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Unless you're going all in with insulation it doesn't make a huge difference in real world terms imho.
2 years ago I had a bit of a mid house crisis and decided to gut our house whilst living in it. Every bit of plaster off the walls and reboardded with insulated plasterboard, new Windows and doors throughout, rewire and re plumb which involved new boiler, rads and controls.
What we've found is the boiler is more efficient but the required heating is still the same, our house will still cool but warms up faster once it fires up. The house (but it's where the stat is situated at the end of the day) will rise 4 degrees in 30 mins in current conditions.
what do you mean by convectors? the wavy sheet tacked onto the panels?
what do you mean by convectors? the wavy sheet tacked onto the panels?
Yep.
Ours is on all year round, we use the thermostat. 19 at night, 20 during the day and 22 in evening. We just leave it a that, its less fuss.
We live in a Victorian semi also, I’m not sure why our house holds heat well. It only dips below 20 indoors when the temp outside is 5 degrees or less.
Might have missed it, but have you checked all the radiators are getting heat, and don't have any air in the top of them?
I say this as i came home from work to a freezing house and a cold girlfriend when we first moved into our rented flat. Quick check of the rads and boiler and all the rads had been isolated with those 90 degree turny valves and a few of the rads needed bleeding too.
We live in a Victorian semi also, I’m not sure why our house holds heat well.
because you keep heating it up?
@cynic-al - if you email the guide over that could be useful (I've had a quick look on Changeworks but I'm struggling to find it....thanks)
Humidity will make a difference too. The more humidity the harder it will be to heat.
Dehumidifier running 24/7 in the hallway (it's a decent Meaco one set to 60 for a 5 bed house).
it will be beneficial to balance your rads as well.
Rads are balanced and bled.
Large open plan kitchen and living room area with underfloor heating.
I leave it on 24hrs a day in the winter with the thermostat at 15C. This keeps the chill off, I might turn it up slightly if the house feels a bit cold. I also have a 12kw stove which we run most nights, this produces enough heat to warm the bedrooms to a comfortable temperature. Like I mention earlier, the house is extremely well insulated, really holds the heat.
You mentioned you have microbore (10mm) piping to rads? This is notorious for getting sludged up. Symptoms would be failing to heat house quickly…
Are the rads hot to touch when thermostat demanding heat? Should be almost too hot to touch. Is the boiler burning when the thermostat demands heat?
The vast majority of the pipework is microbore under the floorboard both upstairs and downstairs. Rad valves/lockshields are a mixture of microbore and 15mm and the new pipework in the kitchen is all 15mm.
Most rads get nearly burny hot to touch, some not so much. I'll flush the system and couple of times and get the rads off the walls and flushed through.
I have two lean-to roofs area on my house. I found the easiest / least 'messy' way to install insulation in there was to go through the roof (slide the tiles up and remove some, cut through felt and remove a couple of battens to make a hatch between the rafters. It was a bit like pot-holing but the difference it made was amazing).
So, back to back readings of two different days:
Two scheduled heating times (6am - 8.30am & 3pm - 8pm) used 14.44 units (starting temp at 6am just over 15degC)
On from 6am to 9pm maintaining 17 degC used 16.37 units (starting temp at 6am 14.9degC)
The top reading was probably a slightly colder day overall despite the starting temp being higher.
I've just been through something very similar to you, we moved into a 1970 house last year. Same temperatures to you, took an age to heat up if at all. Temperatures dropped off pretty quickly overnight. A cold and uncomfortable house to be in.
Changed out the old Potterton thermostat with Hive, made no difference, just more control.
Swapped out all of the radiators from non convector to convectors, increased the size of them where calculations showed they were under sized. I was told its better to over rad a room than under aslong as your boiler can take it and let TRVs control. My boiler was fine and I fitted TRVS to every Rad. Bought a thermometer and balanced the system.
House went from taking about 4 hours to reach temp to about 45 minutes.
We also fitted new windows and doors throughout and Insulated the Loft to 300mm so the heat stays in.
Its a different house now, wife no longer complains....change your Rads now.
Thanks Buzz - sounds like it's time to re-familiarize with BTUs then and find some data on a ~1997 Ideal Mexico boiler!
Ah you have an Ideal Mexico? We do too (of a similar vintage) - we found out that a major issue with these is that the exhaust on them rots through and then clogs it up meaning it doesn't run very efficiently and will eventually start causing the pilot to go out.
These parts aren't made any more so we currently have ours rebuilt with adhesive metal sheet every year when it gets serviced. It makes quite a difference so we tend to do it early Autumn so we get get the best of it over Winter.
Doesn't sound like the only problem you have but worth checking anyway.
Thanks smokey...it's being serviced next week so I'll get the engineer to check it out.
We live in a Victorian semi also, I’m not sure why our house holds heat well.
because you keep heating it up?
You gotta love selective quoting in this please. No, like I said with nothing on it won't drop below 19 until the temp outside gets below about 5 degrees. Then it drops to 18. The lowest I've seen it after a 2 week Holiday when it was on average about 9 degrees in the UK. The heating was on "Holiday" mode (Frost protection), and the house was 17.5 in the hallway when we returned.
your house won't defy thermodynamics.
the heat has to come from somewhere, maybe your next door neighbour has their heating set to tropical...
or maybe its built on a portal to hell?
It is a battle with older houses - I tried the on all the time approach last winter during the cold spells and the house was warm but the bill was horrific. It was a 1920's end terrace with the main external wall facing the prevailing wind, solid brick walls with about 100mm loft insulation and new double glazing (fitted by us).
Certain rooms were really cold and would suffer condensation quite badly so we ended up using electric panel heaters to maintain some background heat. It worked but it added to the sizeable energy bill.
