Is this something that I can get my landlord to fix? I've had bigger rads installed, but they've also put passive vents in to get rid of the black mould problem. Outside temp is around 8°, when it drops to zero, it won't get above 14° in here….

by hairybastid

39 comments

  1. The radiators hot to touch? They might just need bleeding

  2. Do the radiators actually get properly hot all the way up? If not, when did you last bleed them? What’s the boiler temp set to? 

  3. Humidity is high, taking more energy to heat and thus getting colder faster.

    Dry air = faster warmth, linger warmth and less issues like mold.

    That and/or you gave terrible insulation and the heats escaping.

  5. Leave it on and stop turning it off, it will eventually reach temp, you have to heat up the fabric of the building too especially in solid wall properties, set thermostat to like 20 and just leave it eventually it will reach temp. Make sure you’ve got curtains up at the windows and try hanging them at the external doors to, and if that don’t work, heat yourself not the property, a oodie or a heated blanket on the bed or sofa would be a cheaper and easier option

  6. Try an electric panel heater and having doors shut to one of your rooms? Thermal curtains etc also help. My front door loses so much heat so I have really thick curtains over the front door.

  7. Get a fan to blow the warm air around. You ideally want humidity closer to 45% as well which will properly help.

  8. I recently got a smart meter and I can see how much I’ve spent on energy each day. I had the heating on for half a day last week. When I next went to switch it on, I checked the app to see how much it had cost last time, sighed, and went to put on a third jumper instead.

    I guess the smart meter is working as intended.

  10. I presume that 66% is the humidity? That’s pretty high. Over winter you’re wanting 45-55% ideally.

    It sounds counter intuitive but opening the windows for 15 minutes every day to bring in the dryer cold air will help massively.

    It shouldn’t lower the temp of the home, you’re just replacing the air. The furniture etc in your home holds the vast majoriry of the thermal mass. The air will heat back up in no time.

    There being much less moisture in the air makes the heating significantly more effective, plus dryer air makes it feel warmer too.

    You can get a dehumidifier, but research what you get, many of them are shit, expensive to run, or both. We saw quite a few decent ones on FB Marketplace for around £30. You’ll want a larger one (12L minimum) or it’ll be useless for living rooms etc. Those little dessicant things you get in B&M etc are wholly useless too.

    If that’s still not helping, you need to start monitoring the temp of radiators, windows, doors, ceilings, loft hatches, etc. Either your radiators aren’t kicking out enough heat or it’s all leaking out somewhere.

    Edit: just saw your other comments you wrote while I wrote this 😛 sadly just going to have to keep that dehumidifier running until your landlord pulls his thumb out his ass and actually does the job you’re paying him a fortune to do…

  11. Ahhh, that’s really annoying, sorry you’re dealing with this.

    I previously lived in a 1930s detached house which was bitterly cold.

    Original floor boards had a thick underlay and carpets put in. Insulated under the suspended floor boards. Topped up loft insulation. Chimney sheep’s to stop draughts. Single glazed windows switched to double glazed. Additional door put in porch to stop draughts through front door. Old radiators switched to more modern ones that gave off heat more efficiently.

    Cost a pretty penny but was worth it. But agree with a lot of other comments, let the house breathe, especially if you insulate.

  12. Self confessed nerd here.
    I run two of these set to 50% humidity – they’ll kick in an out as needed: https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-elec/pell0307/dehumidifier-16l-day/dp/HG01256?st=dehumidifiers

    The glorious thing about dehumidifiers is they output more heat than they use in electrical power, thanks to the power of latent heat stored in the damp air.
    I calculated that when running in 60% humidity air, mine output around 600w of heat from their 237w input power.
    The science behind it is boring af, but the result is tangible and useful.

    Get the humidity under control and the temperature will be a lot more manageable too

  13. Mine’s at 14 (been down to 12 the last few days but back up today), ridiculously bad tiny storage heater radiators in a rented flat. I have a heated blanket which is a godsend at the moment. I hope it gets better for you and you can stay warm enough.

  14. OP try and leave your dehumidifier on constantly, aim for 50%, I live in a house with terrible damp and the kitchen can reach 85% relative humidity and is absolutely freezing cold. Left the dehumidifier running for a few days and the kitchen felt a completely normal temperature, it was insane. Make sure you have a 12 litre dehumidifier, anything below a 12 litre won’t be effective enough for your room. I highly recommend the [Tower 12L Dehumidifier](https://www.robertdyas.co.uk/tower-12-litre-dehumidifier-t674003?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=22803679348&cq_term=&cq_plac=&cq_net=x&cq_plt=gp&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22794105483&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4pmL0PKIkQMVzodQBh1lNT3pEAQYAiABEgIW0fD_BwE) which has saved my black mould infested cold ass bedroom (trust me, I have learned so much about this in the past few months I could practically run a seminar on it, thanks to my terrible bungalow) Get some radiator insulation foil and put it behind the radiators and pretty much everywhere you can be arsed putting it. Put your hand near your window seals and see if there is a draft, if so get some window insulation tape. Modern window fittings have subtle [trickle vents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle_vent), if you have some make sure these are shut as they could be bringing in a draft. You could also get some thermal window glazing film which may help too

  15. I’m on the verge of building a polystyrene igloo around the tv and living in it

  16. Are you blocking any and all drafts? I buy a roll of duct tape every fall and block all drafts. It’s amazing how quickly that raises the heat in your flat

  18. It sounds like you need to check for leaks or water ingress that’s keeping your walls damp (perhaps your roof or damaged bricks / pebbledash / render).

    Your humidity shouldn’t take all day to go down 20% if you’ve got a good modern dehumidifier… the concerning bit is it shooting back up to sometimes 85% very quickly. Warmth aside, living in such damp conditions isn’t good for your or your home’s health.

