Heating & Warmth
A home that's slow to warm, never cosy or expensive to heat is usually losing heat faster than the system can replace it — a fabric problem, not just a boiler one.
Why is my house cold even with the heating on?
When the heating is on but the house still feels cold, it is tempting to blame the boiler. Far more often, the building is losing heat through its fabric — walls, windows, roof and air leakage — as fast as the heating can supply it. The system is working; it is simply pouring warmth into a building that cannot hold it. Understanding that balance is the key to a home that finally feels warm.
Read the guideWhy does my house take so long to heat up?
A home that takes a long time to warm up is fighting two things at once: heat escaping through its fabric and air leakage, and cold surfaces that have to be warmed before the room feels comfortable. The heating is doing work, but much of it is replacing losses or warming up cold mass rather than heating the room. Understanding why warming is slow points straight to how to make it faster.
Read the guideDo I need a bigger boiler or better insulation?
When a home is cold or expensive to heat, the instinct is often to fit a bigger boiler. But a bigger boiler only adds more heat input to a building that may be losing heat too fast — it treats the symptom, not the cause. In most homes, better insulation and airtightness deliver more comfort, lower bills and a smaller heating system. Deciding correctly starts with measuring the heat loss.
Read the guideWhy are some rooms warmer than others?
When some rooms are warm and others stay cold, the heating system and the building are not matched room by room. The cold rooms are usually losing more heat — through exposed walls, more glazing or air leakage — or receiving less, through undersized or poorly balanced radiators. Diagnosing which applies to each cold room is the key to even, comfortable heat throughout the home.
Read the guideWhy are my radiators not getting hot?
Radiators not getting hot has two quite different explanations, and telling them apart matters. The radiator itself may not be heating — trapped air, sludge, poor balancing or weak circulation — which is a heating-system issue a heating engineer resolves. Or the radiators may be working but the room still feels cold, because the home loses heat faster than they can deliver it — which is a fabric problem no amount of radiator work will fix. Knowing which you have decides where the money should go.
Read the guideIs my house ready for a heat pump?
A heat pump can heat almost any home, but it works efficiently and affordably only in one that loses heat slowly and can be warmed with low-temperature water. So the real question is not whether a heat pump will fit, but whether your house is ready to run on the gentle, steady, low flow temperatures heat pumps prefer. That depends on your fabric — insulation and airtightness — and on your radiators and system being sized for low-temperature heat. Getting this right first is what makes a heat pump cheap to run rather than disappointing.
Read the guideHow do thermostatic radiator valves work, and where should I set them?
A thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) controls the temperature of the room, not the heat of the radiator: it senses the air temperature around it and throttles the flow of hot water to the radiator to hold that room at the level you set. The numbers on the dial are not heat settings but target temperatures, so you set each room to the comfort you want — typically a mid setting for living rooms and lower for bedrooms — and the valve does the rest, letting you heat each room only as much as it needs.
Read the guideWhy do I have to turn my heating up so high to feel warm?
If you have to turn the heating right up to feel even reasonably warm, the problem is almost always that your home is losing heat as fast as you can put it in, or that cold surfaces are making you feel cold even when the air is warm — not that the boiler is too weak. Cranking up the thermostat is treating the symptom; the cause is heat loss through poorly insulated fabric, air leakage and cold surfaces. Diagnosing where the heat escapes is what lets you feel warm at a normal, affordable setting.
Read the guideShould I leave my heating on low all day, or only when I need it?
The long-running debate over whether to leave the heating on low all day or only run it when needed has no single answer, because it depends almost entirely on how well your home holds heat. In a poorly insulated home that loses heat fast, heating only when you need it is usually cheaper; in a well-insulated, airtight home that holds warmth, gentle continuous heating can be comfortable and barely more costly. The deeper truth is that the better your fabric, the less the question even matters.
Read the guideDo I need a heat loss survey before getting a heat pump?
Before installing a heat pump, a proper heat loss survey is not an optional extra — it is the step that determines whether the system will work well, run cheaply and keep you warm. A heat pump delivers heat at a lower temperature than a gas boiler and is most efficient when the home loses heat slowly enough to be heated by large, low-temperature emitters. If the heat pump is sized from a rule of thumb or the old boiler's output, rather than from a measured, room-by-room heat loss calculation, it is likely to be wrong-sized, run inefficiently and disappoint. The survey establishes the home's actual heat loss, whether the fabric is ready, and exactly what each room needs — which is what makes a heat pump a success rather than a costly mistake.
Read the guideShould I replace my radiators with bigger ones?
Replacing radiators with bigger ones can be exactly the right move — or money spent on the wrong thing — depending on why the room is cold. A radiator that is genuinely too small for a room's heat loss cannot keep it warm, and a larger one will help; bigger radiators are also essential if you run, or plan to run, your heating at a lower flow temperature, as with a heat pump, because each radiator gives out less heat when the water is cooler. But if the room is cold because it loses heat too fast through poor insulation and draughts, a bigger radiator just burns more fuel to keep up. The right answer comes from knowing the room's heat loss and the flow temperature, not from guessing.
Read the guideWhy is my upstairs too hot and downstairs too cold?
An upstairs that is too warm while the downstairs stays cold is a common pattern, and it usually comes from a combination of three things: warm air naturally rising through the house, a heating system that is not balanced so it over-heats some rooms and under-heats others, and the downstairs losing more heat than the upstairs through its floor, walls and draughts. Heat rises, so without good control the upper floor tends to gather warmth while the ground floor — which sits on the cold ground and often leaks more air — struggles. The good news is that each cause is addressable: balancing the system, reducing downstairs heat loss, and controlling the stack effect all even out the temperatures.
Read the guideWhy is my heat pump not keeping my house warm?
A heat pump that cannot keep a home warm is almost never a faulty heat pump — it is usually a mismatch between the system and the building. Heat pumps deliver heat at a lower flow temperature than a gas boiler, so they rely on the home losing heat slowly, on emitters sized to give out enough heat at that lower temperature, and on a correct heat-loss design behind the installation. When a home is colder than expected after a heat pump goes in, the cause is normally one of three things: the heat loss was higher than the system was sized for, the radiators or underfloor circuits are too small to emit enough heat at low flow temperatures, or the system has been set up or controlled badly. Each is diagnosable, and each points to a different fix.
Read the guideShould I get underfloor heating or radiators?
Whether underfloor heating or radiators is right for your home depends less on preference than on building physics: the heat loss of the rooms, the floor construction, and especially the flow temperature your heat source wants to run at. Underfloor heating spreads heat over a large surface, so it can deliver enough warmth at a low flow temperature — which suits heat pumps and well-insulated homes, and gives gentle, even comfort. Radiators are cheaper and simpler to fit, especially as a retrofit, but need a higher flow temperature unless they are generously sized. The right choice comes from matching the emitter to the heat loss and the heat source, not from assuming one is always better.
Read the guideWhy are my heating bills so high with a heat pump?
A heat pump that produces high bills is usually running inefficiently, and that almost always comes down to one of three things: it is running at too high a flow temperature, it is badly controlled, or the home loses heat faster than it should. A heat pump's efficiency — how much heat it delivers per unit of electricity — depends heavily on running at the lowest flow temperature that still keeps the home warm, on running steadily rather than blasting on and off, and on the building not bleeding heat through poor insulation and air leakage. When bills are high, the heat pump is rarely the fault; the set-up or the fabric is dragging its efficiency down, and both are measurable and fixable.
Read the guide