Fed up with cold house

[Bluebirthdaycard]

We live in a bungalow, built in 1999, so relatively newish but it is so unbelievably cold, even with the heating at 20. The windows were replaced in 2018 and a new boiler fitted 2021 but hasn't really made the slightest bit of difference. I walk around in my coat for 6 months of the year as i dont bother taking it off when i come in. All the bedroom curtains need replacing as they are caked in mould and rotten. My neighbours don't seem to have this problem. As far as I know the builders built the houses over a lake, drained it but didn't fill it in. Could this be a reason for it? My mum's house is only a year newer (2000 build) and is nice and warm with the heating on. Just fed up with living in an igloo! Any ideas?

Do the walls have insulation? My old house had no wall insulation and it was so damp and cold all the time.

Have you tried using a dehumidifier? Damp air is harder to heat. I use one and house feels noticeably warmer once it's been on for a while. The amount of water it collects is shocking!

Check your radiators aren’t full of sludge. We couldn’t get our 2000 yr house warm when we moved in, even running the rads constantly. Heating engineer spent more than a day clearing out an immense amount of sludge and now they’re great, and we’re cosy

Wet air is harder to heat than cold air (and feels uncomfortable). Are there signs of damp in the house - other than condensation? If so, fix them. Are your extractor fans good? Hold a piece of paper up to the fan whilst its running - you can tell if its sucking the paper against it fairly easily. If not, try to replace them. Opening windows for a short time each morning, and opening the trickle vents on your window frames will also help.

Drafts - these loose huge amounts of heat, as well as making the house feel uncomfortable. You need ventilation, but not constant drafts eg from ill fitting doors & windows, letterbox, gaps around pipes, etc. Theyre easy to sort out.

Wall insulation - easy to find out if its got cavity wall insulation by booking a survey with a company that does it (they make a small hole and use a teensy camera, then fill hole in afterwards).

Loft insulation - have a look and check its undisturbed and thick enough.

Radiators - have you bled them? If they have cold patches then that suggests air is trapped in them. Do they get hot enough? If there are individual thermostatic valves, are they turned up high enough?

Boiler thermostat - is it accurate? Is it in an unusually warm area? Is it near a radiator? (If it is the heating will cluck off very quickly once that radiator is on, then click on as soon as that radiator cools down).

Hot water tank - is it heating the water to a sensible temperature then stopping? If your water from the hot tap is insanely hot you could get it adjusted.

Insulation is absolutely key! What are your floors? How is your loft insulation? What are your walls?

I also agree re checking your rads. Are they big enough for the rooms?

Our house was built the same year and was freezing when we moved in! We’ve definitely not cracked it but a few things that have helped: get a cavity wall insulation company to come out and check your walls. Ours needed it added even though it’s a relatively new house.
We swapped out a number of the radiators (which were still the original ones) for newer ones. The new ones are so much more efficient! Where we could we’ve put in bigger ones (go for the highest BTU output you can squeeze into the space), but even where the radiators are the same size as the old ones they’re still so much warmer.
Our windows are the original ones, made from uPVC and they’re surprisingly drafty. I’d love to replace them but can’t stretch to that at the moment. I’ve discovered that a bit like my mum telling me to put on more layers when I was cold as a kid you can do the same with your windows! All of my windows now have thermal blinds as a bare minimum, but quite a few have big, thick floor length curtains in front of them as well. In the winter I’m religious about opening them all in the morning to let in as much sunlight in as possible, and then closing them all as soon as it starts to get dark. I’m surprised, but this has made one of the biggest differences of all.
I’m generally prefer hard floors and I’m not a fan of carpets, but because this house was so cold I’ve replaced the hard floors with carpets in several rooms, crucially with the thickest underlay I could find. The good underlays have a tog rating like a duvet, go for the highest you can. This made an immediate difference too.
Next on my hit list is lining some of the coldest walls with insulating plasterboard as I decorate, something like this: https://insulation4less.co.uk/products/celotex-pl4000-insulated-plasterboard-all-sizes
Apparently you can just stick it to your existing walls, and then decorate on top. I’ve been told the walls to concentrate on are the ones that face north, and the ones that are external walls. I’ll lose a few cms, but I’d rather do that and have a tiny bit smaller but much warmer house! I’ll also be taking out some of the wall to wall tiling in the bathroom and loo and replace it with wooden tongue and groove panelling and lvt on the floors which will hopefully feel a bit cosier!

As well as insulating boards you can get insulating wall paper liner OP. The stuff rockwell (I think?) Make is very highly regarded. You could also put it on the ceiling if you like.

I agree re good underlay and carpet. If your feet are cold, you will never warm up.

Fit a woodburner. 🙂🪵🔥

Not a woodburner. Bad for the environment.
The company that makes the insulation is Rockwool.
That's to @KievLoverTwo