Why are Irish houses so cold?

fischerspooner

I've noticed over the years in any house I've lived in in Ireland, they are always FREEZING in winter, i.e. you can see your own breath, it feels damp etc. unless your central heating is blazing. I've found in other countries the buildings and houses are much warmer. In Canada I lived in an old run down wooden house and it could be -30c outside and I'd still be able to walk around in just boxer shorts in the morning. In Winter here my rooms are usually icy in the morning and I'm afraid to get out of bed. People from other countries who live here are always complaining about it too. Is it poor insulation or poor architecture or materials they use to make the buildings or what is it?

Kernel

It may be because the price of central heating is so high.

I know my house will be a lot colder this winter with Bord Gais putting up it's prices by 25%.

Ann Elk

Is it, by any chance, related to the fact that Ireland is f*cking freezing?

deisedevil

It's all because of the fe**in English, ye foreigners wouldn't understand it, there's no point in explaining.

fischerspooner

no relatively speaking we have very mild winters. People from Poland have complained to me about this, and it's REALLY cold there in Winter. And as I said above, countries don't come much colder than Canada and I was never cold indoors over there.

joejoem

Its the government, they do it to keep us miserable. Its the biggest pain in the hole in the morning

mike65

There's no mystery to this

Fuel is fupping expensive, most houses are badly insulated and its cultural - cold means oppression and the Irish love feeling oppressed!

Mike.

BigEejit

Its just that they were poorly insulated, new houses are very warm with minimal heating ... I lived in a place in Cork and no matter how long I had the heating on for, it was freezing 2 hours after it was turned off ...

HelterSkelter

deisedevil wrote:

It's all because of the fe**in English, ye foreigners wouldn't understand it, there's no point in explaining.

Hahaha, good one! That gave me a good laugh.

Sleipnir

fischerspooner wrote:

no relatively speaking we have very mild winters. People from Poland have complained to me about this, and it's REALLY cold there in Winter. And as I said above, countries don't come much colder than Canada and I was never cold indoors over there.

Ireland has a different type of cold to Canada and Poland; it's a sort if damp cold which cuts through you. I've been in NY in January walking around with just a t-shirt on while it was snowing and I felt absolutely fine.

Pighead

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Khannie

I agree with BigEejit. It's poor insulation and high fuel costs. I've just moved into a house that was built in 1980. It has double glazing everywhere and is as well insulated as you can expect. Warm in seconds. Never cold.

Lived in another house that was built in the early 70's. You could never heat the fecker. It was always cold. Had a glass of water INSIDE the bathroom freeze one winter. Messed up stuff.

mike65

Ireland has a different type of cold to Canada and Poland; it's a sort if damp cold which cuts through you

Thats the nub of the matter I'd say. I'm really loking forward to winter....NOT!

Mike.

Pighead

Heating your home can account for over half of your energy bill - especially in this lovely country. Heat costs a lot, so you want to keep it inside for as long as you can, which makes insulation important. There are easy things you can doto keep the precious heat inside your crib.

Insulation is easy to install in your ceilings and can cut your energy costs by 30%. You can also put it under wooden floors and save an extra 5%. If you're renovating you can insulate walls as well, and save another 15%. When choosing insulation, the most important thing to look at is the R value; the higher it is, the better it insulates and the more you save.

It's also very important to choose the right kind of heating. Lads be sensible for Gods sake,Think about what areas you need to heat, how big they are and how long you need to heat them each day.I mean theres no need to insulate your utility room,let the washing room freeze,who cares. If you're only heating your living areas, use one or more high-efficiency space heaters. Gas heaters are cheaper to run and produce less greenhouse pollution than electric models. If you need to heat living areas by day and bedrooms by night, both for long periods, use a zoned central heating system. Wall-mounted radiant heaters or infra-red lamps are best for the bathroom.My pen is well toasty from following these simple rules.Stay warm and stay safe

fade

the real answer is this,


the man says so

Rb

It's going to be another miserable winter
However, in relation to my house, it'll never be cold. My mom is always freezing, even if everyone else is complaining about the heat she's still claiming to be freezing so during the winter the heating is usually on nearly 24/7.
I don't pay the bills so I'm not complaining

Endurance Man

Badly built houses and high fuel costs would seem to be the problem. Why is it that in irish houses all the joins seem to be cracked . Like in corners and between door frames and walls, there seems to be big gaping cracks/gaps.
Im guessing it must have something to do with the wood expanding and contracting.
Solution to all this >> Build your bloody houses outta bricks .