We've since moved to a new build and the difference is so noticeable despite this house being more exposed (we're on the edge of a village).
If you’re gonna do a flush, may as well add system cleaner to the header tank, and ideally install a magnaclean filter too. Let the cleaner run in the system for a couple of weeks, will probably need to flush filter a lot in that time. Then flush and replace with corrosion inhibitor.
Even if you’re not doing this whole process make sure you replace corrosion inhibitor after flushing.
This topic comes up a lot on the screwfix community forum a lot and that’s the standard advice.
19 at night, 20 during the day and 22 in evening.
Are you one of those cold blooded lizard overlords that are supposed to walk among us? 22 degrees! holy hell! 18 degrees feels warm to me, dropping to 16 at night.
Hi, off grid schizophrenic half 1812 / half 2006 build here.
Old bit is solid brick on dirt, gets cold quick esp. downstairs. New bit is usual new stuff, cavity & kingspan, stays warm for ages.
Option #1, "5kw" lounge burner on anthracite. That's sort of a 24hr a day deal, or bust. So, yes, for that one. Lounge gets proper toasty when it is on, which is nice.
Option #2, 20kw central hearing boiler in kitchen, runs on anthracite again. Again, 24hr a day deal, or bust. So, yes for that one too. Radiators are timed though, and are on for the usual sort of pattern, although for longer than usual because the old bit gets cold if they aren't. The kitchen has a few kw all the time coming out the boiler.
We'd love to be able to insulate better TBH but what can be done has been, apart from internal or external wall insulation and that isn't happening.
When we moved in the heating was awful. Most of the front half of the house just didn't get warm, the rads took an absolute age to get heat and even when hot failed to warm the room properly. I ended up replacing most of the rads with bigger panels. Also did a fair amount of re-plumbing to sort the pipework. This helped loads - "oversized" radiators with TRVs works a treat. We still have one room (lounge) that is difficult to heat but it is a stupid layout with stairs on one side and to make it worse, it has the solid brick external walls and the front door. It probably needs an even more massive radiator, or some way to block off the stairs so the heat doesn't waft straight up to the bedrooms.
Since we installed a smart thermostat I've learnt more about how our house heats up and cools down.
In the winter the house takes about 3hrs to go from 18 to 21 in the morning. Overnight it usually stays above 18, the heating comes on if it goes below 16. We were away during the Beast from the East so the geofencing stopped the heating coming on, I watched the heat drop day by day, it got down to 13 after 9 days. Then 5.5hrs to get back to 21. Suprised how long it takes to heat up but equally happily suprised how little heat is lost considering the insulation isn't that great.
Early 90s build, about 100mm of loft insulation (borded on top), insulation blown in to wall, beam and block floor with no insulation (I think quite a bit of heat is lost through the floors.
I used to set our hive to heat pretty much only when me and the wife were home. What I noticed though is that if I keep the house around 17 deg when I’m out that the heating is hardly on. Pops on and off to keep temp up for tiny amounts of time. I Set around 20.5 for when we’re home and from 17 to 20.5 takes an hour or so to get it there. If I left the heating off and the house dropped to say 13/14 deg then from that point the heating was pumping at full power for hours to get back to 20.5.
Now the house always feels warm and according to my gas bill it’s costing me an extra £10 a month which is well worth it for me
Ours is on permanently and just controlled by thermostat, our shifts don't work well for setting timers.
15deg at night or when we're out and 18-20 when in, we don't like it hot at night so works well. Occasionally in the winter it kicks in briefly overnight as the rads are warm. Heats up quickly, but if it's windy the heat disappears quickly.
I have changed all the rads to new convectors, which made a massive difference.
nails in a jam jar of boiler water . If they go rusty then you do not have enough inhibitor and your rads will also be rusty . New rads as they are not that expensive ,and you can fit 1 a month if cost is an issue.
Need to know what BTU's your boiler will produce. Is there a variable speed pump, that might need turning up to move the hot water round a little faster
If you have to run a de humidifier look at where the moisture is coming from, drying clothes in the house on rads , bathrooms with no extraction and wet towels on a rad , plus kitchen . Might sound daft as , but leaving a few windows open to let all the damp air out , then closing them and turning up the heating might be beneficial.
If those red bits are not insulated you don't stand a chance. I would cut an access and get it insulated then patch it up afterwards.
Andrew
I always understood heating controllers / boilers to be binary in that they're ON full gas (sic) until the target temp is reached at thermostat. So does sound like a problem with your system to solve first.
Having said that my latest boiler does (Vailant) seem to have a slower start to getting rads hot and toasty initiallym or if the temp is below but near the target they run warm not hot - So are boilers now throttling performance for max efficiency ?
4 bed new build, dropped to 18c & stayed there all day,.just took 1 hour to reach 22c.
Re: insulation...assuming windows & attic are as insulated as they can be, go for external wall insulation, seriously. We moved from an ex Council 3 bed semi, constructed from shuttered concrete (Wimpey "No-Fines"). Thermally rubbish, very strong but that's about it. Bad condensation caused by cool wall temp vs warm interior. Having EWI was the best thing we ever did to that place. It made a massive difference, so much so that it actually stayed warmer than this 6 months old new build we are now in. Condensation dried up overnight. Check locally, there may be someone offering it. Assuming windows are modern & actually doing their job...(check for drafts, especially opening windows where the foam seals get squashed over time). Replacement seals are cheap enough on line. The heating in the old house was on 24/7, but it was a Heatmiser timed stat. Over 10 years I found the most efficient was only letting it drop by 2 degrees, as it wasn't working like mad for hours to get it back up to temp..