The Skilling ceiling you describe are not that easy to insulate from the loft. The plaster board/lath ceiling is normally tight up against the rafters, giving you the needed height in the room. Stuffing in fibre glass is an option but you will stop the air flow between ceiling and roof tiles, causing no end of trouble with condensation. The best method is some sort of metal foil insulating barrier or insulated backed plasterboard. All good when building from scratch, but not so easy when fitting retrospectively. Taking the plaster lath or plasterboard ceiling down is messy and the skill involved is the plasterer making good the new to old join.
House takes ages to warm up
- Thread starter alucard
- Start date
Sponsored Links
I have about 1000mm of sloping ceiling attached direct to the rafters.
The Rosemary tiles have no underfelt but are hooked onto boards about 150mm wide with just 12mm gaps for the nibs on the tiles.
Pushing fibreglass down is not that easy and I was thinking of using 50mm Kingspan.
Do you have personal experience of condensation problems or are you quoting hearsay?
Tony
The Rosemary tiles have no underfelt but are hooked onto boards about 150mm wide with just 12mm gaps for the nibs on the tiles.
Pushing fibreglass down is not that easy and I was thinking of using 50mm Kingspan.
Do you have personal experience of condensation problems or are you quoting hearsay?
Tony
I'm afraid I was quoting hearsay!
Having had a loft extension, building control made me install ugly roof tile vents all around the perimeter of the roof at 1500mm centres, including soffit vents at 900mm centres. I protested because it looked c..p. All because of condensation.
I complied and got it all signed off, but I was up the ladders before the ink dried and put back the original tiles. 5 years later and no condensation problems.
Back to the op, another idea is to 'pour' vermiculite granules down the gap between plasterboard and tiles. As long as you can plug the bottom end to stop them flowing out!
Having had a loft extension, building control made me install ugly roof tile vents all around the perimeter of the roof at 1500mm centres, including soffit vents at 900mm centres. I protested because it looked c..p. All because of condensation.
I complied and got it all signed off, but I was up the ladders before the ink dried and put back the original tiles. 5 years later and no condensation problems.
Back to the op, another idea is to 'pour' vermiculite granules down the gap between plasterboard and tiles. As long as you can plug the bottom end to stop them flowing out!
Right my boiler is a Chaffoteaux & Maury. I've checked the rads and they are hot. The only thermometer I have ony goes upto 40C and they are hotter than that. Thats both upstairs and down.
I currently run the boiler at 80% (temp wise, no numbers so dont know what temp that should be) and the heating is off for 10 hours a day (off for 2 hrs at a time)
Downstairs is warm enough but still a bit chilly upstairs.
If I ran the boiler at 100% 24/7 upstairs would get warm enough.
I have just remembered that we had a plumber out to service the boiler and check re a problem with hot water. They advised that the problem could be with limescale in the filter (or something) which make the boiler stop heating the water so our hot tap run hot, cold, hot, cold etc.
Could this all be an indication the boiler is on its way out or are these different issues?
Would cavity wall insulation help? a lot?
I currently run the boiler at 80% (temp wise, no numbers so dont know what temp that should be) and the heating is off for 10 hours a day (off for 2 hrs at a time)
Downstairs is warm enough but still a bit chilly upstairs.
If I ran the boiler at 100% 24/7 upstairs would get warm enough.
I have just remembered that we had a plumber out to service the boiler and check re a problem with hot water. They advised that the problem could be with limescale in the filter (or something) which make the boiler stop heating the water so our hot tap run hot, cold, hot, cold etc.
Could this all be an indication the boiler is on its way out or are these different issues?
Would cavity wall insulation help? a lot?
Sponsored Links
Are you sure you have a cavity wall a lot of 1930's houses don't
How thick are your external walls ?
9" indicates solid wall no cavity
11" or slightly more normally indicates a cavity the old cavities were about 2"
Don't measure the bottom metre or so if your house is rendered as houses of this period commonly had a cavity for about the first metre and then solid from there on up this was to get a line all of the way round for the screed to level from
Open a window which is on an outside wall and measure the depth
Try turning off all the downstairs radiators and see how quickly the upstairs heats up. If there is a marked improvement this means that either your boiler is not producing enough heat, the pump is not doing its job properly, or the pipework is not fat enough between the boiler and where the upstairs and downstairs split.
hot? How hot?
Cavity wall insulation makes a big difference. I formerly had a 15kW boiler, which was not quite big enough. In very cold weather it would run continuously without reaching 20°C, and if you ran a bath in winter, you felt the house getting colder. If I came home at lunchtime in winter, the house would be uncomfortably cold.
After Cavity insulation, the boiler could reach target temperature and shut down. It was able to heat the house and cylinder. At lunchtime it was still comfortable.
Or the rads are just not balanced!
Vey few 1930s house had a cavity. Thats a lot more heat loss.
I once made a mistake as I sized the rads for a friend on the basis of solid walls as it was a 1932 council house. The wife was very pleased with how good the heating was and wanted to move in there as their own house was rather under heated having 8mm microbore and the other house was for tenants! I later learnt that it had not only a cavity but an insulated cavity!
Tony
If all the rads are getting as hot as rads will normally get (ie a bit too hot to touch) then its nothing to do with the system (unless the rads are too small for the rooms) surely? Must be those big badly insulated victorian rooms? Seems to me OP needs to check if the rads they have are enough for the space they occupy and if the rads get properly hot. If so, then its the loft and the walls. simple (ish)
he has not yet said how hot the rads are, or how much gas he uses, which would give us a clue of heat input. We know the rads sound rather small.
We know the brand of boiler but not the model, so we don't know its power.
We don't know if he has cavity walls, or how thick his insulation is.
We know he doesn't have a room stat or TRVs so he turns his boiler off manually.
With insufficient information, we are only guessing.
We know the brand of boiler but not the model, so we don't know its power.
We don't know if he has cavity walls, or how thick his insulation is.
We know he doesn't have a room stat or TRVs so he turns his boiler off manually.
With insufficient information, we are only guessing.
DIYnot Local
Staff member
If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.
Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.
Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local
Sponsored Links
