How warm/cold is your home without heating?

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 03 Dec 2010, 23:01

Carrying water to 50 chickens and 12 sheep is killing us!

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 03 Dec 2010, 23:30

I'm afraid our cat might eat us in the night, he is a bit bored stuck inside.

nexus · Post by **nexus** » 03 Dec 2010, 23:46

Andy Hunt wrote:I'm afraid our cat might eat us in the night, he is a bit bored stuck inside.

In which case you need to check this out: http://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php

My favourite is 'bringing you dead animals- this isn't a gift, it's a warning'

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 03 Dec 2010, 23:57

Yes thanks nexus, I've already seen that and it's brilliant! And true, I fear . . .

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 04 Dec 2010, 00:44

nexus wrote:In which case you need to check this out: http://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php

Did you see this link at the bottom of that page?
http://www.recipestar.com/quizzes/view/cannibal-taste

The doomers will love it

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 04 Dec 2010, 00:55

As I type our sitting room with the wood stove lit is 18c. The room I am in is 15c and our main bedroom (a cold room) is only 12c. The hall is about 13c. In this cold weather, our bedroom will be 10c by 0800 - which is quite cold! Our house is quite large - 5 bedrooms and a bit sprawled out, so is generally quite hard to heat. It doesn't help that I am a miser with the oil heating.....

The goal is to keep the sitting room nice and warm - sometimes it can get up to 22c with a good fire going, which uses free wood.

And we wear lots of layers in winter but I must admit that in this cold period of weather and the very cold winter we had last year, 10c in the bedroom or 13c in the hall is not great....... for general comfort.

I am currently laying down a second layer of insulation in key areas of our roofspace and also using this special paint additive I got for all interior exterior walls and ceilings.

So hopefully this will improve matters.

But it is fair to say that heating in winter will be a difficult issue in the future..... and we need to really heed this issue.

Post by **mikepepler** » 04 Dec 2010, 07:55

OK, I'm feeling quite guilty now!

In our previous house, we were pretty much at 18C throughout in winter, with underfloor heating and a communal heat pump. However, we couldn't get it any warmer, due to the bodged heat main installation (which has since been repaired).

In our new house, upstairs is normally 18-19C, and downstairs is 22-23 when the woodburner is lit. If we go out for the day, leaving a the woodburner loaded and turned down a bit, when we get back it's about 18-19C downstairs, and 15-16C upstairs.

Downstairs ends up hotter just because that's where the woodburner is, and you have to run it at a certain level to heat upstairs and the hot water. But perhaps we could have the whole house a couple of degrees lower?

I suppose the fact that we have more wood than we need doesn't encourage us to economise on it, but if we used less we could fell less, or sell/barter the surplus...

woodpecker · Post by **woodpecker** » 04 Dec 2010, 09:48

And to answer my own question...

I currently have just 3 rads out of 7 installed, plus the wood burner in the sitting room, so present conditions are temporary.

Rooms with rads are around 17 or 18, rooms without and shut off are probably around 10, hall area (no rad but connected to rooms with rads) 12-13. The wood burner raises the sitting room temperature to around 19-20 at the moment, though obviously takes a while if I haven't fired it up recently (no rad in that room).

The weak spot is the kitchen, which I refurbed before realising I had a cold void underneath - do I get up the floor again to install proper insulation (as I've done in other rooms), with all the waste/expense that that entails?

I used to think 17-18 was tolerable (and once upon a time used to have the thermostat at over 20), but I now think 14-15-16 is fine for all spaces except sitting room. But I think seasonal changes affect my view: so 14-15-16 feels cold when it has been recently warmer, but feels fine after a longer period.

I'm certainly thinking a lot more about fuel and temperature than I used to.

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 04 Dec 2010, 13:07

Nexus wrote

Is anyone else concerned about their animals? I'm going out every few hours to break the ice and refill the chooks water and I've added extra straw to the coop, they seem fine at the mo but I have been worrying a bit.

Frozen chicken? Oh dear.

My mate has a Shetland and he had to break the ice with a hammer and chisel the other day. I would have been tempted to empty a couple of buckets of hot water in there...

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 04 Dec 2010, 13:14

maudibe wrote: My mate has a Shetland

Blimey - a pony, or an island?

featherstick · Post by **featherstick** » 04 Dec 2010, 14:08

Andy Hunt wrote:Hi Featherstick, that sounds interesting. What method did you use - dry lining with a metal frame/insulated cavity/plasterboard? How wide did you make the internal cavity?

Kingspan or Celotex insulated plasterboard. The plasterboard is 12mm, the insulation another 50mm (although you can get less but it's not worth it), and a 10mm gap between the wall and the plasterboard - the width of a batten. It's slightly more expensive but the moisture barrier is already included. Took two of us about 2 days to put up, then another day or so to repaint the room. It's been very good.

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 04 Dec 2010, 14:16

featherstick wrote:
Andy Hunt wrote:Hi Featherstick, that sounds interesting. What method did you use - dry lining with a metal frame/insulated cavity/plasterboard? How wide did you make the internal cavity?
Kingspan or Celotex insulated plasterboard. The plasterboard is 12mm, the insulation another 50mm (although you can get less but it's not worth it), and a 10mm gap between the wall and the plasterboard - the width of a batten. It's slightly more expensive but the moisture barrier is already included. Took two of us about 2 days to put up, then another day or so to repaint the room. It's been very good.

Thanks, I will definitely think about this.

The ideal solution is just to get the whole external gable end wall done externally. But that at the moment is a distant dream.

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 04 Dec 2010, 15:14

Currently sleeping in a static caravan with zero insulation or thermal mass and, I haven't dared turn the heating off completely as the internal temp quickly falls very close to the external temperature. During the current cold spell, it has been difficult to get any kind of thermal comfort, except when tucked up in bed!

We are retrofitting our house and, once complete, the internal temp will never fall below 16C even if unheated and unoccupied, even during cold periods like the current one. I expect we will probably maintain 18C or maybe 19C, which will feel more like 20 or 21C due to complete absence of drafts or cold radiant from cold internal surfaces. Fuel use for space heating will be 2000kWh or less a year.

[/smugness]

madibe · Post by **madibe** » 04 Dec 2010, 16:10

Back to original topic....f f f f fer fer ferk freezing

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 04 Dec 2010, 17:26

maudibe wrote:Back to original topic....f f f f fer fer ferk freezing

Must be time for the pub soon mate