dannigirl

I MISS CENTRAL HEATING!!!!!

There I've said it. Beautiful, sunny day down in Dunedin today but the house is still pretty chilly. We have insulated the house but the heating is all a bit hotch potch as we have a kitchen/diner with no heating and a separate lounge with a gas fire. Heat pump is in hall, so end up heating all the rooms with various heaters. Much better since having it insulated but I actually do miss central heating!

And yes we are having those lovely moments when it's colder inside than outside (on a nice, sunny, fairly mild day). How did I ever survive being a student in Dunedin?!?!

Brrrrrr....is it Summer yet?

MrsFychan

we are lucky that we now have heat pumps in all the bedrooms and the main living room. but have a wood burner in the family/games room that I just really haven't a clue how to set up properly.
Only thing with the heat pumps they are only programmable for once a day so they come on to warm the bedrooms up for bedtime but if we want to have when we wake up we would need to reprogramme when the kids were asleep.
Husbands seems to think he can write a programme to enable the on/off to be set via the computer which will enable us to do it when we want which would be far better.
The other thing with heat pumps is there no residue heat once they are off.

Husband did point out the other day that back in the UK when the central heating was on we heated all rooms and halls unlike here when we are just heat the rooms an hour or so before we need to use them.

downunderpom

First house (rental) we had here was an ex-state house, no insulation, no heating, and the condensation would pour down the windows, off the sill and into the carpet. Landlord tried to blame us for mouldy carpets..... (Head-Shoved-Up-His-Jacksie-And-Liked-The-View-From-There)

Now we have a large Marshall boiler, where I light a wood fire, keep it going for about five hours while running the underfloor central heating, and voila! enough heat in the concrete slab to slow-release and keep us toasty for about three days! We also have a fireplace in the lounge, but in the four years we've lived there I have only lit that once, and that just to make sure it all worked. Wool insulation all round and double glasing works wonders.

jmh

Ha ha - yes I noticed it my first winter. I'm a bit more acclimatised now, but I have been making good use of the oil fin heaters. They give a good background heat. Good thing about the electric heaters though is they warm a room quite quickly.

simonmarkellis

get through the first winter, the rest are a breeze...

Snap Shot

We've got a central heating equivalent which we paid to have installed last year. This means that there's a heat pump in the loft void which supplies warm air via vents in the ceiling to the bedrooms and the linen cupboard. The bathroom has heat in the light fitting which can be switched on when required.

Downstairs there's a heat pump in the dining room. It's a lounge diner but the heat pump is in the diner part. Useful to warm up the house in the morning before we wake and in the evening before we come home, via two four event timers, i.e. morning on/off, evening on/off.

We also have a gas fire in the lounge with flames around fake logs. We switch this on in the evening after tea and switch the downstairs heat pump off.

We had double glazing installed last year. We also had underfloor insulation installed and another layer of Pink Batts (insulation 'blanket') put in the loft void.

We also paid to have two bi-fold doors re-installed in the previously empty kitchen doorways (previous doors removed, it's a kiwi thing) so we can keep the warm air in the lounge when required.

shocked kiwi

And have you had that thing yet when you get up to go to the loo in the middle of the night and get a frozen backside when you sit on the toilet seat yet? Brrrrrr!

Growing up in Nz - if I told my dad I was cold in the house he would say "Well go for a run then or put more clothes on!" Mind you we did have 2 lounges, both with very scrummy open fires, but these were only put on at night. A plug in heater was the only other form of heating inside but the house had pinkbats etc. But no one had central heating.

Snap Shot

Used to get that in Britain too. Even colder when my Dad had left the toilet seat up in the night and I would sit on cold porcelain !!

Catchafire

Have you insulated the floor? I know everyone bangs one about getting batts in the roof, but thats only part of the story.

Mark Smith

There must be a phrase for this NZ phenomenon?

barnsleymat

I'm insulating our loft tomorrow and I've saved $1000's on having it done instead of the government scheme. From what I can gather the companies doing it through that scheme are taking the piss.

I'll be posting a full report of how I did it and how to save $1000's when we've finished.

Persephone

Hate that colder inside than out feeling. Used to get it all the time in our uninsulated old Lockwood. Never again!

Our house in Chch has a gas fire in the living room and a heat pump in the dining/kitchen. Also HRV. It is insulated and retains the heat. We didn't use or need any other heating but we are both cold blooded and happy to sleep in an unheated bedroom

JaneRiley

We're back in Scotland now and have underfloor heating and a wood burner and house is toasty. I think my time in NZ made me hardier - without radiators we just put on another jumper when it's cold. As summers in the UK go - this is a NZ winter...

scrubbedexpat094

Spherical objects my friend . I really, really hate the winters here & each year I get more & more depressed as winter approaches.

dannigirl

We have insulated top and bottom. Is definitely helping hold the heat, the main problem is our hotch potch lay out and the fact we have no proper curtains in most of the rooms just roller blinds. We are rectifying this ASAP. But the house never feels toasty and warm. Plan may be to extend our kitchen/diner to include a lounge and have more of a big open plan living area which would be easier to heat than 3 separate rooms!