You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Hi, neighbour's 2 bed bungalow built I'd guess in 1960s was lovely and warm (we often popped in and they were elderly so would maybe feel the cold). New people moved in and replaced the carpet in the bedrooms and the lounge with good quality lino, no underlay. The hall, kitchen, bathroom unchanged with lino and tiles.
New people saying the house is freezing. I've checked the boiler, pressure, bled radiators and they're all piping hot. They're both working and set the heating to come on at 4pm but complain it never feels warm in the evening.
Can a change of carpet to lino prevent a room warming up? Maybe no insulation under the floor?
Any help would be ace.
Thanks
Yes getting rid of carpet and underlay on the ground floors and just using lino will cause a dramatic amount of heat loss.
We went the other way, from really cheap thin carpet and cheap thin underlay to nice thick carpet and thick underlay and the improvment in temperature was astounding.
I'll bet it was because the previous residents had the heating turned up a lot higher and for a lot longer because, as you say, they were elderly and were in the house with the heating on all day rather than firing it up at 4 pm
I'm guessing a 60's house will have a solid, uninsulated floor. Removing a decent layer of insulating rubber underlay and wool carpet is going to turn it into a massive heat sink.
They’re both working and set the heating to come on at 4pm but complain it never feels warm in the evening.
They could install a 'smart' thermostat of some kind (Nest, etc) that learn how long the house takes to reach the desired temperature at different external temperatures and turns on the heating early enough to be warm when they want it warm.
Removing the carpet won't have helped.
The big difference is that the old folk were probably running their heating all day and possibly even all night, meaning that the internal structure, fixtures and fittings all got a chance to warm up. People don't appreciate that if you only run the CH for a few hours a day the interiror of the house cools down and it will always feel cold and damp.
It takes a good 24 to 36 hours for our house to warm up when we come back from a holiday and turn the heating up.
In our case it was because the house was draughty as hell and you could see through the walls and ceiling in places. A large gap around the flue where it exits the roof though the uninsulated lead flashing is the most recent fix, which I only got round to when the beast from the east started blowing down through it...
When we moved in our estimated fuel bill started at upwards of 2k per year, presumably a continuation of the previous owners' costs. That's how they survived it! Roughly half that now - it's still a large draughty house after all.
Friends have just finished renovating a 60’s bungalow by adding insulation on top of the concrete slab and to the inner face of the external wall
lots of work ......but since drying out the property after the wet trades had finished they say they hardly use the heating
We dry-lined my son's cold bedroom and now it warms up with the heat from his computer when he plays GTA hard!
We dry-lined my son’s cold bedroom and now it warms up with the heat from his computer when he plays GTA hard!
I haven't heard a teenagers bedroom activities called that before!
We've got parquet flooring laid straight onto the concrete and have solid brick internal walls so we don't stand a chance warming up quickly, the house never really feels warm until someone puts the oven on for dinner.
Keep meaning to look at getting the cavity walls filled to offset some of that.
Also, my OH's refusal to close the loft hatch (not a hatch, just a curtain) after she's been up there makes a MASSIVE difference. I can sit in the living room and feel the draft as all the heat rushes up the stairs!