Posted 13 December 2023
House freezing cavity wall insulation
Hello
my house is extremely cold and even with heating on doesn’t warm up unless you left on all day.without heating its on 12 degrees you put heating on 2 hours and the temp will go up by 2 degreees.
brand new boiler and radiators.
had a thermafy survey done and they said everything ok heating on 88% and insulation on 70%. So not sure why it’s cold and not heating up.
rang a grant company and they’ve said they’ll take out the wool insulation and fill it with beads.
any advise? Would this help with the house being warm?
can’t live in this cold and can’t afford to keep heating on ALL day.
thankyou
my house is extremely cold and even with heating on doesn’t warm up unless you left on all day.without heating its on 12 degrees you put heating on 2 hours and the temp will go up by 2 degreees.
brand new boiler and radiators.
had a thermafy survey done and they said everything ok heating on 88% and insulation on 70%. So not sure why it’s cold and not heating up.
rang a grant company and they’ve said they’ll take out the wool insulation and fill it with beads.
any advise? Would this help with the house being warm?
can’t live in this cold and can’t afford to keep heating on ALL day.
thankyou
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119 Comments
sorted byPut the heating on max, shut all the windows & go out for the day. When you come back set the thermostat to switch on at 17 degrees or over & I doubt you will have a problem.
Worth a try.
Personally I'd go the thermal camera route, that way you know for yourself what the problem is.
Do you just have one thermostat in the house?
TRVs on the radiators?
Temperature on the boiler set properly?
But physics is physics, if heat is created and not evident then it left.
maybe I’ve just been suffering and not using heating correctly 🤷♀️
There's a very simple basic equation: Input - Output = Accumulation.
In other words, If the output (losses) are close to the Input (heat from central heating), your house won't heat up (accumulation).
Advice to leave your heating on all the time is rubbish, unless you have a very modern, well insulated house, in which case you can be very warm with very little input.
For most people in the UK, their houses aren't built/insulated to anything like that standard, so your only option is to identify and quantify where these heat losses are, and look at cost effective solutions.
It isn't rubbish at all. Letting it cool down to 12c is just madness.
I don't know anyone that would do this. You usually have an "idle temp" of around 16/17c. This is just basic physics.
If you think its ok to let a house, you are living in, cool down to 12c between heating cycles then I give up with humans.
You can't generalize. Without knowing the location, orientation, type of house, materials used, quality of build, etc etc., you can't start to come up with a solution.
Physics has nothing to do with it. It's the branch of thermodynamics usually referred to as heat transfer.
Some years ago, a gas "engineer" was servicing my sons boiler and trying desparately to impress with his own heating system around 350 miles away. He was telling me how he could use his phone to adjust his unoccupied house temperature depending on how cold it was outside. Seems like you're stuck with that sort of flawed logic.
The OP's only choice is to start with basics and correctly identify the problem he has.
Has loft insulation, cavity wall and a modern boiler. Seems the source of the issue is pretty clear.
I leave my heating off overnight (at a setback temp but never gets down to that) but the fact is, like yours it won't be at 12c when you wake up. That is because the house has been warm prior. The OP's issue is a 4hr run time per day starting at 12c. Its never going to warm up no matter how good the insulation.
Plenty of evidence on the internet about this.
Thermodynamics isn't physics? OK
Having a set back temperature allows a quick warm up on the set temps - that's just basic common sense. I went through all this last year when gas was 12p per kwh so I know which process is effective and which isn't. Myself and many others now adopt the low and slow method which prevents cavity condensation and fabric cool down but you carry on with the "it's rubbish" rhetoric and lots of words without any actual advice.
My flat goes down to 12c most mornings and takes a little time to warm up in the morning. but it's solid brick and plasterboard and no insulation. (edited)
got cavity wall insulation
heating comes on at 6am and goes off around 9:30 am - house stays warm enough until 4pm and goes off 10:30pm - house stays warm until next morning.
yes heating is expensive and if unaffordable my best advice is to stay under a high tog duvet.
We need to get the floor insulated as there is a sub floor, but it isn't easy to do.
Just set thermostat to 15c overnight and 18c during the day and boost manually when you feel it too cold.
That's what we do and we spend £400-£500 per year on the gas central heating, cooking and hot water (4 bed detached)
not on and off where it ticks off and then ticks back on.
thanks
Don’t mind putting heating on if it kept house warm :/ (edited)
I have concrete floors and standard insulation in cavity wall and loft.
Maybe it's worth getting someone out to see what part of the house has the most heat loss. You may be able to do it yourself depends on how expensive a thermal imaging camera is.
We went on holiday in the November for 10 days and it was 14c when we got back... (edited)
We have a late 1940's Brick/Cavity semi, have cavity wall insulation, glazing and doors all replaced in 2015 and the insulation in the loft I think dates back to the early 80's though its been boarded out since then and temps rarely dip below 18*c with no heating over night unless its sub zero outside.
Is your house gable ended or a hipped roof OP? A lot of our neighbours with a gable have had issues with damp and cold caused by the wall ties failing and bricks disintegrating above the eaves of their houses letting cold and moisture penetrate the cavity.
We live upstairs in winter
Once mine is up to temp it rarely kicks in during the day and only kicks in for a short period to warm house up to the timed temps - ie 20c.
Setting it for just 4hrs per day with a start temp of 12c is a total waste of money and gas as it will never get warm.
But as others have said, borrow/buy/hire a thermal imaging camera & check around your house to see exactly where the heat is escaping.
dome doesn’t show heat
eacaping going to give them a bell
We got triple glazing about 8yr ago which helped a little, but now we have the stove it's red hot all downstairs.
We use smokeless fuel from the local coal merchant, a 20kg bag for £12 will easy last a week.
a plumber quoted
me £4K for it and said would keep house piping hot
How about getting something warm and cosy to wear around the house, like a sleeping bag with arms and legs, save a lot on gas :- snoozzoo.com/pro…ts/
if inwear
anytjing else Wouldn’t be able to move
Then, maybe he will suggest some solutions.
But for information, most of the heat escapes like the following:
Can you do an extenal insulation?
Are you windows/doors double glazed/timba, uPVC?
homesandgardens.com/sol…ing