Cold apartment

grahamor

Hi,

I live alone in a 2 bed top floor apartment in Clontarf. It was built in 1982 and has been modernized just a few months back. It gets the sun in the morning up until about midday at the moment.

There's a fireplace which is great and then electric heaters mounted on the walls. I time these to come on but the room gets cold really quickly after they turn off. I believe it's really expensive to use electric heaters compared to storage heaters/radiators.

If the heating is not on then the room temperature is 5 degrees or less. I can see my breath because it's so cold.

It seems there is no insulation at all. The floors are all sanded and the bathroom is like a fridge. The windows are old and not double glazed.

Anyone any advice on what i can do ? I could ask the landlord to help but i doubt he'd offer to install new windows/improve insulation in the next few weeks, (which is when i need it)

Thank you for any advice.

littleredspot

It sounds like you've got the worst of both worlds, no insulation (combined with a gaping hole for the chimney and possibly wind chill due to being up high) and a very expensive to run heating system (is there no storage heater ?) I'd imagine every home built in 1982 in this country would be badly insulated and hard to heat. I'm sure the landlord is aware of the issues as he may have had the apartment for nearly 30 years now and realictically as long as people are willing to rent such a freezer, they're unlikely to spend a lot of money improving it.

All I can suggest is blocking the chimney when not in use, check doors/windows for draughts (stick on foam draft strips are cheap and easy to install) and maybe get an oil filled radiator or two, as to the best of my knowledge they are a bit more economical to use. Perhaps checking the BER (which the landlord is legally supposed to have) for the next apartment you rent would be a good idea. Also for future reference apartments that are surrounded by others tend to be very easy to keep warm (that's one of the advantages of apartment living)

odds_on

That is one of the reasons that it is so important to see a copy of the BER certificate.

Tenants should always ask for one (it is actually the landlord who should show you one) as it will give you a good idea of the heating costs.
By law, any property offered for rent should have one.

An Ri rua

If you're ok with a flueless heater, get yourself an Inverter 5006 i.e. a kerosene heater. You can light small fires in the hearth to complement it and to 'seal' the chimney heat loss etc. Keeps convection in the room. or else seal up the chimney.

I bought an Inverter 5006 last year from McLoughlins in Naas> See www.mcloil.com. They're also in Balbriggan but I don't think they do heaters there.

IIRC there's a crowd in Ashbourne (I think) doing the same Inverters on Adverts.ie. I mixed it with oil central heating and open fires last year to make it through that winter as the only house from over 150 in a Laois estate to have running water !!

They're electronic, almost odourless and v v safe.

All down to your personal preferences of course but I would not be without my paraffin heater. Its how the French and the Japs heat apartments.

http://www.dry-it-out.com/inverter-5006-3kw-liquid-fuel-heater-free-fuel

Loads of reviews there. Also if you're near Newbridge, swing into MCL and have a look. I researched it fully last December when I discovered my rented house's heating sys was f*cked and I had to loan the LL the money in advance to buy a secondhand Rielo burner. Sweet divine Jesus.....

Hope you work something out.

the_syco

grahamor wrote: »

It seems there is no insulation at all. The floors are all sanded and the bathroom is like a fridge. The windows are old and not double glazed.

How thick are your curtains? If they're light, look into a heavy curtain, to help keep the heat in at night. Also, get draught excluder for the doors.

These two things should cut down on the heat that you loose.

gurramok

the_syco wrote: »

How thick are your curtains? If they're light, look into a heavy curtain, to help keep the heat in at night. Also, get draught excluder for the doors.

These two things should cut down on the heat that you loose.

I have a similar situation to the OP but not at 5C! The main living room with fireplace reached a low of 12.6C yesterday and the bedroom reaches 10C, I do have thermometers in each room. Its cold especially when you're idle sitting around but not ice cold, it does heat up but the heat quickly dissipates when I switch it off at bedtime.

From reading here, I have covered the fireplace last night and will report if it does help. In my place, the only draught I do feel does be from the letterbox. I do seal that up in the evenings, it only helps a little. I do have draught proof foam on the double doors(like a patio) in the bedroom but with no obvious source of a draught there, its baffling.

