zoothorn

Right!! Found it pronto! Original here. The far end addition removed, & single story kitchen/ bathroom (with pitched slate roof) built on here, 80's.

@ProDave Apologies I've not made the basic structure of my cottage clear, because the tent analogy doesn't fit (hence my confusion trying to understand it). The original cottage was simple, 4 stone walls in a rectangle, pitched slate roof ontop. So it was a single story cottage. Effectively one big room (my sittingroom). In the 80's the original roof was removed. To facilitate two extra bedrooms plonked ontop. Bad brick 'decent amateur' standard affair. 1" of celotex in the cavity, between two brick courses. A new roof was put ontop. So now the cottage is 2-story. Then a porch added, 80's similar build standard. Then another extension added, tagged onto one end. A single story (same poor quality build/ evidently same "builder" so far done the 3x additions). Lastly my 2021 extention, tagged onto opposite end. 2 story, good build standard. I'll try dig out my 60's photos as it was originally: I'm worn out typing-describing, so I'll take photos of the details now/ add instead, as they're easily added thankfully on BHub. Thanks, Zoot

I can do torch morse code from kitchen window BigJ. Apologies for the daftness interlude chaps. -- Tents. I'm not quite on board with the analogy, if the suggestion is my sittingroom is an air-leaky tent. I thought the analogy was a tent sat upon the 'roof' of my sittingroom, on it's ceiling. IE the tent is the area above it, pressing down it's cold onto the roof. I don't have any air leaks into the sittingroom. I have massive cold ingress, but no direct draughts, no air leaks. Those are easy to address by anyone, & I did so within 6 months. I have a porch tagged onto the old front door (this old front door opens into the main sit'room), which is enclosed/ has a upvc main front door itself, porch is cold of course, but no airgaps of any note, to affect onwards the old front door, which Ive redone the door fitting of, added thick excluder at gap at btm, then a thick curtain to cover across it. No air leaks in from anywhere into this room. Cold ingress yes massively, but cold leaky air, no. So I'm not on board with the tent analogy, if the analogy applies to my sit'room. I can't put any insulation in the floor between the sit'room ceiling & the 2x bedrooms above: the floor is so thin, & I have beams giving character in sit'room: certainly don't want to do away with those, or fill each individual section between beams with 1" celotex (all I could fit in), plasterboard over, finish off. I've got 30x sections. I'm trying to understand the idea of drilling small holes, upstairs. I think I'm just getting that idea. But up there, I have 4x big areas before the wall's airgaps, above each window & the door in the sit'room p. Cavities of approx 1m x 0.75m x 0.75m. Now I think it's probably sensible to address these, first. But describing them/ what they are, as Ive never seen anything like them.. nigh on impossible. It's a collection of fairly hodge-podge amatuer building work, that's been dumped ontop of the rectangular stone 4-wall cottage shell you see. Only my extension on one far end of it, is properly built. Thanks, Zoot

Ahh thanks BigJ. It's THE most wonderful little space, the ammount of times Ive snoozed off almost as soon as I put a C4 ipad download doco on, with the stream noise outside. It's just running the gauntlet wrapped up for that 1st 1/2 hour freezing until it's just cosy enough.. that's the caveat. Older you get, the bigger a bugbear that is to face. But it takes just 40mins to get from 0 to 19*C. And your mood increaces in harmony, as you recall with your tent as a kid, the campfire etc. It really does have that diddy thrill factor of 'camping out' at the end of the garden. Even as a 55 yr old baldy barst, with terrible breath, athletes foot, bad back, appaling footrot, overpowering BO, piles, squiffy eyes, what else can I throw in the pot.. my limp, frightful flatulence, & my terrible drooling habit. You see I can do all that.. in my fkn cabin. Still wanna come stay? Zoot

Ahhh... relief. I'm not the only one!! You're the only one on here. I've mentioned this on BuildHub before, my folk's place example etc. And the only replies were kinda a collective "yes storage heaters are meant to do that (IE belt out heat) at 3:38 am". Prior to this explanation though, as I had no other notion other than with my folk's rads doing this insanity at 3:55, it seemed completely logical to me, that their old brown/ beige storage heaters, were long gone/ knackered/ & acting up by kicking off at 3am (further evidence I was further convinced, of their being barely warm at 9pm too). So then, at the advice on here, & because I was concerned my 84/88 yr old folks needed to update their rads to be wrm at 9pm.. I persuaded them to spend £3k on two new ones. Once up & running, I noticed the new ones were belting hot at 4:11 am.. & barely warm at 9pm. I asked WTF on here etc.. & got the "yes they're meant to do that- they're working correctly" reply I mentioned earlier in this post. So, the old rads weren't knackered at all. The new ones perform exactly the same. My old folks scrimp & save for every £1 eating macaroni cheese 3x a week in their tiny house.. & I felt absolutely terrible. A huge lesson learnt that was. -- Honestly such a relief to read your post here, as you sound as if you understand what I describe. Furthermore found the same inherrant insanity with them, as I did/ still do. Thanks Zoot

