Hi Selfbuildjo,

Thanks for your question. It’s difficult to give you hard-and-fast advice without seeing the house, but there could be a number of areas worth exploring, for instance:

– The concrete floor sounds like it could be a potential culprit. Do you know if there is any insulation either below or above this?

– Even if there is insulation in the walls, ground floor and loft, it may not have been correctly installed. For example, there could be gaps in the cavity wall fill. Do you know if the previous owner had a guarantee for this which could be used to investigate and remedy any issues?

– Are there any other potential draughts at floor level; for example do you have wood floors with gaps between boards? There are products available to reduce these – but you need to be careful not to go too far in blocking out ventilation as this can lead to problems with damp etc. Take a look at https://www.self-build.co.uk/draught-proofing-your-home for more on draught proofing.

– Are the radiators and boiler correctly sized for the house? This is all about heat loss calculations and determining the right output for the boiler (kW) and radiators (BTUs). Some radiator suppliers offer online calculators that could be useful – although if you think there’s an issue a heating engineer or plumber would be your best bet.

– Is the internal air near the windows especially cold? If so it’s possible that the double glazed units aren’t as effective as they could be – perhaps they weren’t of particularly good quality and haven’t stood the test of time? This would be an expensive issue to resolve so generally I’d try to look inexpensive measures elsewhere first, if possible.

Hope these nuggets help point you in some potential areas of investigation!

Chris (Deputy Editor & Online Editor)