How to make an old house warm?

[Meltinthemiddle]

My house was built in 1920's and only has single brick walls. Despite having central heating in every room the house takes ages to warm up and never seems to retain the heat l. We have double glazing and some insulation in the loft. However we are also suffering with damp and condensation. How can I make it warmer and more energy efficient. It's cost ling me a fortune to keep warm.

So I’m gonna go for skirting board heating downstairs, wet off the central heating I believe and then upstairs because my ceilings needed re-plastering Anyway I’m going for ceiling replacement heating would you believe basically they seem to run electrical heating cable all around the top of the room and then cover it with like a plastic layer.

It’s costing about £500 per room for the ceiling heating, which is what it was gonna cost me to re-plaster it anyway. Obviously it’s electric so it is gonna be more expensive to run but what I’m hoping is that we will just heat the room that the people are in and I can just keep the gas central heating really low.

The plan in the next year or two is to put in solar panels when I get a new roof anyway so I might have a couple of years of expensive electric bills but long-term. It will solve a lot of problems.

Following

There are luckily many ways to insulate houses with breathable materials. We used cork under limeplaster for external and internal wall insulation, or sheepwool for internal wall, floor and loft insulation. Condensation causes a lot of dampness, so reducing condensation by warming up the walls is important, and warmer air inside the house will also carry more moisture, so wall insulation will help significantly with drying out a damp house.

1912 house. Loft insulation doubled, ewi on solid walls on top floor of house combined with now all windows modern double glazing, Internal wall insulation when refitted kitchen, underfloor insulation where possible. Laid new tiled floor over wooden floor boards in hall that has been good at reducing draughts

tried to be meticulous at stopping droughts between floor and walls when having building projects - we have in the past improved sub floor ventilation as had damp in joists - and there can be a ferocious updraft !

living room is still cold - need to replace old double glazed windows - and will look at further insulation there.

definitely warmer than when we moved in 20 years ago but still have fierce draughts at times when it is windy that we can’t seem to be able to locate. The house has good natural ventilation 😀

For our house, the ewi was key to boosting warmth.

Upper floor walls were solid cinder breezeblocks with pebbledash render on the outside. EWI went over the pebbledash and had a more modern render applied

Agree with insulation and thick, lined curtains. Perhaps consider thermal blinds behind curtains too - these will also help keep you cool in summer.

An extra, oil filled radiator in the room you are spending time in may help when it's especially cold.

And really nail down any droughts. I have magnets over key holes, additional rubber tape between French doors and use rubber mats to cover the gap at the bottom of the back door.

Your house was designed to be heated by solid fuel. If you can afford it, an Aga would help immensely. They are a fortune to run though. You will have plenty of chimneys so multi-fuel stoves will be an option.

Every option for a house this old will be expensive though.

Our north facing living room is cold (Victorian terrace) but we make sure the door is kept closed* which makes a huge difference in keeping it warm.

• Almost closed - because cats!

@Tintime2022 I’ve only heard bad things about skirting heating, and never heard of ceiling heating.
Sounds like running costs similar to electric under floor heating.

I have a similar house and I agree do not add wall insulation. We looked into this and the consensus is that it will make damp worse.

we have more than the recommended amount of loft insulation. Replaced the drafty front door. Log burner. Dehumidifier

Oh don’t say that 🤦‍♀️ the reviews are great 😭
I agree, I think it will be the same cost as running electric underfloor heating and we might have a year. Maybe 18 months of OMG bills but we’re gonna put Solar Panels in anyway in the long term and gas central heating is gonna be phased out

Wall Insulation can cause problems but that's because too many people fitting it really don't know what they are doing.
Using the right type of insulation and build up of membranes along with a ventilation strategy works fine but requires skill that lots of installers don't have.
There is a design element to it and it will vary House to house.
It can be very effective even in very old houses and if you are very committed you can even retrofit to passivehouse standards but that's more than most people want or can afford to do https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/competitionsandd_campaigns/passivhaus-retrofit/
One of the main stumbling blocks on older houses and external insulation is appearance.

My house which I sold earlier in the year had insulation in the living room. It was less than an inch thick and prevented damp and kept it warmer. My friend who is an architect said the council have started using it in their properties. The previous owner put it up and it still looked fine after 10 years.

It was similar to this

www.twistfix.co.uk/thin-internal-wall-insulation-7125-m2-kit?tab=reviews

Thank you everyone, lots of of interesting suggestions and reading. I'm beginning to understand my house more and it's need to breath as we are getting its of condensation and mould. Maybe a wood burner would help, going back to traditional methods.

Thing is to go for quick wins that are cheap.

