I’d be thinking about moving somewhere more comfortable.

Seems like madness to live in a place like that unless you have some highly compelling reason to do so.

You are probably have a choice between a lifetime of massive expense and miserable living or moving somewhere else.

If you are going to reduce the massive expense - well you are going to have to spend money to save money.

5 floors is a lot to heat! I'd use a convector heater in one room and keep the door shut then make sure beds have electric blankets or use hot water bottles.

We have friends who have one of those water heater things as it's according to them it's cheaper to use than to heat the water tank.

I have an old draughty house and over many years all of these have made a noticeable difference:

power flush of radiators
changing all single radiators to double
Interlining all the curtains
window refurbishment
replacing any windows I can with double glazing
proper chimney pillow
Electric blanket

Obviously some of these are £££ but some are not and every one makes a difference

Ours cost nothing like this and has never been serviced in 15 years. It has had one set of replacement filters that the manufacturer provided for free. It is still working perfectly.

I appreciate that if money is really tight it may not be the way to go, but if you can stretch a little further it may be worth researching what they actually cost now rather than writing it off without investigation. Just a thought.

Prices will have risen in 15 years. The cheapest quooker is now £950

a qettle 2 in 1 with a 4 litre boiler is £445 on Amazon. May come down for black Friday too.

But if you just boil the right amount of water in the kettle, or even better heat it on a gas hob, having a boiling water tap won't save you any money or make the house any warmer so might not be all that useful for the OP.

Boiling the water for a cup of tea or some pasta on the gas hob will save you you two thirds on heating it via a kettle. It will also heat the room up. Having a lid on the pan will reduce condensation. A dehumidifier will also contribute positively to the room.

Until earlier this year it was 6 but now it's 3ft and one at Uni.