My study is in an extension at the back of Flash Towers and is, without doubt, the coldest room ever built. Double glazed windows, carpeted but cold! Long and narrow, about seven foot wide and twenty long.

Rest of the house always manages to stay pretty warm through the day (Aga in the kitchen at the other end of the house certainly helps!). Don’t really want/need therefore to fire up the central heating to keep it warm. Am now WFH pretty much all the time, so am going to be spending longer perched in here.

So, what would STW recommend as a simple, cost effective way of keeping just one room warm enough during the day?

*Edited to mention that the room does have a radiator, but I don’t really want/need to fire up the CH as the rest of the house stays toasty all day!)

Wood burner natch

Are there no options to extend the rad circuit into it? Set it up as a zone for better efficiency,
Whatever you decide, get it sorted ASAP, working alone rom home in a cold office is not a pleasant experience, with the potential to cause some significant mental and physical health issues.

*Edited to mention that the room does have a radiator, but I don’t really want/need to fire up the CH as the rest of the house stays toasty all day!)

Install valves and stats to run it is a separate zone if practicable.

oilradiator.

assuming the external wall and roof has some form of insulation?

small electric convector heater with a thermostat on it.

I use one in my north facing, lots of outside walls office and it keeps it bearable without being on constantly.

Oil filled radiator

Slanket ? 😉

A jumper and fingerless gloves 😆

Have you lifted up the carpet to see if beneath is sufficiently sealed? Decent underlay? Good heavy curtains with thermal lining plus vertical blinds? Larger/double radiator or even two?

turn the central heating on – it’s tax deductable now 😉

Good predictable responses as expected! 😀

wwaswas, model/brand recommendations?

Plug in radiator would be the easiest, but a tiny woodburner would be the the most STW answer. How about a massive espresso machine left on all day?

Sort out the insulation first though.

If you have an RF thermostat take that in the room with you, turn all the other radiators off and stick the central heating on.

Small bonfire and an SNP effigy

I use this one at 750w setting and it’s fine. Warms the room quicker than an oil filled radiator and when the central heating comes on after the kids get home you don’t feel like the money you spent to heat the oil in an oil filled rad was wasted.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4152198.htm

They’re all much of a muchness, though.

If you have an RF thermostat take that in the room with you, turn all the other radiators off and stick the central heating on.

It will take hours to traipse around all the various wings of the house doing that every morning and evening. 🙂

I use this one at 750w setting and it’s fine. Warms the room quicker than an oil filled radiator and when the central heating comes on after the kids get home you don’t feel like the money you spent to heat the oil in an oil filled rad was wasted.

Sounds exactly what I was after in terms of function. Thanks. Will look in to that.

Electric will be the most convenient , controllable and easiest – probably most expensive but I doubt this is a concern
IME fan heaters warm the room quicker but dont warm the room as well/evenly as a radiator type thing will. However these take time to warm the entire room so I suggest a timer

Wood burner will be the nicest, most costly and hardest to control and manage

Dont see the point in using central heating to heat one room personally

Perhaps just get a gas fire in there depending on how close the gas is/how easy this is ?

Flashy – my office is a converted double garage attached to the house but with no door through so it is actually separate. It has kingspan in the roof, velux windows, double glazing, dry lined with insulated plasterboard but no CH as it would have been too expensive to continue to the system from the house.
If it gets too cold I simply use an oil filled rad on a timer and it works well.
I actually have a spare stove and single/twinwall flue lying in the barn but, although it would be nice, it would just be too much hassle to use for just me.
My thermometer is telling me that it’s currently 12c in here right now so I may have to reach for the switch for the first time since the spring.

I’m in a similar situation WFH, my ‘office’ is in a single story extension and it gets cold. Sitting there all day in front of the computer not moving much is half the problem.
I use a small oilrad under my desk, works well and is much cheaper than leaving the whole system on.

small electric convector heater with a thermostat on it.

Is this better than an oil filled rad? I’ve got both so happy to swap.

Someone might have to explain to Flashy what an Argos is 😉

Is this better than an oil filled rad?

It’s more instant. I think with electric oil filled rads they tend to take a while to warm up and tend to give ‘background’ heat.

The convector ones are like a fan heater without the fan so you get instant heat.

The thermostat is useful and, again, oil filled rads tend to just be ‘on’ or ‘off’ (although obviously they keep emitting heat from the thermal store when off) as they take so long to react to changes.

We had the same problem with GTi Junior’s bedroom, which is in an extension outside the main thermal mass of the house and above the unheated garage. The boiler only kicks in a couple of times during an evening so the rad would soon cool down and the room was horrible.

We spent some money getting the entire room dry-lined with Kingspan in between battens and then a thin layer of plasterboard backed with polystyrene. The roof insulation was already very thick after I had topped it up twice. The effect was astonishing; from being cold and miserable it has beome the warmest room in the house and the quietest too. The room is smaller by about 2″ though.

If you don’t want to throw money at it the Delonghi Dragon oil-filled rads are excellent and not too expensive: http://www.delonghi.com/en-gb/products/comfort/portable-heating/oil-filled-radiators

explain to Flashy what an Argos is

It’s ok, you can buy them in Homebase too 😉

Someone might have to explain to Flashy what an Argos is

Odysseus’ dog.

“oil filled rads tend to just be ‘on’ or ‘off”

sounds like you have been using REALLY old or REALLY cheap oil filled rads.

delonghis with stat and timer built in seems to work just grand – mines even has a fan in to move the air about.

not that i need to use it much anymore but handy to have in a “boiler out”

I’m pretty much in the exact same situation (I’m typing from it now!), I just use a plug in oil filled radiator and that does the trick. It’s got ceilign to floor glass along about half of it and some thick curtains help on an evening too.

You need to know why he named his dog thus Flashy
FFS what sort of school did you go to if it did not cover the basics of classics, was it a northern comp?

Argus Panoptes (????? ????????), guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor,[1] was a primordial giant whose epithet, “Panoptes”, “all-seeing”, led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes.

7′ by 20′ you say?

the heifer-nymph

Was she a right cow?

It will take hours to traipse around all the various wings of the house doing that every morning and evening

That’s why you have staff…..

When we were camped out in our unheated warehouse last winter and used it as our office while those were being built next door my boss had a small electric fan heater under his desk. Sitting there a couple of times it became obvious that as long as you can feel your feet and your testicles feel like they are cupped in a warm hand nothing else in the world seems to matter, least of all the cold.

How about electric skirting heaters http://adax-solaire.com/presta/248-adax-neo-nl-conservatory-electric-panel-heaters

To get the best from them you should also insulate behind with metallic strip.

We had a wet version of these in an extension and they kept a large room (with Velux and plenty of glass) pleasantly warm without ever getting really hot.

DeLongi Oil Filled Rad +1. I have one on standby for heating the mancave during winter bike building maintenance time. Cheaper to run as long as it has a thermostat than an electric instant IIRC, and also less likely to catch your paper work on fire should a draught float it in the heaters direction.

Although flashy, you have an abundance of fuel for external and internal warmth already…

Kryton, am running desperately low! Am going to restock on the MGXO, perhaps also the Chairman’s Reserve, but am also pondering trying a St Nicholas or a Doorly’s.

Just run the CH, the marginal cost will be bu99er all.