Me back on track.. Yes now I understand the analogy of the tent. I think. Do I? No hang on.. I don't think I do. Tent. Right so I put up a tent. It has 4 sides, and is cold in the middle. But the middle has to warmer than the outside. Fk. Panic. Are the 4 thin tent walls (sat upon the ground in a perimeter rectangle) the point here.. or the area within the tent-? Nope. I don't understand the tent analogy. I can't cope with these boxes of text. I need people doing jazz hands or something that I can see like a 4 year old!! Zoot

Do I notice any difference in comfort (with the replacement Monobloc, for the old Split system). Hard to say. Apologies you are dealing with rather a simpleton here Rick. I can obviously notice the rads can get warmer. But now, I only have them on for 2x AM & PM blocks of 2 hours. Wheras before, the rads came on/ off basically during the day. So to answer your Q: erm, I think I'd have to say kinda even stevens. Tbh I find all heating system infuriatingly complicated, that I can't understand why the rad is sometimes on, then a bit later it's off. You mentioned before, about TRV's, as if you expected them to be on my rads. But I don't have any on my rads. When I had them on a property before, I found them infuriatingly impossible to understand. One minute the rad is on flatout, & I was too hot, then half an hour later the rad wasn't seemingly on (but it was within the block time the heaters were meant to be on) & the room was pretty cold again. My parents place, is THE most unfathomably infuriatingly impossible to understand heating situation. I stay few days, & so they put the storage heater on for me. Medium settings on both dials, nothing daft. At 3am O wake in a sweat, the room gallopingly hot.. & the damn thing's almost flat out hot. At 3am. At the very time you DON'T want a radiator on. Then at 9pm, it's barely warm at all. Just when you DO want the radiator on. The installer mentioned something about setback time. And my head explodes. Setback time, TRV's, I mean jesusH. I just want to be able to put a rad on from 6-8pm, medium hot. Any rad. Any system. But I'm just not allowed to. It's fkn nuts. And so at my folk's house, 1st thing I do, in midwinter as I get there.. is go upstairs & switch the storage heater off. So I can sleep without being woken up in a sauna at 4:23am. Sorry I digress yet again. TRV's & thermostats separate from them.. & my head explodes. I just can't deal with these stupid UK heating systems. So tbh I'm best off with a hottie & a leccyB under my butt seeing my breath at home here!! Thanks, Zoot

Well that's terrific. I mean that you can comprehend what I'm trying to describe. Which is very tricky, & takes far too many words. Thanks to anyone who reads & considers what I describe, I mean that. Appreciated. I really need one of you guys around, just for 1/2 hour, & I could show you what a coldass sh1tshow pickle I have to contend with here! Actually there's a YouTube(r) I might do a thread on, whom I've told about BuildHub & how fantastic/ invaluable it's been for me. This chap + wifey bought a far worse-state old stone cottage than mine, in cotswolds, 18months ago, but with many similarities to mine here in wales. Including their lowly-amateur level skills, as mine remain. They're about to dig up their main sittingroom floor.. so I'm eagerly waiting & watching how. Maybe it'll be the incentive for me, esp if they go UFH. But I digress. Zoot

