If your house is older and the walls have no cavities, one option is to attach insulation on the inside. The insulation will need to go on any outside walls of each room. It will involve considerable disruption, as most furniture will have to be taken out. The rooms can be done one at a time, so it makes sense to do the most used ones first. The room will end up a bit smaller, depending on the thickness of the insulation and the number of walls insulated.
Additional insulation is also advised on the last part of other walls where they adjoin the outside wall and is known as a return. This avoids a cold spot, where the heat will escape along the wall to the outside. This will affect the look of the room. OTHER WORK NEEDED Additional work that will be necessitated by insulation work includes moving of radiators, pipes and electrical sockets on any walls involved. Windows and doorways will need new frames and sills. Plastering and decorating will also be needed to make good. Martyn: "An ideal time to insulate a room is when it needs to be decorated anyway. We also had additional electric sockets installed while the room was disrupted," IMPORTANT
Ask the installer to make sure there is no gap in insulation between floors, i.e. below the floor of the upper room and above the ceiling below. Also there should be no space in the corner between one wall and another. Any gap will give the heat a chance to escape leading to a cold spot and can lead to condensation there. ADDTIONAL ADVICE
If there is a radiator on the outside wall, heat loss will be reduced if it can be re-sited on an internal wall (and then it will warm the other room slightly). Janet: "We forgot to have a return in one place where it would have been rather awkward with a doorway in the internal wall. Now the thermal image shows heat escaping there." (see the picture on the right)
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