My home never gets warm

[dextrous]

There are 8 radiators, though 2 are always off.

theres your answer turn the rads on!! cold rooms will suck the heat from heated rooms.
stop being a skin flint and turn them on you are not saving money by having them turned off!!

Totally agree - am currently doing up a room in my house and have the rad removed whilst I replaster and repipe. Adjacent room is distinctly colder, and (it sounds strange but it true), there's condensation on the door that leads into this room.

 

[geoffo]

Thanks, that makes sense about turning on my two radiators upstairs. A couple of questions about cavity wall insulation:-

1. Could it damage existing wiring within the cavities e.g. telephone extensions, sky aerials - or prevent future wiring from taking place?
2. I have boarded up chimneys, which must be a major source of heat loss. When conducting cavity wall insulation, can anything also be done about insulating the chimneys?

 

[kevindgas]

the simple answer to wiring is simple, it should not be in the cavity in the first place.
and yes the insulation can cause wiring to melt its sheaving in extreme cases (but rare)
as for chimneys the best thing to do is get a proper terminal on each one that stops water getting in. but allows the chimney to ventilate.
at the bottom of each you must have a small air vent otherwise you will get damp in the walls around it. a 2"circular vent is really the minimum you can go down to but a letterbox size one is best.

 

[Nige F]

Don`t be disturbed about cavity wall insulation . Get on to Cavity Tech . An E. Sussex wall/roof insulation co. of good repute based near Eastbourne .They work all over SE. AS to the lack of heat it`s probably a bady sized /installed setup

Nige - I read that the cavity is there deliberately to prevent condensation. And that filling this cavity can bring about condensation. Is this false, or only if the wrong materials are used (foam?)

Foam hasn`t been use for years There are many forms of condensation - or, more correctly Condensation can form in may places for many reasons . Interstitial conden. is the real problem one . BUT it`s usually in timber framed houses and like most Latent Defects in Buildings ...DUE TO poor detailing / pressured £ subbie workforce and semi skilled labour . Long live the Free Market Economy The guys I mentioned did our bungalow, and their surveyor was pretty clued up. ( I gave him a few "trick" questions gained from 40 years and 2 previous generations of building workers) SO a conventional house with trad. cavity wall, - should have no problems, only benifits

 

[geoffo]

the simple answer to wiring is simple, it should not be in the cavity in the first place.
and yes the insulation can cause wiring to melt its sheaving in extreme cases (but rare)
as for chimneys the best thing to do is get a proper terminal on each one that stops water getting in. but allows the chimney to ventilate.
at the bottom of each you must have a small air vent otherwise you will get damp in the walls around it. a 2"circular vent is really the minimum you can go down to but a letterbox size one is best.

Thanks - I meant wiring passing through the cavity (ie from outside to inside) rather than 'inside' the cavity. I have letterbox size vents in place now, but I was wondering whether the chimneys should be insulated. The fact you say they should remain ventilated, which mine are, surely would make them a serious source of heat loss?

 

[Nige F]

Being that warm air travels upwards, the heat downstairs is going upstairs. Until the upstairs is warm and the heat can then satisfy downstairs, the wall stat will only then shut off. The heating engineer would when doing his calculations have taken into account the house as a whole, including the upstairs.

Unless it was a BG jobbie in the late 70`s when you got 4 or 5 rads of set sizes . I`m ashamed to say I had to sub some of that Shyte Work myself . Mainly because of the copper shortage . It was that or the dole . But soon after I saw the Light and voted Maggie Thatcher in to power . Then made a friggin fortune

 

[dextrous]

There is nothing to prevent you putitng some insulation up the chimneys, providing you insert a couple of tubes to ensure that airflow continues - but to do this, as kev says, they need appropriate cowls on top to prevent water ingress.

Obviously there will be heat loss, but you can reduce it.

 

[Garfeild]

Have you checked the rads are the correct size for the rooms? if they are undersized they wont heat properly.

 

[tryitandsee]

theres your answer turn the rads on!! cold rooms will suck the heat from heated rooms.
stop being a skin flint and turn them on you are not saving money by having them turned off!!

and there was me trying to be subtle!

The cavity wall boys will not go near the chimneys from the outside when drilling there injection holes. Obviously to keep the flue free, but even if it was redundant, free flow of air required as mention by others. Pillow up the throat as a tempory winter measure works for me. As long as you can stop the movement of air, that's as good as you can get get, ideally I would need to stuff a pillow in the top as well, trapping the air.

This cold spell is particulary bad at the moment, fell tit over arse tonight walking up the garden path, covered in a sheet of ice

 

[BertieGas]

Dont matter how big the boiler is if it has not been gas rated with a pressure gauge. How do you know the output or input without gas rating. First step surely.

 

[stem]

the radiators are hot to touch, and there are no cold spots on the rads. Logically I suppose either the boiler isn't doing its job, or there must be other heat loss.

If the radiators are hot the boiler is doing its job, so unless the radiators are too small, the question is where is all the heat going?

A couple of questions about cavity wall insulation

But you say your house is old, so it won't have cavity walls.

I also can't understand how my old boiler was capable of temperatures in the 20c's, yet this won't go above 14c.

Has anything else changed? Have you had new neighbours and the house next door not heated as much it was in the past? Often it's just a single brick wall between properties and if it's cooler next door you will be loosing heat there. Also do you have a cellar that has a coal grate allowing draughts through when the wind is in a certain direction?

You could always have a thermal image taken, that would show where your heat is escaping

 

[NatB]

There are 8 radiators, though 2 are always off.

theres your answer turn the rads on!! cold rooms will suck the heat from heated rooms.
stop being a skin flint and turn them on you are not saving money by having them turned off!!

Totally agree - am currently doing up a room in my house and have the rad removed whilst I replaster and repipe. Adjacent room is distinctly colder, and (it sounds strange but it true), there's condensation on the door that leads into this room.

So a boiler heating 5 rads out of 8 won't use any less gas if I turn on all 8?

That's the situation I have at the moment (too big a house!) and maybe why I'm getting problems with the boiler cutting out quickly.