Help warming up/preventing more damp in an old property

[Sonolanona]

DD1 has the ground floor flat of an old Georgian (I think) building. Think huge sash windows (can't replace with PVC have to be 'original) and very high ceilings. It's huge and lovely BUT bloody freezing and there is some damp in the second..large.. bedroom. She does not have any spare cash, having a) been through a horrible divorce from absusive ex and b) she and the other flat owners have all had to fork out large amounts for some external work to be done.
There aren't enough radiators in the flat and currently she can't afford to even think about that.
I thought maybe a calor heater, but apparently that can make damp worse. She's terrified of high heating bills and her flat barely ever makes it above 16 degrees on full blast.
Any suggestions gratefully received! (She does live under a heated throw in the evenings)

A dehumidifier should help. How does she dry her clothes?

Yes dehumidifier and talk to other owners and find out what they did

Very thick, floor length curtains with thermal linings as well. Check out eBay if cash is tight. So many people have shutters now that there should be more curtains for sale.

Dehumidifier, one in each room if feasible. Then oil radiators, again one per room. Make sure all windows are draft- proof with that sort of squashy sellotape stuff around the edges, draft excluder at doors etc.

I feel her pain. Moved in to our period house in 2020 and that winter we barely got it above 15C. It was 10C in the hallway when we came downstairs in the morning and we had frost on the inside of the windows.

What is the construction of the property? Is it suspended or solid floor? Has she checked that the ground level on the outside of the property hasn't gotten raised over time? That'll cause damp and make the house feel colder. If it is suspended floor construction then check the wee vents haven't been covered.

Warm curtains are great, but expensive for big windows. Our Victorian bay window needed a pair of curtains 4.7m wide, 3.3m tall. They cost a bloody fortune with lining! So second-hand is the way to go if possible. They are a pain to find though.

We found that the most effective cost-effective thing that we did was get the heating system flushed through. The boiler system was old and radiators were full of sludge. Getting it professionally flushed made them heat the rooms a lot more efficiently.

The downside is that tall ceilings, single glazed wooden windows and solid stone wall construction is never going to be toasty without costing a fortune. Ask me how I know lol. Saying that, we eventually replaced our boiler and have been slowly insulating where we can and we can keep the house at 18C through the day for about £350 a month.

Should say, it was only a couple hundred £ to get the system flushed. It instantly made a noticeable difference, but our radiators were ancient.

For a cheap temporary solotuon, you can block up and tape all the gaps in the sashes with old newspaper and masking tape and then put up temporary secondary double glazing like this.

Also definitely worth bleeding the radiators and flushing the central heating system.

It won't let me post a link but if you Google b and q temporary window film it will come up.

Just to add here it’s possible to line curtains with old blankets if you don’t mind a bit of DIY. In the past, I have secondary glazed windows with Perspex sheets and some double sided tape. If this is a long term flat, it’s worth thinking about secondary glazing when money available.

Can they afford to club together and get a good dehumidifier? Meaco do the best ones.
Old buildings need to breathe. It's cold because it's damp but don't block everything up, that WILL make damp worse. Sort out the damp problem and it will be easier to heat.

Any fireplaces? Stuff them with old pillows. Obviously never do this and use the fire, or a stove.

Use draught excluders. Newspapers or rags stuffed in old tights are great for this.
Slap down any old rug onto bare floors. Newspapers or cardboard under them too.

Basically stuff all gaps.

Yes, i DID grow up in a big old house! In the bloody freezing Highlands too!

Ooh, and a modern luxury: the heated blanket.

Yes to the Perspex sheets for windows, think you can get ones you attach with magnetic strips these days. Heavy curtains, dehumidifier and some oil filled rads so she can heat the space she’s in. Draft excluders too and big curtains over doors, perhaps a portiere rod (you hang the curtain off it and can still open the door with it in place.)

Change radiators for larger ones and flush the system. Rads can be cheap and if you are handy at diy it is actually something that is possible to do yourself. Close all doors, keeps the heat in. Think thick curtains, rugs, and a couple of oil filled rads, or electric radiators where there are no rads. A dehumidifier will help with the damp.
Close all curtains just before it gets dark, retains the heat better. If there is any sun during the day and she gets sun directly on the windows then the curtains should be open.