In the summer, the living room does be quite warm(south facing) even without sun and yet the bedroom(north facing) always does be chilly even with doors opened between the two. (a short corridor separates the two)

I noticed recently that certain apartments in the complex do be empty at night but occupied in the daytime, I suspect people do not live in them due to the cold! From talking with neighbours, they all seem to have a problem with the cold no matter what floor they are on.

I don't think badly insulated 'modern' apts\houses is a rare problem, I reckon its a common problem from shoddy builds.

An Ri rua

A LOT of Irish properties you can have 'cold bridges'. So even though you can't feel a distinct draught, there is cold 'colonising' the living space.

For instance, the balcony, if not insulated properly where it is secure under the floor, allows immense cold to come up through the floorboards. This is a problem for me.

Patio doors also even though they fit snugly, because they're aluminium, seem to be spreading the cold of the balcony itself. I reckon mine, and many others, are not insulated at all under the floorboards near the balcony doors. Hence why the wooden floor floats and rises a little. Poor workmanship.

Ray Palmer

gurramok wrote: »

I don't think badly insulated 'modern' apts\houses is a rare problem, I reckon its a common problem from shoddy builds.

The regs in 82 would have had little or no mention of insulation. A 30 year old property wouldn't be modern. Unless they did a proper retro fit of improving the thermol value of the walls and windows. I remember many of the builds in Clontarf going up as my father worked on the structural design. They knew they would be cold then but that simply wasn't a concern and insulation costs were pretty expensive. Double glazzing then was seen the same way tripple glazzing is seen now, expensive and unnessary.

If you are renting move out when you can and get a BER cert for the next place. The problem is the majority of housing stock in Ireland has the exact same problem. My Mothers house is a very cold house and she won't get the insulation without her neighbour doing it too.

There is a lot of rental property that will have a poor BER rating the majority with good rating will be new places which tend to be small and aren't particularly well built. A BER cert will not tell you if the place is baddly built and actually draughty or hard to heat.

Sky King

Look into getting a chimney balloon. I don't think the suggestions here will solve your problems though - it seems there are serious insulation issues with the place from what you have described.

Your only alternative is to move into somewhere more modern.

gurramok

Ray Palmer wrote: »

The regs in 82 would have had little or no mention of insulation. A 30 year old property wouldn't be modern...

There is a lot of rental property that will have a poor BER rating the majority with good rating will be new places which tend to be small and aren't particularly well built. A BER cert will not tell you if the place is baddly built and actually draughty or hard to heat.

Mine is a rental, built in the mid-90s. Will be moving out next year hopefully, its a good apt as it is quite big and spacious, ticks all the boxes apart from the winter

An Ri rua wrote:

A LOT of Irish properti you can't have 'cold bridges'. So even though you can't feel a distinct draught, there is cold 'colonising' the living space.

For instance, the balcony, if not insulated properly where it is secure under the floor, allows immense cold to come up through the floorboards. This is a problem for me.

Patio doors also even though they fit snugly, because they're aluminium, seem to be spreading the cold of the balcony itself. I reckon mine, and many others, are not insulated at all under the floorboards near the balcony doors. Hence why the wooden floor floats and rises a little. Poor workmanship.

Mine has no balcony and none below me. The 2nd bedroom which just has a window(wooden framed) does be colder than the first bedroom, perhaps by a couple of degrees Celsius. Its just weird how the 2 bedrooms no matter what time of year without any heating on do be colder than the corridor and the living room\kitchen.

Ray Palmer

gurramok wrote: »

Mine is a rental, built in the mid-90s. Will be moving out next year hopefully, its a good apt as it is quite big and spacious, ticks all the boxes apart from the winter
.

Lots of baddly insulated property about coupled with poor building practices. I actually think it is going to be hard to find a place that is for rent and is easy to keep warm. It is just plain hard to find a property like that in Ireland period.

It is one of the benifts of owning your own home that you can improve it. General maintenance is important which rental property does suffer from as LL aren't in the property enough and tenants don't do anything. Not many LL are going to come down and lay down extra insulation like they would in therir own house. I replaced all the windows and insulated the house the summer before last and the tenants are much happier for it but they would still be there if I hadn't done it. I certainly wouldn't do it now the grants have been reduced. Retro fitting is expensive

The reason lots of people didn't know groing up was there was generally somebody in the house during the day so the house wasn't just heated for afew hours at night. It is earier to keep a place warm once it gets there.

grahamor

Thank you for all the replies.