DaisyDuke

A lot of builders cut corners and don't bother their arses insulating the roof, plus as Endurance Man said, they don't seal the windows properly. Buy yourself some draught excluders for the front and back door. If you have a landlord, talk to them about the attic insulation.
I don't even have the heating on in my place yet, and I don't see it going on for another few weeks. Fibreglass is a great thing.

pickarooney

Fuel/heating is cheap in Ireland, relatively speaking. I don't think that's the reason. I mean youse would piss thousands up a wall for no apparent reason and then freeze to death for the sake of a few pence?

Dave!

deisedevil wrote:

It's all because of the fe**in English, ye foreigners wouldn't understand it, there's no point in explaining.

lol

adonis

fischerspooner wrote:

I've noticed over the years in any house I've lived in in Ireland, they are always FREEZING in winter, i.e. you can see your own breath, it feels damp etc. unless your central heating is blazing. I've found in other countries the buildings and houses are much warmer. In Canada I lived in an old run down wooden house and it could be -30c outside and I'd still be able to walk around in just boxer shorts in the morning. In Winter here my rooms are usually icy in the morning and I'm afraid to get out of bed. People from other countries who live here are always complaining about it too. Is it poor insulation or poor architecture or materials they use to make the buildings or what is it?

its cos you were as fat as poland when you were in canada.

soma

As previously mentioned It's because of damp in the air and wind chill factor.

A good mate of my is canadian, the jacket he wears in winter over there, is useless to him here as the cold just cuts thru him.

Endurance Man

As previously mentioned It's because of damp in the air and wind chill factor.

A good mate of my is canadian, the jacket he wears in winter over there, is useless to him here as the cold just cuts thru him.
Today 17:31

I dont think wind chill is going to affect you in your house :rolleyes: .

Sparky

i dont feel cold, and we live in a 100 yr old house, we hardly use the heating at all, where as i see people wrapped up so warmly, id be just comfortable in a coat and hat.

Capt'n Midnight

Buy gloves, scarf, socks and fluffy pink slippers and a wolly cap with a bobbin on the top. Get an exercise machine - after a while on it you will feel a lot warmer. Or do like Fr Ted - big cardboard box and set your alarm clock for march.

Don't forget that all electricial devices generate heat. So having a PC on in winter doesn't really cost anything and is a bit more interesting than staring at the dull red glow from your one bar heater.

Also I know someone who prefers a room temperature about 6-8 degrees C warmer than I find comfortable.

Kernel

pickarooney wrote:

Fuel/heating is cheap in Ireland, relatively speaking. I don't think that's the reason. I mean youse would piss thousands up a wall for no apparent reason and then freeze to death for the sake of a few pence?

Well, we would have one of the highest fuel costs in the EU, so it's not really pennies. Do you pay a gas and electricity bill? When you're struggling to keep down a mortgage, you realise that heating is one of the things that go by the wayside.

Sparky

I have worked in some apartments, and the heating is so high that the minute you open the door, its like opening the oven to pop your two pieces of chicken in for dinner, plus too much heat is bad in a house, the bacteria and virus's thrive on the heat, thats why id say there are so many people with colds in the winter, they go from really hot to cold, rather than striking a balance in between.
As my dad always said, If you feel cold imagine you are on a hot beach in spain, its all in the head. And hes right, one cold november i got a shock to find a bill of €600 taken from my account, and i tell ya for a full 20minutes i forgot about the cold.

Kernel32

I don't believe the story that the cold is different in Ireland, somehow colder because its damp. I grew up in Ireland and live in New England fairly close to Canada. Over here the houses are stick built but very well insulated, doors and windows as well. When the cold hits in November its not unusual to have periods where its way below freezing all day and night for weeks at a time. Lakes and rivers freeze over just to give you an idea. During that time my furnace is going continuously and my house is toasty warm. I could burn through 300 gallons of oil in a month in the January to April period. When its gets really cold you cannot be outside with any exposed skin for too long. Sometimes during and after a snow storm it will warm up a bit and I have been out shoveling snow in a T-shirt on occasion, but the next day it could drop to well below freezing the the top few inches of snow will turn to solid ice.

I have found houses in Ireland to be poorly insulated, walls, floors, doors and windows. When I spent a winter here with my wife a couple of years ago in a nice rented house she complained about the cold in the house. Even when we ran the heat it would get cold very quickly when it stopped. She also found it strange there was no thermostat, instead there were timers. Timers seem to be common in Ireland, in the states its thermostats. You set the temp, say 70F and it stays at that, the heating will start and stop as needed to maintain that temperature.

embraer170

Cause the Irish have their heating system off most of the time. Half an hour in the morning and an hour or two in the evening compared to French, Germans etc. who seem to have their system on 24-7. Makes a big difference.

Blackjack

Wind Chill factor really adds to it.
Kernel 32, I've spent a lot of time in New England also and there is no doubting that the wind chill certainly adds to the coldness in Ireland.
How do you explain being able to go out and shovel snow when it's minus god knows what, yet being absolutely perished when it's 5 above over this side of the Atlantic?.