Could she borrow a thermal imaging camera to check cold spots? e.g. https://octopus.energy/blog/Why-our-customers-love-our-thermal-cameras/
Would secondary glazing be permitted?
Radiator heat reflector sheets?
Heated throw
Dehumidifier
Damp traps in wardrobes and cold nooks

Are there any shutters on the windows? I live in a similar property, all the original shutters were there but screwed down. I've had them opened up and in the winter we batten down the hatches. Massively reduces the draft from the windows.

Thank you for all the suggestions. Ideally we'd get more radiators in (dh is very handy) but apparently the boiler isn't up to handling more?
We have a dehumidifyer in there now which hopefully will help and we will definitely look into the perspex sheets! No shutters unfortunately and the huge sash windows are all in need of the putty replacing and general repair but there are strict rules about it and a huge cash shortage (thanks to the ex 🙄 managing to get half of the value of the property despite never contributing a penny)
If we can just get the temperature up a few degrees it would be great!

For big Georgian windows, the perspex will be 50-100 per window and we have had issues with the may Eric strip not being strong enough to support the weight of the perspex and have had to add window clips etc. It can also be a bit fiddly to fit when windows are a bit wonky as is common in older buildings.

A proper heavy duty dehumidifier will do a far better job than a standard small one.

We've got thi, and it pulls an amazing amount of water out of our house when we're drying washing...

Definitely. You need to pay about £200-£250 for a decent one and it will be largish. BUT you could buy it for her.

If she leaves it running all the time in the damp room, ideally blowing into the dampest area, it will control it well. I have one and it hasn't noticeably increased my electricity bill.

Because it takes the moisture out of the atmosphere, it will also feel a lot warmer in the room. I wouldn't have believed this until I'd experienced it myself. It makes a huge difference.

I agree. The room my dehumidifier is in feels several degrees warmer when it's on and the amount of water it collects is astonishing.

As people say dehumidifiers are really good, and making the air less humid really makes a place feel warmer.

BUT ... if a wall in room is damp you really need to be finding the source of that dampness and eliminating it rather than just continually removing it.

The idea you cannot increase the amount of radiator power is strange. Most people have boilers that are oversized for the number of radiators on them. You can also manipulate the power dissipated by individual radiators by changing the flow valves and fitting TRVS and even by turning some off, so you can shift energy from cold rooms to warm ones yet keep the same large radiators fitted.

What evidence do you have that there is not enough power in the boiler to drive more radiators ?

Magnetic Secondary glazing for the window, look at somewhere like ExtraGlaze. It's more effective that double glazing. She is right to keep her timber sash, just stay on top of maintenance with it.

Ordinary white Vinegar kills mould spores.

Damp will be improved by opening the windows for 10 mins every day, even when really cold. This will actually warm up an old property.

The damp will be caused by something. Is it an internal or external wall? Look for leaking pipes/radiators/gutters etc. ground levels outside and so on. You need to locate what is causing the damp and repair that as a starting point.

A property like this is a different way of living, she needs to get used to wearing big jumpers and so on. As and when she has some funds then focus on the fabric of the building as in this era it will have been built for warmth, it's most likely that modern plaster, standard paint and so on have been used which are stopping the walls provide insulation.

I've told her to air it every day for a short while...and she's going to do that.
It was the Boiler service man (her boiler is quite new) who told her that it wasn't enough to support more radiators, so that's all I know.
Where the damp is coming from... seems to be the very front wall of the building and quite possibly a leak coming from the flat upstairs, which unfortunately is owned by an absent and very neglectful landlord who has failed to address a ton of issues.
DD loves her flat (it's incredibly spacious, and she has her own private high walled courtyard that he indoor cat (cos he's a ragdoll with zero brains and it's a main road) can go outside in, but she admits in retrospect she bought it with no thought to the problems an old building brings, and she cannot afford to do ANYTHING else at the moment... we had to give most of our life savings for her to keep her home when her cheating abusive ex went for half . (Only DD ever pain a penny towards the house so that was grim)
Eventually she will be able to save again, once the current external work is completed (all four flat owners are paying but that's the back wall) but for now we are just looking for the cheapest ways to help.
She lives in thick jumpers!

My top window hack is to forget curtains go for large quilted bedspreads, the bigger., ( The cheaper)the better and sew curtain hooks on.
Look for one's with stitching through the layers, they look fantastic.
We currently have some large IKEA rugs as door curtains.