All the walls facing the outside seem to be hollow ! I don't know anything about construction but I would assume these should be solid walls or filled with insulation material at least !

Ray Palmer

grahamor wrote: »

Thank you for all the replies.

All the walls facing the outside seem to be hollow ! I don't know anything about construction but I would assume these should be solid walls or filled with insulation material at least !

Nothing needs to be done. It is just how it is. That was the construction method when the place was built and the vast majority of houses are built this way from the 50s onwards. You might as well be saying Victorian houses should have modern foundations.

lolo62

if i were you id get creative with different ways of trapping the heat better.

i live in a tiny terraced one up one down house in ballyfermot with no central heating. the kitchen living area has a staircase at the back which sucks all the heat up stairs so i put a heavy cotton curtain all the way around to trap the heat and it works great!

i also curtained up the back door which heat was escaping through

i use a 2500kw oil filled radiator which costs around 40cents an hour and it heats the room perfectly so i just knock it on and off as i need it

i dont know how well it would work but you could try curtaining over the walls somehow with a few panel pins? it might even look cool

Graces7

The house we had before this one was always cold. Bitterly cold. They had built it facing the road instead of facing the sun, and tall trees blocked out what little sun reached it. Double glazing made no difference. No backboiler either.

Here, the house gets sun and that makes all the difference, and there is a solid fuel burner that heats water and upstairs radiators. The sunlight is what makes it easier

HerbSimpson

Something like this might help for around the old windows, it peels off without damage.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tesa-Draught-Excluder-Profile-Brown/dp/B000QB4ELO/ref=pd_sim_kh_3

Carter P Fly

I had friends in this situation in Raheny, Was costing them a fortune in heating and if the heating want on, the house was freezing.
They moved.
The end.

RATM

An Ri rua wrote: »

If you're ok with a flueless heater, get yourself an Inverter 5006 i.e. a kerosene heater. You can light small fires in the hearth to complement it and to 'seal' the chimney heat loss etc. Keeps convection in the room. or else seal up the chimney.

I bought an Inverter 5006 last year from McLoughlins in Naas> See www.mcloil.com. They're also in Balbriggan but I don't think they do heaters there.

IIRC there's a crowd in Ashbourne (I think) doing the same Inverters on Adverts.ie. I mixed it with oil central heating and open fires last year to make it through that winter as the only house from over 150 in a Laois estate to have running water !!

They're electronic, almost odourless and v v safe.

All down to your personal preferences of course but I would not be without my paraffin heater. Its how the French and the Japs heat apartments.

http://www.dry-it-out.com/inverter-5006-3kw-liquid-fuel-heater-free-fuel

Loads of reviews there. Also if you're near Newbridge, swing into MCL and have a look. I researched it fully last December when I discovered my rented house's heating sys was f*cked and I had to loan the LL the money in advance to buy a secondhand Rielo burner. Sweet divine Jesus.....

Hope you work something out.

Had a look into the links you provided and those paraffin heaters look superb. Did you buy one yourself, if so any idea of heating costs on the 5l packs of liquid fuel- do they go through them fast?

Also the place near Newbridge- any ideas of the price there? The site you linked to has them at £274 so I guess about €350ish, is there any improvement on that in MCL?

An Ri rua

RATM wrote: »

Had a look into the links you provided and those paraffin heaters look superb. Did you buy one yourself, if so any idea of heating costs on the 5l packs of liquid fuel- do they go through them fast?

Also the place near Newbridge- any ideas of the price there? The site you linked to has them at £274 so I guess about €350ish, is there any improvement on that in MCL?

As I'd said in that post, yes I'd bought one. I used 20L drums, no point in buying 5L packs. I think I worked it out at 40c an hour when the unit was set to about 21C. That would be running at 800W output once it had heated the air, the furniture and the walls at 3200w output.

Best thing is to email or ring them? I bought mine for 290 with a free drum included. I bought 5 more drums on the day also. Did me through the toughest winter we've had. Alongside the central heating to protect the pipes of course.