Kernel32

embraer170 wrote:

Cause the Irish have their heating system off most of the time. Half an hour in the morning and an hour or two in the evening compared to French, Germans etc. who seem to have their system on 24-7. Makes a big difference.

I still don't understand it. Right now my thermostat is set for 60F but its generally warmer than that inside this time of the year so the heating doesn't come on. If it drops below that then the furnace will automatically come on and heat the radiators. No need to turn anything on or off. No power(except maybe a sensor) or fuel being used when its idle. Its a very simple system.

Kernel32

Blackjack wrote:

Wind Chill factor really adds to it.
Kernel 32, I've spent a lot of time in New England also and there is no doubting that the wind chill certainly adds to the coldness in Ireland.
How do you explain being able to go out and shovel snow when it's minus god knows what, yet being absolutely perished when it's 5 above over this side of the Atlantic?.

I have no doubt that windchill adds to the coldness in Ireland, as it does everywhere. But that doesn't explain why a house in Ireland with a heating system is colder than a house in a colder climate with a heating system?

Also, leading up to a snowfall the temperature rises. It can often get slightly above freezing as it snows and for a while afterwards. It doesn't always though. Some snowfalls are heavy and fluffy and the temperature tends to be higher then. Others are small hard flakes which happens when its cold. You will always see people shoveling during and straight after a snowfall. If you wait the temperature will drop and it will freeze solid.

Like I said before I spent winter in Ireland a couple of years back and I don't remember being perished outside at all. In fact I found it very mild, probably due to spending winters here for several years. I did find in chilly in the house because in the house I would be less active, watching TV etc.

RicardoSmith

I'm in a 4yr old house and I hardly have the heating on and its too hot. Whereas any older houses 10-20yrs old are always cold. I really notice the difference going from my house with no heating on and dry air to an older house, you can feel the dampness in the house. A lot of house in really cold countries have better insulation, double and even triple glazing is more common. A lot of houses in Ireland 20yrs and older are only single glazed with very thin insulation everywhere.

Blackjack

RicardoSmith wrote:

I'm a 4yr old house

You're a house?. Cool.

I don't know why Houses in Ireland seem colder. I reckon a builder might be able to tell us, otherwise we can speculate all we like up to and including powerful Gypsy curses being the reason why.

Supercell

Humidity..that is all.

Ann Elk

The Style Guru that is Duncan Stewart from "about the house", in between gabbing on about the silent killer that is carbon monoxide, once mentioned that the mass of a house has a huge effect on heating. For example, timber built homes have a lower mass and so heat up a lot quicker giving a more instant feeling of warmth. The nature of the material itself means that it never gets as cold as concrete which, having a greater mass takes much longer to heat up.

Obviously, the converse is true - the timber built home loses heat more quickly - which may explain the reliance on a thermostat.

My advice is to cover yourself from head to toe in deepheat, spend a large amount of time getting drunk and then trying to avoid being buggered by your mates 'terrible c*nt' of an uncle. That should warm the cockles.

pickarooney

Kernel wrote:

Well, we would have one of the highest fuel costs in the EU, so it's not really pennies. Do you pay a gas and electricity bill? When you're struggling to keep down a mortgage, you realise that heating is one of the things that go by the wayside.

I pay almost twice as much in gas and electricity as I did in Ireland, and fuel prices (petrol/diesel) are close to 50% higher in Holland than over there, yet even the notoriously stingy Dutch can afford to keep themselves warm

Cabaal

Its insulation and the fact that people want to save money so they don't turn on the heating,
The hosue I'm in had nothing but heat from a fire last year, this year theirs gas heating and I'm sorted ever since

But in general I'm not a cold person so that helps too

Rhyme

Because im stingy with the heating... wrap me up in clothes and im sorted

Scruff

pickarooney wrote:

I pay almost twice as much in gas and electricity as I did in Ireland, and fuel prices (petrol/diesel) are close to 50% higher in Holland than over there, yet even the notoriously stingy Dutch can afford to keep themselves warm

sure when yer baked of yer head on teh weed the whole time you wont feel anything let alone the cold.

wind chill, dampness and piss poor insulation are the factors imo.

fischerspooner

The wind chill thing is rubbish. I've been to Newfoundland which is just across from ireland, not further north. They get severe winters that are damp, really windy, and freezing, i.e. -10, -15 etc. Yet the houses there were really warm. I think it must be down to inept builders. If it wasn't for the gulf stream we'd have winters like Newfoundland, thank christ for gulfie...