@-rick- Many thanks indeed for all that. Generous with your time & thinking. I've had the HP (heatpump) set to 17*C & on continuously, all winter. Until I got the new one fitted, which outputs higher temp in the rads (for whatever reason) but only goes on evenings & mornings, since the installer set it to. And which I was sure I set it to, beforehand. Tbh It's so complicated that Ive no idea why it was on continuously beforehand, & not now. Still the mainroom is -just- see your breath cold, most of the time. Uncomfortable. When I used to put the stove on, I was sitting on a cold sofa still, at 10:45pm. Still with hat & scarf on. Sometimes even then still see8n* my breath. Infuriatingly the sofa is only 1m from the damn thing. I had to load so much wood in, so often, that I got through two big baskets of logs each mere 4-1/2 hour stint (for eg 6pm- 10:30pm).. plus.. had to run it so high/ flat out continuously, in order to get room up to say 12*C from 2*C.. that I warped the internal metal removeble bits within the stove. Bought new ones at great cost, warped those too. A french top brand stove too. So I refuse to waste so much effort & money, when the sofa's still cold at 10:45pm. No point whatsoever, to putting on the stove. If a 9kW stove can't heat the room, there's no way on god's earth, two rads will. And it's proven, they don't. They just can't be expected to.. in this house. In your house, yes. In other often cold houses, yes to a degree/ likely in time. With mine.. not a hope, in hell. There are no draughts. I stuffed those up within 6 months of being here. I have excluders + a huge thick curtain across the front door.. which leads to a porch (not directly outside). And across other door to kitchen. Thick curtain too. No draught is ever evident. The cold 'pouring down from loft onto perimeter of sittingroom ceiling' is approx 2" wide. It isn't direct cold air, because there's a ceiling stopping it. But it's coldness nevertheless. It is a gap between the rooms' outer walls above (the walls corresponding to the outer 'shell' of the main room below them) & the poor studwork & plasterboard outer layer. Above these awful walls, is cold loft air. So cold loft air sits in a 2" wide ring, going around 6x5m of the rectanglular shape of the main shell of the cottage, on the edges of the ceiling. But no direct draught, just cold ingress. To remedy this, I'd have to rip out all the plasterboard walls from the 2 bedrooms. Put insulation in this gap. Redo. In other words, a full renovation of 2 rooms. Which I'd already patched up & renovated aesthetically anyway. Alot of work, to fix just 2" of a perimeter cold ingress, which may only make a tiny bit of difference. That is, considering jus5 how much MORE cold, is coming UP from the floor, & IN from the walls, & also in from the whole 6x5m floor area sitting onto0 o& the sitt8ngroom. This floor, is about 2" thick itself. The bedrooms.. freezing cold, due to their walls having a 2x4m layer of loft air behind each one. So the only sensible way forward, if there's any at all, is addressing the floor. Now, I know what a -proper- floor can be, sat upon the 'bedrock' of clay I have here. Because my workshop, is a newbuild room, in fact 3 ft lower than the sittingroom. I put the insulation in, with caberfloor ontop. Although I can't compare directly to the adjacent sittingroom, they do share 1 stone wall between. I can tell how much this floor retains the heat, I can just sense it. But it has 3x newbuild walls + a rockwool insulated ceiling. So 8 cannot tell how much the warmth that I sense is due to the floor. It may be hugely significantly affecting/ retaining the heat mor3 than the walls. But it may be the walls doing the heat retaining job, & the floor far less. So I can only make a --gamble-- as to whether excavating my sittingroom floor/ doing it properly/ with UFHeating too (doing away with the 2 big rads: these I could sell to help pay for the job, which I'd have to do myself). With my skills & knowledge, making such a huge gamble (really it's the logistics: of removal of item/ storage/ the massive dust of excavation/ skipping: rather than the cost) is kinda a step too far, for me to judge whether it's worth trying it. My "waters" say it might -just- be beneficial though, with the UFH idea addition. My friend over the hill, didn't lay UFH, he just excavated/ added celotex/ floorboards ontop. Little gained there as I said.

Hi again Rick, really appreciate your input/ suggestions. Honestly, it's simply not a game I can possibly win here. Bar one room that is (actually two: I have a workshop room under my bedroom, 2021 extension, which CAN get warm even with 1 of the 4 walls an original stone.. but neither do I need, nor want heat in there: it dries my timber work out, so prefer this 1 rad out of the 12 in the house, off: just a fan heater to inject a bit of heat in, when I work, otherwise rad is off). If you came you'd understand. It's just one of those houses, like that freezing room you recall as a child for eg, always deathly cold.. my main 3 rooms, sit'room/ kitchen/ bathroom unfortunately all have this trait. 2 beds directly above, I don't use, much the same. It's simply lack of insulation. In my 3 main rooms: nothing under the floor, & nothing in the stone walls (bar a token gesture 1" rigid insulation in kitchen/ bathroom walls: ie next to nil). Sit'room has nothing in very low 6'3" ceiling too, just the two cold bedrooms above it. Basically, I have none at all. And whole cottage is just whacked down on -cold- clay too. I also have some damp upwards in the stone walls (not enough to mean odour- just black mould on lowest 1', a bugger to scrub off.. so I now just don't/ let that win too). Plus a stream -very- close & lower than cottage, likely aiding the cold ingress to the floor too. So it's no wonder I sit with the 2 sitroom huge rads on, now quite hot, but can still see my breath & cold feet, face, hands. It's like David & Goliath: I don't expect a small ammount of heat, to win over a massive ammount of cold. It's not physically possible. Thanks, Zoot

