Victorian house keep warm life hacks sought!

[slugjelly]

Hello,
First winter in my draughty north facing mid renovation Victorian house looming. I’m already cold. What hacks do you have. Do I need small heaters? Heated blankets? Dehumidifier? There must be some way to make it better apart from hot water bottles. I have central heating, but need to seriously supplement it.
Yours freezingly,
slugjelly

Proper warm clothes not acrylic stuff. So wool jumpers, cords, thick wool socks and slippers if a v cold house. A heavy door curtain and draught excluders if needed. Definitely a heated blanket each for sofa time or working from home.. Hot water bottles or electric blankets on beds. Candles and/or lights for the feeling of warmth.

When you purchased the house it has an EPC - what does the RPC tell you to do?

heated fleece throws; hot water bottles; curtains including behind front door; wool jumpers ; ignore moaning teens in tshirts; embrace menopause

There is a book called The Warm Dry Home, available from the Heritage House Shop which is excellent because it gives loads of ideas about how to make heritage homes warm. They are completely differently built from post 1920 houses and most builders don't really understand that so tend to do things that reduce their breathability, then they retain moisture and become cold and damp. The book explains it all in great detail.

Heated blankets are your friend. I love my house but it’s bloody freezing in winter!

Magnetic secondary glazing.
look at Geko or extraglaze.

open the windows to keep the walls dry. Dry walls = warm home

If you can avoid working downstairs in winter do. Those high ceilinged living rooms are much colder than a top floor bedroom!

You don’t need the windows replaced, you just need someone who understand old windows to replace the ropes and get them opening again. I have had this done to some of my Georgian sash windows. Upstairs windows often only the upper sash opens, so you may think it’s been painted shut, but it might never have been designed to open.

OP said a Victorian property, EPCs are for more modern properties and don’t account for this era of build.

-padded gilet over a jumper
-single duvet with pretty cover that matches your sitting room decor, and keep on or near sofa for when you are sitting still, it beats any type of throw or whatever…
-wear proper shoes or slippers with soles and socks-if really cold a beanie hat in bed
-as someone said below, don’t be tempted to buy polyester fleece or anything like that you need proper lambswool or merino wool or cashmere if you can afford it.

@MabelAnderson in mine the tops are painted shut and the bottoms open, which is crap for drying the room out.

re. EPC yes, the recommendation would basically be replace the whole house with styrofoam.

Every house that is sold or rented has to have an EPC, the era of a house being constructed doesn’t exempt the property

Solidarity @slugjelly-single skin brick walls, big windows, high ceilings….mine is the nicest house, perfect place, but cold! It comes into its own in the summer, honest!

I am an avid hot water bottle user, and this year if it gets really cold I might get an electric blanket. It’s quite warm right by the radiators but I absolutely feel your pain. My tip is, turn off the meter thingy because if you keep looking at it in the winter you might have a cardiac event due to the way it ticks up and up

Heavy lined curtains preferably floor length. Carpets with a decent tog rating these will make a big difference. Heated blankets are amazingly durable and dreamland ones are machine washable and can be tumble dried. Oodie dressing gown sheepskin slippers. Brushed sheets and duvets covers .

Yes I do! Now.. but I do end up going to bed earlier and earlier in the winter as I've got an electric sheet. Half and half dual control from John Lewis I think, as my husband doesn't feel the cold. So I can run proceedings from bed.

We do have fires in a few rooms. I think you could perhaps speak to a wood burner manufacturer about asthma as I have it and don't suffer near the fires (but don't take my word for it obviously as I know there are issues. I think it may depend on the fuel and how old the woodburner is). We also have a plug in radiator in a room where the proper radiator is useless.

I think you get used it it. An effectively insulated house now feels unbearably hot and stuffy to me. That shows the Stockholm Syndrome my house has given me.

We have lived in a house built in 1886 for the last 40 years.
We have mostly the original single glazed windows so thick, lined curtains are a must.
We have got carpets upstairs in the bedrooms and laminate and big rugs downstairs to beat the cold.
When the children were small we didn’t even have central heating and used to scrape the ice off the inside of the windows in the morning!!
We all slept in hats and LOTS of blankets!!
At least we’ve got central heating now!! 😆

I also agree with @Pineneedlesincarpet heated spaces seem unbearable and stuffy to me now, but every so often I do fantasise about a house where you turn the heating on….and it gets warm straight away!

I know, but the report is not fit for purpose for older properties. It’s designed for newer builds.

I have/had a house like this. To give you hope it is now toasty warm! Don’t rush in to expensive quick fixes which you have to undo later. Get through this winter and plan a renovation strategy which includes insulating and draught proofing. Take note of the need for breathable materials. I ended up filling my floors so they are now solid and it made a massive difference (the conservationists would hate me but the subfloor was mostly rotten).

Right. So next question is how can I quickly get curtains sorted on a bit of a budget (not too badly but you know what I mean)? There are no existing rails as the previous man had little hook things screwed right into the sash frames.

I read an article last year on how to keep warm whilst working from home. The top tip from the journalist was an Ororo heated gilet. I purchased one last year - they're quite expensive and you probably would need two batteries (one on charge and one in the gilet) but honestly I loved wearing mine last year. I think you can also get heated socks/fleeces/scarfs. You might need to do some more research on the socks as some brands are cheap flimsy knock offs, I can't remember the best brand maybe Bertschat?

Curtain cost...how long is a piece of string. It depends if you need to get them made and the material you use. Fully lined. Wool?. John Lewis do made to measure fairly reasonably and you don't need to join a long waiting list usually.

Underfloor heating in my kitchen and bathroom is the dream. Unlikely to happen but still...

I’ve got curtain tracks on bay windows they were here when I moved in. I put pencil pleated curtains on them and I put poles up on the straight windows with eyelet curtains.

Well, there’s thermal curtains, but that wasn’t enough for us

So we had like a thick layer putting in between the front fabric and the back thermal bit, we actually had a local person put that in she worked as a seamstress, but that’s an easy enough job for her, that was living room and bedroom

Probably cheaper to get honeycomb blinds, you can get stick on ones if you just want a temporary solution

And then put your thermal curtains on top

They do all sizes in IKEA

It depends whether you want to spend for permanent solution

I would do that before getting carpet because carpet is quite a big job, isn’t it and if you’ve only got sash windows, it’s more important to block out the cold coming in from there

Have you got the heating on? I suppose it depends how cold it is where you are whether that’s a surprise to have the heating on or not.

No they’re not. Every house has to have an EPC whether it’s a 200 year old dilapidated miners cottage or a swanky harbour-side penthouse.