So cold in house is this normal?

[BlingersMcBling]

I've recently bought a semi detached 2 bed small house. During winter it is so cold towards the front of the house. It has a porch that then goes directly into living room. If I put a thermometer in porch area it is around 4 degrees c at moment. In the living room it never gets above 14 degrees c with the heating on full.

I've added a thermal door cover and draft excluder to the porch door but this doesn't seem to have made much difference. If I put the electric fire on the room will heat up to 16 degrees and beyond but as soon as I switch it off it quickly goes back down to 14.

Is this normal? I can't feel a draft coming from the front door but maybe a slight one from the light fitting in the porch ceiling.

Is there a company I can call to assess what is making it so cold? If I leave the house and come back the next day the thermostat shows 8 degrees-I've never had a house get that low. My missus house never seems to go below 13 with the heating not on so it doesn't feel like a heating issue to me but rather it's just letting too much cold in.

Thanks for any help.

I think it’s pretty normal. It’s winter. With no heating on most old houses get cold

Ours is in a colder area, but we have the heating on from 6am-9pm all day. On smart thermostats so the rooms like bedrooms are lower in daytime, rooms not in use low, rooms in use on full. And we can turn off if all out all day via app. But it’s 20 degrees at 9pm, and when heating goes off in living room at the moment it’s about 12 degrees at 5am before heatings comes back on.

Bedrooms we keep on at 18 all night as they also drop to 10-12 degrees otherwise overnight

Its average-5/-10 overnight outside in Dec-Feb

As an example our old pantry which is unheated with vent, probably similar to your porch is about 5 degrees, if not colder. It was designed like that for pre fridges

I recently had my house surveyed to assess its insulation, as the back of the house was particularly cold. The company drilled into the outside walls and found that, despite having cavity walls, there was little to no insulation inside them. I'll be addressing this issue soon to improve the insulation.

Some people are eligible for financial assistance through the government’s insulation scheme. Unfortunately, I didn’t qualify, but it’s worth checking to see if you’re eligible.

What's your porch made of? If it's just a single layer of bricks, which most porches are, then it's got no insulation and is going to be cold.

A close friend of mine had one like that and it was freezing. Last winter though, they got a new door fitted between the porch and the house. They got a "proper" modern front door, and it made a huge difference to the warmth of the rest of the house. It was expensive, I think she said it was about £1800 all in, but it's transformed the feeling of the house in winter.

Get the internal door changed. We've just had a wooden external door (so warmer!) installed between our porch and living room and it's made a HUGE difference this winter.

Anything like these:
https://www.diy.com/timber-joinery/doors.cat?Location=External&Material+type=Wooden

Then it still looks like a normal internal door, but will be freshly fitted to avoid gaps and be much warmer.

I also air the hallway (leave the door open to the living room basically) every other day for a few hours so it gets up to the same temperature as the rest of the house - it's removed all the damp / sweating issues from it.

Are the windows double glazed? Do you have 300mm or more of loft insulation? Are the walls single brick or cavity? Do you have chimney breasts and are they open or closed up? Are your walls really dry or do you have leaky gutters?

Do you have a suspended floor? A thermal imaging camera would show you where the cold is leaking in.

My house is the same. In fact I'm lucky if it can reach 14 with the heating on, without it it's less than 10. It's solid wall, and the front door has a draught coming through. In the summer it's fine and I'm the only one who is not complaining about heat 😂

Depends on the age and style of your house.

Our hallway, stairs and landing go down to about 12c at night. Even with the heating on all day it would struggle to ever get above 19c. Putting the log burner on with the heating is the only way to make it hotter. We're pretty comfortable without it most of the time.

The kitchen is a massive modern extension v with no insulation and tons of glazing, that gets to about 8c of a morning and is awful, we'd change that. And the porch is probably only a couple of degrees above outside temp.

Have you got a cellar below? What flooring have you got? Are you leaving the heating off for long periods during the day?

For context I live in a new build bungalow so lots of external walls including full length bifold doors across back of living dining kitchen which open onto the garden which has open unimpeded outlook onto windy fields. Heating set at 19 at night and 20 during the day. It's toasty.