@-rick- I'm absolutely not moaning about the heatpump not doing what it's meant to. I was only moaning about my cottage. Absolutely not about the system. I never expected it to be able to heat here. Despite what the sales pitch was, from the govt scheme chap at my door SO eager to install one "you'll be so warm with it". No I wouldn't, I just knew. If my 9kW stove can't get my main room warm, 2 medium warm heatpump rads.. is next to useless. As they proove to be, in this cottage. Completely useless. But as I had a mouse-infested rusty cylinder before, & no CH at all, how can I say "no thanks" when the system he was so eager to give away includes a new cylinder? That's all I knew would be useful, the medium warm rads being merely useless additions. May even add some house value having a CH system installed, should I be forced to sell up, with unsuspecting buyers viewing it in the summer. I'd have been daft to say thanks, but no thanks, you see. As Ive said before, I had no intention that it would be able to warm my cottage. It doesn't whatsoever, as I knew when it was being installed, because it simply can't. I am though lucky to have 1 room which -can- be warmed by it, reasonably if not nicely-comfortably.. my bedroom. Which is within a 2021 new build (2-room one above the other) extension. Thing is, during the evenings, it's the one room you don't tend to be in. But the 4/5ths of the house, remain unbearably cold. Despite everything that I can affordably do. Plugging up gaps, thick curtains, double glazing, even adding some celotex to the inside made no noticeable difference. The installer, who fitted it originally, didn't want to go ahead, because he knew medium-warm-only-rads, typical for a Heatpump system, are a hopeless fit in a stone cold cottage like mine.. an utter waste of time. But I had to beg him to relent. To get a new cylinder foc (& the possibly of some warmth in a newbuild bedroom too, as a bonus). That's a grand right there, & I'm on a low budget. Thanks, Zoot

My feet are so cold being in main room this afternoon I'm just about to go to bed 5:15pm/ under thick duvet/ leccy blanket on... only way I can warm up! Still with thick hat + scarf on!

Haven't seen those before, but I wouldn't expect them to do anything tbh. They may for about a foot.. but then it turns into cold air. Having done all I can to seal gaps, & thick curtains, making a total of zero difference.. it's very evident that with such colossal cold coming up from the floor (chiefly the main culprit being the biggest surface area), in from the sides via 3ft thick stone walls acting like cold rads, behind the warm rads (kinda effectively cancelling the warm rads out).. & cold air coming down from the loft directly onto room ceiling edges all around the room, I can't make any headway into subduing the cold. The only way to make -some positive difference-, & you just know this is a fact from living here, is excavating floor/ insulation/ underfloor heating. But the cost of both that, & the running cost of the 6x5m underloor area, warm enough to feel it (you're still battling the 4x cold walls' injecting cold into the room so you'd need double any normal room's output from such a system).. would be hugely expensive for me. I do though have a relatively direct path from the cylinder -so my installer said- down only 2m below to the "entry point" of such an underfloor heating element. But I just know it'll only be partially successful. Without insulating the walls & ceiling-which are both simply n/a plans without huge expense themselves, & downsizing the room significantly, and losing much character too- it's just not really worth banking on the UFH idea, unless 100% sure it'll make a significant improvement. I just know it won't. I have a friend locally who did just this, same type of freezing slate stone cottage main room, same almost totally innefective 9kW stove wasting money in the hearth: he laid floor insulation & UFH & you can barely tell the difference before & after. Huge outlay, for minimal gain. Unlike him, I do have the heating system that could 'power' the UFH idea in my one main room though. So i have mulled the idea. But then 20mins in my £500 'Onoff' cabin down near my stream & I'm toasty-warm.. I think what's the bloomin point. £500 Cabin laughs at the £125k cottage!

Hi Nick, The rads get fairly hot now, so it's not a case of turning up (if you mean in order to make the two cold 80's extention rooms I mention, warm). You simply cannot get these rooms warm, with so much cold getting into them. Certainly not with a single small'ish heatpump rad in. You'd either need about 5x as many rads in (obvs not practical). Even with a fan heater on, once the air gets 4' away.. it's cold air!! Honestly these two 80's rooms, are really that bad. Only solution.. is rebuilding. Which I can't possibly afford. Right now, in my main room, it's 2 big rads are on, & they're pretty hot too. But despite this (an improvement to before) my legs & feet are -very- cold, & I can just see my breath. I can only use this sittingroom with an electric blanket under me butt & a hottie on my back.. thick hat on, scarf, & coat on. But even so like right now I'm still mainly cold, just my butt & back aren't. Toasted plums, anyone? Zoot I just stick it out until summer tbh!