    Definitely need to sort out the little to no insulation in your loft as well.

  19. Might the radiators be unbalanced? You might find that one of them somewhere is “short circuiting” the flow and stealing it from the lounge.

  20. 66% is high humidity. The second it gets cold my house drops to 55% and less.

    It’s 53% for us right now and the room is 18C

    Dehumidifier is on and the humidity is coming down.

  21. If there’s not a Draft then are the walls freezing cold?

  22. I see that you moved into my mouldy old, spider infested, freezing bungalow…

    When we were hammered by that cold snap in 2019, the temperature in my kitchen was 6°C – and that was with the heating on..

    A trip to the loft found precisely zero insulation, and a look under the floorboards found a swimming pool we didn’t know about.

    Gave up, bought a new build, and it’s been sublime.

  23. Turn it up to 29. It’s just pooling along at the moment, turn it up and it’ll think, ‘christ, 29! Better get cracking, I need to generate some serious heat!’

  24. Why has the heating only been on for 12hrs? What was the temp before?

  25. So op my house is a little like this due to its age and size. Best solution I found…
    Oddly enough set water temp for boiler to 55c.
    This makes it far more efficient.. long running hardly burns gas when up to temp.
    Get the heating on early like 4 am if you’re in. You need the house to warm through. Once the house is ‘up to temp’. It’s a lot easier to maintain it than to bring a cold house to ‘warm’.
    I treat my house like smoking meats. Low and slow
    Plus just leave it on. Turning it off for a long period of time means you got to bring the house up to temp again.

  28. When you say “to get rid of the black mould problem” I presume you mean to prevent it further / appearing again, as opposed to living in the upside down with demogorgons? 

  29. I’ve got the same problem after getting new radiators installed.
    I’ve been told that the system probably needs rebalancing as new radiators can throw it out.

  30. I’ve just had a very similar display… but then realised I’d left the thermostat on the windowsill!

  31. On my days, at 16 °C, we went to the beach for a “refreshing” swim, mostly because we didn’t know what central heating was.

  32. my mum rented a heat camera from our local library, used that to find the cold spots on our house. The hatch to the attic turned out to stealing our good heating. She added some insulation, did some other things and now our house is definitely a few degrees warmer

    I super recommend trying this

  33. Check boiler pressure gauge is in the green zone. We have a minor leak that means we need to refresh it every few weeks

  34. All the suggestions for a dehumidifier are valid, but your heating it can’t raise the temp from 0c to 14c then something else is wrong, and reducing the humidity by a few percent won’t be enough. Heating systems in the UK are supposed to be based around a design outdoor temperature of -1c or lower, and an internal temperature of 21c.

    Is it still getting warmer or has it just stabilised? If still getting warmer, leave it on and see where it settles.

    Otherwise:

    * Ensure all radiator valves are open fully to rule that out.
    * Ensure the heating loop on your boiler is pressurised properly.
    * Calculate your house’s estimated heat loss using [https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/heat-loss-calculator](https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/heat-loss-calculator)
    * Calculate your radiator’s output using [https://www.castrads.com/en/panel-radiator-output-calculator/](https://www.castrads.com/en/panel-radiator-output-calculator/)
    * Check the heating output on your boiler.

    In theory, you should be able to estimate the capability of your heating system with the above. If that all seems to suggest your heating system is correctly specified, which it should be if a competent plumber has installed it, then you’re probably losing heat somewhere:

    * Check the temps of each of your radiators with an infrared thermometer.
    * Find draughts with a candle, especially check around windows and doors.
    * Keep doors closed and observe whether any room is especially cold – that might help suggest where the problem is.
    * Check at your external brickwork for spalling and cracks
    * Look for leaks around your gutters. Even if it doesn’t cause any other issues, water in a solid brick wall can effectively steal heat by getting warmed up then evaporating (aka evaporative cooling, like sweating).

  35. There’s been some good suggestions here, but Ill add something in case it’s been missed – radiator insulation
    If you’ve got radiators against uninsulated walls, you’ll be losing a lot of heat directly outside (had this problem with my place, when the heating was on you could feel where the radiators are from the outside).

    You can get ‘radiator foil’ cheaply from most big diy places, it’s polystyrene backed foil that’s attached to the wall behind the radiator (foil facing the radiator, can be pasted on and painted over) that will reflect more of the heat back into the room instead of heating the outside wall directly.

    Better loft insulation will make a big difference, but unfortunately if you’ve got solid walls the only proper way to improve insulation on them is to build up insulation on the inside which is an expensive faff and shrinks the room.
    Not your house, not your job.
    The improper way to do it would be to put up polystyrene wallpaper (can be bought cheaply in 2mm thick rolls, two layers makes a noticeable difference) but I wouldn’t like to speculate on how it would respond to a housefire. . .

  36. Everyone is right about the humidity, but I’m still wondering where you’re losing all that heat.. are there any drafts? 

    I have heavy curtains that I pull close and there is a rolled up blanket in front of the front door to stop the heat escaping 

  37. I’m lucky enough that my flat is sandwiched between two flats owned by people living 365 days a year in flip flops and swimming suits. I haven’t turned on my heating and we have a comfortable 24C inside the flat

  38. My husband and I used to live in an old flat with no real heating in Leamington Spa about 15 years ago. It had broken storage heaters we could never get to work, and the landlord was some geezer about 10 years older than us, who didn’t give a fuck but for some reason wanted to come around almost every weekend to look in the flat at something. We had mushrooms growing out of the walls in one room.

    It still wasn’t as cold as your house with the heaters on.

  39. Put tin foil behind the radiators to reflect the heat back into the room

    Are there any draughts around the window where heat is escaping? Cover them with old towels

Comments are closed.