RedRaven

fischerspooner wrote:

I've noticed over the years in any house I've lived in in Ireland, they are always FREEZING in winter, i.e. you can see your own breath, it feels damp etc. unless your central heating is blazing. I've found in other countries the buildings and houses are much warmer. In Canada I lived in an old run down wooden house and it could be -30c outside and I'd still be able to walk around in just boxer shorts in the morning. In Winter here my rooms are usually icy in the morning and I'm afraid to get out of bed. People from other countries who live here are always complaining about it too. Is it poor insulation or poor architecture or materials they use to make the buildings or what is it?

Its beacuse the tight fisted brickies didnt use insulation...even though they got paid for it!!!

pickarooney

Scruff wrote:

sure when yer baked of yer head on teh weed the whole time you wont feel anything let alone the cold.

wind chill, dampness and piss poor insulation are the factors imo.

Mold is the big thing. I never lived in a house in Ireland that wasn't covered in black mold, from ancient flats to semi-Ds to brand new apartments, all were inevitably covered in yocky black stuff the whole year round. You just don't get that in Holland, where the climate is very similar.
It has to be the poor building design.

Are houses in England/Scotland cold and moldy?

Sleepy

You want to find the answer to this question? Like horse racing?

You can actually find the answers to most "why is X so bad in Ireland?" questions in the same magical place: the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway Races.

Builders bribe FF, Idiots vote for FF, FF turn a blind eye when Builders don't really concern themselves with the quality of the €10k per square inch hovels they construct.

Takeshi_Kovacs

i dunno about ye, but my house is too well insulated, even with the heating off , i still have to open the window to let a bit of air in at night, even though i just use one sheet!!
all said the brother hates it as he is frozen every night....

Badly Drunk Boy

The first Indian Take-Away to come to Newbridge, Co. Kildare, was run by a female called Shaheen. She said to me, on winter's night, that she used to live in Canada (with her daughter). And even though it was a lot physically colder there, it felt as lot less colder here...



What's the deal???..?..

The_Conductor

Kernel32 wrote:

Timers seem to be common in Ireland, in the states its thermostats. You set the temp, say 70F and it stays at that, the heating will start and stop as needed to maintain that temperature.

Most of the timers we use here have thermostats built into them. We do not have cheap energy here in Ireland- like they have in the states- so we cannot afford to heat our houses indefinitively (even at 70). I have a thermostat linked into a timer. The thermostat will kickstart the gas boiler when the temperature falls below 17 degrees centigrade, and turn it off again at 21. I have the option of using the timer- or bypassing the timer and having it on constantly like this.

Unlike the house I grew up in- my apartment is toasty warm- very well insulated and a doddle to heat in no-time flat. It also does not loose its heat that easily. Wooden framed buildings do tend to lend themselves to insulation better than the concrete ones- for numerous reasons (despite what the concrete industry might like to tell you.....). I used to have fun in my house at home- I had one of the scrappers that you use on car windscreens to clear ice- I used to use it to clear the ice from the inside of my bedroom window. Ditto- I turned the bed so it was furthest away from the wall facing outside- in the wintertime it was nothing unusual for the radiators to freeze solid unless they were constantly on- and room temperatures below zero were quite common.

Slutmonkey57b

I find lots of people in this country LIKE the cold (despite complaining about it). Switch on the heating is practically a capital crime in a lot of Irish houses. I put this down to morbid stupidity.

Scruff

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

I find lots of people in this country LIKE the cold (despite complaining about it). Switch on the heating is practically a capital crime in a lot of Irish houses. I put this down to morbid stupidity.

you werent in my old homestead by any chance were you? the auld lad abhores having the heating on, "cost too much" "its bad for you" etc. used to freeze us out of it altogether and despite saying ever winter that he'll turn over a new leaf it never lasts, the house is still freezing everytime i go back.

Kernel32

smccarrick wrote:

I used to have fun in my house at home- I had one of the scrappers that you use on car windscreens to clear ice- I used to use it to clear the ice from the inside of my bedroom window. Ditto- I turned the bed so it was furthest away from the wall facing outside- in the wintertime it was nothing unusual for the radiators to freeze solid unless they were constantly on- and room temperatures below zero were quite common.

I lived in a very similar house growing up. We did not have oil heating. We had some radiators that were all heated from the fire. All the windows were drafty and in poor condition and I have had the frost on the inside of the window. I remember when I would get up for work on Saturdays I would light the gas burners on the cooker in the kitchen to try and get some heat. When the old man got up and saw that he would hit the roof.

So when I hear people say the cost of heating is expensive in Ireland, how much are we talking? Right now where I live the cash price for a gallon of heating oil is $2.54. I am lucky that I got a locked in price of $1.75 that lasts until May. My yearly cost to heat the house and get hot water is in the region of $1800 to $2000. That's a 3 bedroom house with about 2000 square feet of heated area, heated in three different zones with thermostats.

biko

"Concrete homes are better homes", my ars*
It's like living in a drafty shed