Actually, I'll part take that back. I now get a bit of warmth evident in the main old room, enough to take the nip away nothing more (& the new extension 2 rooms can get some warmth in, 2/3rds as much as they could I'd surmise if their 3 new walls in each of the rooms, one above the other, weren't attatched to one side of the cottage/ a stonecold slate wall acting like a big "cold radiator" into these 2 newbuild rooms) The main room has two huge rads in you see. And this new monobloc, so the installer told me, can output higher temp rads. Only way I can get my adjacent kitchen & bathroom warm, is by knocking this 80's extension down & rebuilding. Even with their 1 small rad going at a higher temp, I still see my breath on cold days, need a fan heater on full blast just to be useable. Never ever warm, just bearable. But the noise abatement!! And knowing no indoor box unit will kick off overnight! And I get my only cupboard back too with this thing got rid of. I never need to say the two wretched words -hydraulic unit- ever ever again! Woohoo!

Hi Nick, pretty bloody amazing eh. I played the patient game, polite, then just a bit of 'foot on the gas' at the end. But a hundred calls over 5 years, took a toll. Still freezing cold in the cottage mind, I skoot down to "Onoff's cabin" by the stream of a cold evening. Ace. Cheers, Zoot

hi BigJ, whose 'you both' though, me & my imaginary friend-? I live here with but 1 mouse, & possibly 1 sneaky ghost too. Actually I should ask about how best to run these things now I've got peace. At last!

Hi chaps, UPDATE! been a while since I posted. Hope y'all doing well. Good news & an update on this heatpump! I finally won the battle with Vaillant, & they've come up trumps, by replacing my problematic Split system with a Monobloc. Installed 10 days ago. No mechanical noise in the house anymore! hydraulic unit gone- good riddance! My goodness, what a long battle tho. I got the final agreement & date set, after approaching a different female at Group Service dept, picked up my sword for one last effort, & with careful navigation (tricky & complex & 5 years of stress tbh) she empathized.. & got the ball rolling for me. Which had been stalled for over a year & my energy spent, & I was defeated & demoralised tbh. And with it I had a fantastic installer too. Extremely competent & friendly. Fab work done, you can just see the difference. Vaillant's west UK choice, so had tiptop credentials. Thanks to all who offered help & advice on this. Zoot

You'll have to divert via A44 to west wales nr coast.. but coffee machine's already on craig.

@craig Done! Of course as simple as pie once the zoot-muddywater clears! Tad of wd.. & even this loose'ish spanner was ideal. No need undo other bolts, nor wedge door up. Handle closes better now too. The door frame was out, as much as door was. An amateur job originally as I knew you see: you can see where whoever did it ground away a bit of the cill's metal lip, for the door to just pass over by a gnat's hair. Now I've put 3mm clearance at this sticking point. Door still 'looks' a bit out.. but it's the frame. Huge thanks craig. Job done for £5. And thanks to others who offered alternate idea: now I know how to toe & heel one of these should it need it, useful knowledge. Zoot

Ok this chimes with the suggestion in the clip. It's just my eyes were convinced -still are but uncertain- the door was moving R when the red arrow was pointing L (& the spanner moved downwards). And just as convinced vice-versa. So I put a mark on my ipad screen. And couldn't tell one from another!! One would assume, that the arrow is showing the direction the door moves upon adjusting. Of course. Just my eyes say the total opposite!!! Apologies, got my pants a in a pickle. Zh

@ craig bear with me: I've loosened the underneath 5mm allen bolt, & also the 2x tiny 2mm ones in a vertical line. Whether or not this was correct, the centre nut now moves! Good! Relief. Ok but sorry the clip still has me confused despite your reply just now. Ok to close the gap between door & frame, to shift the door inward >> Rightwards.. do I move the spanner in a DOWNWARD direction?

@craig apologies, I have edited my reply just now, to now be correct in bold.

You mean whip off underneath placcy cover, & loosen this bolt? @0.50 in the clip, the arrow is ambiguous (to me): ie does the [[edit: LEFTWARD ]] red arrow mean the door is moving L?? As it looks like the gap is fractionally narrowing.. IE, that the door is moving R.

Hi craig. You replied just as the spanner dropped on my doormat. Thin/ 8mm one end, 9mm t'other. Room to use it ok. I had a quick go I couldn't get the top bolt one moved an iota. Hmm the spanner doesn't seem a good fit tbh. 8mm won't fit, & 9mm is annoyingly loose. I've wd40'd & I think I'll wedge the bottom of the door putting some pressure upwards, then see if I can get any of these 4 bolts to move.