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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?

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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

Kernel

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.

Well, then you're wrong kid. :rolleyes:

Dilly1

Ireland is a very damp country and I dont think the houses are properly insulated against this type of 'Damp Cold' that you get here.
Its terrible, I was in NY and it was bloody cold but it was a dry cold, same thing when I visited Glasgow during winter, it was cold but dry, so as long as you covered up it was ok, the damp cold in Ireland almost seems to seep into your joints and seep into the nooks and crannys of your house too.
I dunno... maybe we just need a differant type of insulation for Irish houses.

nesf

Atm I'm living in a house that was built in the 1950s. It's making me pine for that concrete house with a back boiler that I grew up in tbh.

Nightwish

my room is FREEZING right now. Stupid timber frame dormer-its like a sauna in summer and a freezer in winter

Slutmonkey57b

you're spot on scruff - strange that having the heating on is bad for you and causes colds, and yet this country is a nest of miserable snufflers? The only conclusion I can come up with is that Irish people (particularly the older generation) aren't happy unless someone (themselves if necessary) is miserable.

tails2

yeah it is always freezing here. its unbelievable. i can never get out of the bed. you stick your head out of the covers to see if its inhabitable outside and by the time you get your head back under the covers your snots have frozen to your face...

on another note... about the prices of gas going up... did anyone know that last year the prices of gas went up almost 60 % or more throughout the year. so at this stage its almost 90% since the start of 2004. it just went up a little each time. my gf , who is chinese, was reading it in a chinese news paper(and yes it is about ireland and not chinese gas prices) and read it to me and showed me the stats. i couldnt believe it