[Closed] How to put the heat back in my bedroom

Special Mummy and Daddy cuddles?

Drafts, drafts, drafts. Will make a big difference, check the windows, maybe replace seals. Loft hatch too if there is one
Holes should be filled in the bedroom before you do anything else

Get cavity wall insulation. There might be a grant available.

Yeah, basically you need to fill all the holes. Not all at once, and take your time between each one.

^hope that is not a euphemism 😜. I'll get my coat on the way out.

Will it be a DIY job or are going to get a man in?

Ball ache but can you insulate under the carpet?
Either new thicker underlay or theu do special matting for laminate flooring in different thickness, its like thin carry mat material

Otherwise, new bigger radiator to heat soak the soft furnishings. Type 22 double finned convector, cheap up to 600 x 1200, 50 quid spendy after that size.

Had a man in for bedroom stuff last summer, ended up plastered.

Sorted my plumbing too.

There might be a grant available

ménage à trois?

Need to replace carpet so will look into insulating underlay. Any suggestions?

The rad is big enough, and heats the room, it just looses heat quickly hence wanting to insulate.

There's no actual gaps for draughts, just air circulation in the room as it cools. Windows are standard upvc double glazed, probably 10 years old so could be improved on but not a massive difference I would imagine. So its walls, floor, roof I think I need to concentrate on.

i would be cautious putting Cavity Wall insulation in. The cavity is there for a reason, and ive heard plenty of tales of people getting damp issues because the insulation bridges the cavity.
On our previous terrace our neighbours had it done and we had a damp patch arrive in a cupboard that adjoined their wall, because the fill had slumped into our wall.
Having said that, my dads 70s detached has been fine as far as i know, and he had that put in in around 2000.

You can get insulated plasterboard, designed to be dot dabbed exactly as you would normal plasterboard, except its around 50mm thick, so your room gets smaller but obviously its going to improve your insulation.
Or you can batten out the room with timber and put regular cellotex in between the battens, before plaster boarding over that.
I think you can also get insulation designed to go on the outside of the building, so you dont loose the space inside, but youre hanging cladding on the outside and that comes with its own issues.

If it were me i would be looking at pulling all the plaster off, back to bare brick, and then making my room 100mm - 200mm smaller, depending on the final product you used.

No idea how effective it would be mind.

I might put in some underfloor heating while i was making a mess, too, to take the chill off your toes.

270mm insulation in the roof is the standard, not 100mm.

There might be a grant available

ménage à trois?

Maybe worth checking the wall/ceiling temp with a thermometer. The IR ones you just point at things are not expensive. Will give you a clue as to which is worst to start with!

Heat rises. Get that roof space filled with as much quality insulation as you can. It will really help. 100mm is nothing, especially if it is 30 years old. And thick insulated floor length curtains will make more difference than cavity insulation I reckon as you will lose more heat through the glass than the walls

You could set fire to your bed

Don't faff, pull off the dot and dab, stick on some 40mm kingspan plasterboard on all your external walls and skim. Get a plasterer in to do the whole job, but buy in the sheets in advance after agreeing basic spec.

30 fast laps of the room before bedtime then straight under a 122 ToG Duvet.

100mm in the loft?! Try 500mmm.... and lay it perpendicular to existing insultation.

If you insulate the wall cavity, use graphite coated polybeads, not blown fibre or foam.

You've got three exterior walls so heat loss is always going to be worse than normal. Theres a chance that the wall attached to the garage might even be single skin. If it is, that will be a major heat sink

Solutions have already been stated. Insulate and draft proof. Ceiling first, minimum 270mm glass fibre/150mm PIR board.

Insulating the floor properly depends on what it is. Not much you can do with concrete, but if its suspended timber, ideally the floor has to come up.

Cheap simple quick solution for night time is an electric blanket. Very economical to run as the heat is where you want it. works well.

Avoid ingestion.

@thenorthwind

I believe only small to medium Grants are available for this sort of work

Cheapest, quickest and simplest short term solution
150mm cellotex rectangle cut to fit into the window reveal
Once the sun goes down, place in gap
Take 15 mins with a kitchen knife, cut on a taper so it wedges in
Remove in the morning, either way it wont make it any worse and is more or less instant
Even 100mm cellotex would do and be cheaper amd easier to cut.

How to put the heat back in my bedroom

I thought this was a marital advice thread...

Lovehoney - use the STW affiliate link

Then you get to have fun and STW towers gets a happy ending too

In times past , when castles(stick with me...) the walls were bare, and cold stone extrudes cold, which was offset by hanging cloth in the form of tapestries as a barrier and it was very effective.
It's not unusual to see tapestries hanging from walls, so why not at least consider that as one method, possibly on the headboard wall above your bed.

Holes should be filled in the bedroom before you do anything else

Quiet at the back please 😁

I had free energy surveys done in uk properties, think it was a govt initiative a while ago. Think British gas did them, free advice.

Like:

With old gappy sash windows and wotnot the radiator hardly makes much difference. Luckily don’t live in the bedroom and it’s airy enough never to get damp, so it’s just the cold to deal with. The perfect solution we’ve found has been a dual-control heated under-blanket. Something like
similar to this

Complete luxury to have fresh air in the room yet climb into a perfectly toasty bed. Costs pennies per night. We run the rads for an hour in the early morning, but again, we don’t live in the bedroom just sleep in it so it makes more sense to heat the bed.

