Cold 1930s house - sorting the ground floor

[littleFinch]

Further adventures of my cold new house - new thread to deal with problem of cold ground floor as suggested by @PigletJohn

It's a 3 bed semi, all.laminate, two fireplaces downstairs not in use, dining room was extended in the 80s and has a big patio door and windows for almost all of the back wall.

The floor is cold to walk on and I don't think the radiator in the dining room is big enough.

Front room is the warmest room in the house, only one to get 20 degrees and hold heat if you keep the door shut. Curtains aren't even brilliant in that room.

Sorting front door is probably first on list.

Nightmare isn’t it? Here‘s what we’ve done -

Cheap solutions

Thermal curtains everywhere, including the front door. M&S and Dunelm will do ones wide enough for the bays.

Thermal curtain for the front door area makes a bitg difference both winter and summer.

Chimney Sheep or Chimney Balloons to keep the drafts out from the fireplaces.

Check for old pipe holes, you’re bound to find some. Fill them.

Does your kitchen have any heating? If not keep the door shut.

Blankets to snuggle under on the sofa.

Big rugs in the lounge and dining room

More expensive.

Pulled up all the flooring and put down insulation underneath it. That made a massive difference.

Good luck!!

Carpets? Laminate is always going to be cold!

Thicker curtains, interlined.

@Very1 how much was it to insulate under the floors?

We're going to replace the front door.

The biggest quickest improvement for us was to put column radiators like this- they have a much bigger surface area and so the output of heat is a lot higher
https://www.bestheating.com/milano-windsor-white-traditional-horizontal-four-column-radiator-choice-of-size-88724 they have a btu calculator on the site which we found really useful

We had all the downstairs floors redone at the same time so it was in with that. I think new wooden flooring and insulation was about £5k back in 2022.

But if you’re handy and can get the laminate up and put it back down then I think it would be a lot cheaper. They used something like this