If you have cavity walls, might be worth having wall insulation. 4c for a porch is very cold. We used to have a conservatory with draughty cat flap, stone floor which never got below 8c without heating on. Other factors to consider are what elevation are they on, ie north facing and also if radiators are sufficient to heat the space they're in - we asked our heating engineer to assess sufficiently on initial check after moving in.

Thanks, I was thinking maybe I need a new front door but yeh maybe the internal door between the porch and living room needs changing. Thanks I may invest in a thermal imaging camera too.

Pretty sure it is block and brick like the rest of the house-it looks it anyway.

Thanks for your advice I will look into changing that door. It has a window in it at the moment which obviously won't help but I thought putting thermal cover over it would counteract that. Will look into getting a new internal door thanks.

My Grandparents had a lounge with a 1960s extension and bay window. They had curtains that went across at the division.

In the summer I pulled them to play in the bay in peace. In winter when they were pulled there's no way I'd go there it was freezing!! Combination of the windows (single glazed) and the heavy curtains I think.

So maybe if you can install something like that?

Cavity walls are meant to have cavities not insulation! Filling the gap can cause damp and mould issues

Yes windows are double glazed. I think only 150mm of insulation in loft-could that make a big difference? It will be cavity walls and I'm unsure if they have been filled with insulation.. definitely colder at the front of the house which is W/NW facing and is quite open with a pond about 20/30 meters in front of it... I did wonder if it could be something to do with that -blowing cold water onto front of house as sometimes in even only slightly icy weather like -1 or -2 the front door can get frozen shut which I've never had before. Easy enough to pull it open but just thought it was odd as never happened before with other properties.

You can check for cavity fill by drilling a hole and sticking in a camera. Or ask the neighbors what they know.
If that side is where the rain comes from, you could insulate inside instead. It’s all down to cost how you resolve this.
How old is the house? Are there air bricks along that front wall?

My house goes down to about 10 degrees overnight when the heating is off. I turn it back on in the morning and it climbs to over 20. This is much better than when I was a child, as back then we would have ice on the inside of our single glazed leaded-light windows every time it dropped below freezing outside. At least now I have double glazing so no ice indoors.

Topping up the loft insulation will make a noticeable difference and it is really cheap and relatively easy (although messy) diy job. It is maybe a couple of hundred pounds

Definitely get the cavity walls filled/checked

You could try running a dehumidifier and see if that makes it warmer? If it does then you know there is a damp issue somewhere. The pond thing sounds unlikely but if there are high winds I guess it could maybe make your front wall damp? Leaky gutters are more likely. If you put a picture of the front wall up then it is easy to tell if the gutters are leaking because there will be dirty marks on the front of the house.

Are the windows all ok or have any of the panes blown? When this happens they look misty or steamed up inside the window.

Thanks, I did spot this just before-looks like a hole in the top of the porch-can't be good! I guess I need to fill this in with expanding foam and cut some wood to go over the gap?
Thanks

That house will have cavity wall insulation. It looks like it’s from the 80’s or 90’s.
There are many variations of the CWI from that era. Rockwool bats, thin polystyrene sheets, thick polystyrene sheets, foil faced insulation sheets, etc etc. Some completely fill the cavity, others don’t.
Drilling a hole or asking someone who had an extension built etc would answer the question.

Facing the prevailing winds and no sun is not good. Any chance you can move rooms round so that living areas are facing south and warmed by sunshine. Are there bay windows which are sometimes a different construction.

Our living room is incredibly
Cold, literally like a fridge when the rest of the house is warmer. It has two big windows, and two long exterior walls. It gets a bit of sun in the morning and that's it. I think there just can't be much insulation in the walls at all. It's unbearable in winter unless we have the heating on 24/7 and supplement it the gas fire-which we can't do as we can't afford it. (Or we sit covered in thick duvets). Even in summer you need a throw over you most of the time.

It's really bloody annoying as it's our lounge and it means that in winter we mostly all go to our warmer bedrooms to watch TV or read which actually does have a detrimental effect on family life.

We are hoping to move soon otherwise we would have to look at getting some more insulation as a longer term fix.