As soon as the heatings off, the temp really drops. So much so, I’ve been getting a headache at night

In the short term, until you can sort additional insulation etc, why not just leave the heating on for longer at night? If you have TRVs elsewhere in the house then turn them down.

Homes are meant to be a place of comfort, sod being laid in bed freezing cold during the coldest nights of the winter when it will only be about £2 more a night to be warm and cozy.

Insulate the loft first, simple cheap and very effective. Then as someone has said look at that garage wall it might be a single brick. You could insulate that on the garage side so no space in room lost.

If you wan to dot and dab, use phenolic foam backed plasterboard as I think it is better for the environment than cellotex type insulation. Or better still some wood fire, but be careful you can still cause damp issues even with a cavity, something to do with moving the dew point of the wall I believe.

Pop the heating on, get it nice and toasty, then borrow a thermal camera from somewhere, some mobile telephones have them now I believe, and see where to focus your effforts, can sometimes be tricky to find exactly the right spots when you are in the bedroom, take the guesswork out of it and use some electronic toys to do it for you

I believe only small to medium Grants are available for this sort of work

Indeed, and none that you'd want to lock eyes with in the bedroom...

Dot and dab is useless even if you insulate the cavity. Leaks in the wall allow air movement behind it leaving you living in little more than a plasterboard tent. If you remove it and use insulated plasterboard you can get issues with damp behind it if you don’t have a continuous vapour barrier. Moisture passes between the boards and condenses behind the insulation when it hits the cold bricks. It is better to insulate with pur and tape the joints then plasterboard over the top or use a continuous vapour barrier over rock wool or pavatex or some other insulation.

Cold walls have a sort of "anti-radiation" effect, so that even if the temperature is relatively high it can feel cold in a room like that (or something along those lines, the thermodynamics lecture I remember this from was some time ago).

Basically I think even if you insulate the roof well you might be wasting your time without doing the walls as well.

Careful stopping all draughts. What we learnt in our gappy Victorian house is that dampness trapped inside really exacerbates the cold. Sounds counter intuitive but you need some ventilation, slightly colder dry environment is nicer than warmer damp.

I've a similar small bedroom with 3 external walls, 9 inch solid brick, that is a chilly room. I've not cured it but doubling the loft insulation to 300mm took about 2 minutes and made a noticeable difference. I later added a blackout blind to the window which already had okish lined curtains and that made another noticeable difference and that's with modern double glazing. So I'd suggest those 2 really easy steps first.

Buy a quilted throw and cover your bed and tuck it in. Room will still be cold but you won't.

https://singletrackmag.com/shop/singletrack-slouch-beanie-hat/

move to Australia. My bedroom is sweltering.

Amazing offer, thank you. Do you have a king-size bed? Do you snore or will I need to bring earplugs?

There’s no actual gaps for draughts

Bet there is. If it's a shonky as it sounds I bet your windows have a gap all the way round them covered with the thinnest smear if weather seal on the outside.

If you can, move either the flow or return from the Central Heating circuit
You can create a very basic cheap underfloor heating system by sending the pipes 3 sides of a square to the rad, rather than the shortest distance possible
I heated my tiled bathroom floor by adding a U shaped leg on the return, whilst its reasonably localised the warmth that comes through is noticeable

...Theres a chance that the wall attached to the garage might even be single skin. If it is, that will be a major heat sink

Thats a good shout worth checking. Easiest remedy there would be to insulate that one wall.

i have cold bedrooms.....

Ive recently had the wall cavity filled. It made a very very small amount of difference. I am considering insulated plasterboard next on the outside walls.

However recently i bought a load of top up insulation on a particularly cold day and put it on top of our 300mm that we have up their already. Within a day the house was more comfortable! Do this first.
The next biggest win was i went round each room and lit a match. Blowing it out i could see the smoke move to identify drafts. I then calked the floors etc. This was a big difference as well.

Finally ive cranked the heating up. The mrs doesnt like it on so it comes on at 7am for us to leave the house at 7.30 and the same at 5pm. This means its spending all the time warming up the house. Since wfh a bit this has means ive got the heating on lower but consistently more so the walls don't need to ne heated from as cold a temp.

What's wrong with Cary Grant? You have high standards!

Whack in a much insulation as you can to the loft.
Spend more money than you expect to on the thickest underlay you can afford when replacing your carpet.
Seal up every crack
Consider running a oil storage heater on low throughout the day in the room to keep the walls warm without firing heating throughout the whole house.

We used this for underlay with wool carpet and is pretty toasty.

This for insulating loft. I have 600mm and made a big difference for us.

We also had insulating lime plaster on walls but not sure how much difference it made as moved into house after renovation. I feel you have to insulate underfloor, loft and externally plus stop drafts to make a real difference. But small changes can improve situation no end.

Thanks all.

Franksinatra sums it up nicely - this is the approach I'll take I think.

Dukeduvet - thanks for the link that looks interesting. Related to your username perchance?

Cougar - Only a cosy standard double, bring whatever plugs you feel suitable 😉

😄 I hate being cold!!! Btw you could apply to the Green Homes Grant for certain measures but it’s a bit of a mess.

We have an uninsulated concrete floor in our 2 storey house, the previous owner had expensive karndean laid throughout direct on the concrete.

It always felt cold downstairs.

I put 10mm XPS sheets down (cheap on ebay) and then laminate on top.

Made a massive difference to the way downstairs retains heat. And no more freezing cold feet walking round without slippers.

So yeah, fix any gaps, insulate floor and ceiling and walls if you can.

Job jobbed.