Loft insulation is £20 odd a roll. It's cheap and for less than maybe a couple of hundred quid you can do the whole loft. Remember to check for advice on youtube on how to fit it (don't roll it out completely to the eaves).

Find where the heat leaks are, buy an IR spot thermometer and work out what leaks heat the most. Think about blocking off unused chimneys because they often have the worst heat leak.

Remember if you seal off the leaks you seal the humidity in. So two choices, either work to make sure you reduce the humidity you produce (think drying clothers, boiling pans, baths etc) and use a dehumidifier to pull humidity out of the air. The dehunidier might be expensive to run (0.2 kW) but you will save more in gas not having to heat the place. You'll also probably find the house will feel less cold at low humidities for a given temperature as it will not be damp.

The key is to actually remove the humidity/excess water, not heat the house up so more water is held in the air, which is what most people do when they turn the heating on.

Have you actually looked at how much solar will help you. We have solar panels. 8kw so a reasonably large array. They are great but they generate 95 percent of the energy in the summer months. That isn't when you are needing to run your central heating..

In winter they generate minimal amounts so the vast majority of your energy still comes from the grid. Ours have just really started to come into their own again in March. Today it's cold and we need the heating on. Our panels are currently generating 83 watts (i.e. nothing!)

OP, as some people here have mentioned, old houses were not meant to be kept to an even temperature all over. If you wanted to be warm, you put on warmer clothes, then reached for a blanket, or lit a fire.
My house is 1850 with single sash glazing, no insulation (Loft rooms rather a proper loft). Most rooms have no carpet as we took them up when we moved in 15 years ago, and haven't replaced them yet! There are big draughty bits everywhere, yet having lived in old houses all my life (in my 50's) we never get mould, condensation is banished from my sleeping children's rooms after they wake by throwing open the windows for a while, we are not often ill, yet we don't freeze to death either.
I rarely heat the bedroom, in quite a few rooms the heating is off (rads currently removed before more in keeping style ones fitted), yet this place is warmer than the double glazed flat nearby my son rents, which also suffers from black mould in the bathroom. Old houses are not designed to be snug buildings, unless deeply retrofitted.

Check for obvious issues that are (relatively) easily solved, too.

We had a very draughty window as it had been refitted with a new double glazed sash, but with a poor job of sealing it, so there was a lot of gaps between it and the wall. We have filled that gap up with sheep's wool as insulation and that's made a surprising difference. You could literally feel the breeze on your face before.

I also realised that our porch was directly below the bathroom, and there was absolutely no insulation between the two layers so effectively just a floor, plasterboard and rafters, and then straight out into the open air. The bathroom was freezing when we arrived here. We have now put significantly more insulation in the roof space (and that really is worth doing) and then lots of breathable insulation (like Rockwall, but in fact, a recycled plastic version) in the space between the floorboards and the porch, and the bathroom is now significantly warmer.

Another thing that makes a difference is tongue and groove on the walls. When we arrived, there was some downstairs, and that wall with markedly warmer than the wall above it without any. we have now put some in the bathroom, again with insulating Rockwall, type material in the batten gap, and again it has made a huge difference.

I am going to look into insulating internally, one of our walls as it is a huge north facing wall and impossible to keep the hallway warm… and goes up through the whole house. But I do need to look at breathable versions that will avoid damp.

The Haynes manual, the Victorian house is really useful – there is probably a similar one for your period

And an electric dehumidifier is really worth having. Ensure it is a desiccant one though as they also give some heat. The other type are condensing and colder.

Meaco Portable Dehumidifier DD8L - Compact Desiccant Dehumidifier - Best For Small Homes & Spaces - Prevent Condensation, Mould & Damp - 18 x 35 x 50 cm amzn.eu/d/hdQBTjG

I have got this one and really rate it, but I think there are more modern versions available now.

Agree with the curtains and draft excluders. And if you have damp find the cause and rectify. Sometimes it is guttering. In old properties it can be where former fireplaces were. Strange but true.
It is really hard sometimes. I agree with the previous poster that you do need to check about the sort of property and its construction before doing anything radical. They were built of different materials and modern treatments may not be suitable but may make things worse.
The sort of heating you have. How old is it ? Old houses are money pits I am afraid. You can get them nice but boy they cost.

1640s house here with later additions. I know MN seems to hate them but good quality woodburners are brilliant. They just seem to send heat everywhere and repel damp. Extra loft insulation, draught excluders, interlined curtains. Yes the odd oil filled radiators for bitter cold. And hot water bottles are the best.

We insulated the walls with nearly 2 inches of kingspan and put a load of loft insulation in.

Made a huge difference.

Extra layers of clothing