Very cold bedroom - how to find if heat is escaping

N

NJ10

Guest
Our house is 4 years old. We have gas heating. The front of the house is north facing. The main bedroom upstairs is always cold, no matter how much heat we have on. There is good insulation in the attic - I think about 10 inch insulation

Just wondering is there any way of finding out where heat is escaping i.e. have the builders left some insulation out from behind the walls or if there are gaps in the walls or what ?

Help - tired of a cold bedroom.
 
Have you got double glazing?
Another way would be to light a candle beside the window to make sure they are filled properly!
 
It helps to find draughts that are caused by not being filled properly! Usually it happens in the bottom & top corners of the window, the draught causes the candle to flicker or blow out!
 
Is the radiator hot when the heating is on?

Check for gaps in the window seals....also feel the walls and see if they are cold..might point you to a wall not having being properly insulated.

Try the candle or smoke test as already suggested
 
Tosullivan,

sorry for butting in on post but just you mention smoke test. I am looking for a smoke pen, do you happen to know where I would get one. Thanks, I have a draught, bad one, under my sitting room door and am trying to find where it is coming from. Thanks if you do.
 
carrielou said:
Tosullivan,

sorry for butting in on post but just you mention smoke test. I am looking for a smoke pen, do you happen to know where I would get one. Thanks, I have a draught, bad one, under my sitting room door and am trying to find where it is coming from. Thanks if you do.
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is your draught coming into your sittingroom?? do you notice it more where a fire is on?

what is happening here is that the fire sucks air into the sitting room, all the air gaps throughout the house let air in and this is mostly directed towards the fireplace... it is after all, a huge hole in the construction....

you might find that theres not one single large are of air intake, but many many small ones....

check here for more:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,18749,en.pdf
 
They seem to be very hard to get in Ireland (correct me if I'm wrong)

[broken link removed]
 
Hi, I live in a duplex and the upstairs rooms have been freezing, I just can't heat them. I might aswell be outside with a radiator it's is that bad.
I am in a new build. I got the builders to take a look and one of my double glazed windows wasn't put in properly, they said they fixed it but I can still feel a draught flowing through the top if the window constantly.
I then showed him the bedrooms and he commented that they were freezing, there was cold air blowing out of the sockets on the wall. He climbed out onto the balcony and discovered there was a hole in the wall that was not filled in, he filled it in with something. I have been on to the developer and the foreman doesn’t answer his phone. I’m sick of it at this stage and it is going to also make me sick!

How do I know now if the walls are insulated? And does home bond cover this? It annoys me that our insurance for our block policy will probably go up if I claim on this all because someone couldn’t do their job right in the first place!
 
Sammie said:
Hi, I live in a duplex and the upstairs rooms have been freezing, I just can't heat them. I might aswell be outside with a radiator it's is that bad.
I am in a new build. I got the builders to take a look and one of my double glazed windows wasn't put in properly, they said they fixed it but I can still feel a draught flowing through the top if the window constantly.
I then showed him the bedrooms and he commented that they were freezing, there was cold air blowing out of the sockets on the wall. He climbed out onto the balcony and discovered there was a hole in the wall that was not filled in, he filled it in with something. I have been on to the developer and the foreman doesn’t answer his phone. I’m sick of it at this stage and it is going to also make me sick!

How do I know now if the walls are insulated? And does home bond cover this? It annoys me that our insurance for our block policy will probably go up if I claim on this all because someone couldn’t do their job right in the first place!
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walls have to to be insulated to such a degree that they comply with building regulations..... is your duplex a timber frame??

you would need to hire a professional to check the on-site conditions.
 
No it's concrete build. I just think it's incompetent of them to leave a hole drilled in my wall without filling it. It could have started a fire if the rain had gotten to the electrics. What would this hole been drilled for anyways?

It annoys me that I have to pay for someone to come and take a look…. The builders are still on site, just avoiding all calls! I don’t have the money to pay for a surveyor! And it’s getting colder and colder! It’s a waste of energy and money trying to heat it. So frustrating!
 
Sammie said:
No it's concrete build. I just think it's incompetent of them to leave a hole drilled in my wall without filling it. It could have started a fire if the rain had gotten to the electrics. What would this hole been drilled for anyways?

It annoys me that I have to pay for someone to come and take a look…. The builders are still on site, just avoiding all calls! I don’t have the money to pay for a surveyor! And it’s getting colder and colder! It’s a waste of energy and money trying to heat it. So frustrating!
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as they is an obviously new build, the building SHOULD be built to good standards of insulation..... something sounds seriously wrong.

unfortunately you do not have much of an option other than to hire someone... the builders on site have caused the problem so dont expect them to be capable of solving it....

if it can be shown that the building doesnt comply to regulations then you would have a strong case if things went legal....
 
Dont understand the most of that link but the one thing my OH keeps saying is he reckons the joists are not sealed and dont know how to check without ripping up carpets and floors.

The draught is always under the sitting room door, fire or no fire. It's a pain.

We done the candle test which is hard but we saw on Duncan Stewart program a smoke pen but cant seem to find one to buy.
 
There are some thermal imaging specialists about - they will assess your house for about €400. All cold spots will show up and they can identify exactly where heat is escaping
 
carrielou said:
Tosullivan,

sorry for butting in on post but just you mention smoke test. I am looking for a smoke pen, do you happen to know where I would get one. Thanks, I have a draught, bad one, under my sitting room door and am trying to find where it is coming from. Thanks if you do.
Click to expand...
A draft under you sitting room door is not a draft you should be worried about. Its obviously coming from somewhere else.

Look at it this way.

If you have a windy day, then your chimney is going to cause a vacuum up it. If you have a leak in your front door, say in your hall, then the vacuum caused by the chimney will suck through your living room, into your hall and in through your front door from the outside.

Stop the vacum up the chimney by fitting a chimney balloon and seal your front door. The living room door is not your problem

If you were to put a towel or blanket at the bottom of your living room door and open another door into your living room, if you had one, the air flow would just go that route instead..!!!

Does this make any sense?

I'll ask a mate of mine about those smoke pens. He does the thermal imaging aswell
What he suggested to me is what I have suggested to you. Block the chimney if you don't use it with a chimney balloon
 
I know exactly what you are saying about the chimney and I presume every small bit of cold air coming into the house is literally being drawn to the sitting room but what we have is a gale force wind, I am not joking. I am after ordering a smoke pen and if that dont find the solution I may well get the thermal imaging done. I only got new doors and windows fitted last October due to teak being hopeless, I thought anyway, so have already had the guy back to tighten doors and seal windows where we found a problem to be.

I will be back on here when I get the smoke pen and we check the place out and thanks a mill for your help.
 
is there a minium standard of insulation that has to be put into an attic my house is a new build but when i was up in the attic the other day there was a few gaps either side of the insulation and the joists?im going to have to put more insulation in but i just wanted to know if there is a certain standard that the insulation in the house sould be up to
 
extopia said:
Come on now, the source of that shouldn't be hard to track down. :)
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it could be a combination of a lot of leaks including the air vents....coming from the upstairs aswell.

Start by closing off some bedroom doors, one by one and seal the bottom with a towel and see if you notice any differences
 
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