Cold cold bungalow

[Kev1985]

New to this thought I’d ask for some help.

Bought a bungalow a few weeks ago and the place has been freezing, I’ve had the heating on about 10 times in 7 weeks. Even guests have been sitting with a jacket or heavy top on.

There are some parts of the loft with 100mm insulation and some parts without, I think the insulation is from 30 years ago when it was first built.

The house is timber framed so can’t get cavity wall insulating.

It is south facing however the extension at the rear is large and the eaves block sunshine coming directly in the window, the other rooms are all north or west facing and cold, the west doesn’t get the sun due to the close proximity of another house.

We are worried how this will be in the winter as the summer has not been good to us here.

Would topping up the loft insulation to 270mm really help? What about under floor insulation? I’m not entitled to any free help as I work, had a quote of £2,200 for loft and under floor insulation but don’t want to go for it if it won’t really help.

Please, please someone tell me what else I can do to make my new house warm (except from burning the heating every day of the year)

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Where is 'here', that is so cold? It hasn't been cold here.

Bungalows, simply due to their less compact design, involve more heating than an equivalent two story house.

You could easily do the loft and floor insulation yourself, maybe with a helper, at minimum cost and over a couple of weekends.

 

[Mottie]

My mum lives in a bungalow and it’s like a bloody sauna when I go round there. She also has a flat roof extension at the rear. All the internal walls are dot and dab plasterboard. However, she does have about a foot of insulation in the loft and you can’t see the tiles/under felt (if she has any) as the rafters are covered with hardboard.

 

[foxhole]

Would increase insulation to 300mm (270 is a minimum).
You could diy fit for a few £100 or pay a handyman to scramble around in the loft , should be a days work.
You could reline external walls with insulated plasterboard but much more expensive .
What are the windows like? Double glazed ? 28mm thick?

 

[geraldthehamster]

Loft and floor insulation would definitely help - especially the loft.

If your walls don't have cavities that can be insulated, your options are insulation applied either internally or externally.

If you can lose a few inches from inside the rooms, 50-100 mm of board insulation such as Celotex fixed to the walls, and plasterboarded and skimmed over, would make a huge difference. Obviously this entails complete redecorating afterwards.

In external insulation, similar boards are fixed to the outside of the walls, and rendered. This saves losing internal space, but window reveals, roof eaves and guttering may need work as the wall projects out more.

 

[JP_]

I've been putting 50mm kingspan on my walls (with plasterboard over) of my 1930s solid wall bungalow and insulating under the floors (50mm kingspan + 50mm rockwool on top) - Only done 3 bedrooms so far but it has made a massive difference. Have put a bit more in the loft too over the front hall area and my bedroom, as that was a bit thin - loft currently has spare sheets of kingspan above the kids bedroom, I need to swap that for loftroll when I insulated the bathroom and hall floors.