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My new digital thermometers are sitting in a row on a shelf upstairs. The mean between seven of them is 61.5F/16C.There is a deviation of 0.7F between the highest and lowest reading but they drift very slowly relative to each other. The lounge is at 58F/14.5C at 7.00am this morning. I should really monitor and graph the indoor temperatures of rooms relative to those outside.
My inability to keep the lounge and attic comfortably warm with a modern stove does not bode well for a heat pump. I would be paying inflated bills for electricity. Most likely in parallel with the cost of logs for the wood stove. Historically, we paid peanuts for heating. Running the old stove on wood briquettes. When prices were modest but now effectively doubled. Hence the change to logs. We wore down jackets indoors all and every winter. It was simply impossible to raise the indoor temperatures high enough with the old stove. Nor with the new one it seems.
The sloping attic walls have 30-40cm of rockwool in three/four 10cm layers. I fitted it myself years ago. Each layer was carefully overlapped both ways. To ensure there were no gaps to form cold bridges.
I watch the roof during periods of snow and frost. To see where heat is lost. It is important to ensure the melting isn't due to sunshine. A north facing roof slope is a safer indicator.
The dormers are a weak point. It being impossible to insulate parts of them as well as the main roof. Not without them become very bulky. I used the small, double glazed windows as my minimum interior dimensions. Then added 10cm of rockwool in the sides. With the full thickness 3-40cm over the tops.
Unfortunately, the house walls are solid brick or single skin, lightweight cement blocks. The bathroom walls can go below freezing! I use a fan heater when I take a shower. The heater rapidly raises the air temperature but not the wall temperature. The hand towel in the bathroom has to be constantly replaced because it is always so cold and wet from hand washing.
Adding a heated towel rail would help to take the chill off but would use a lot of electricity. It's not just the cost of the KWhs but the 17 "green" taxes on top. Including VAT at 25%. This is how Denmark keeps its electricity consumption low as a nation. By ensuring energy poverty is rife. So they can claim they are fighting climate change effectively.
7.45 I have lit the stove and will go for my morning walk as soon as the logs are burning steadily. Sometimes the stove forgets to burn if I turn the air lever down slightly too much.
9.00 Just a walk to the lanes. The roads had been salted but the 1m strip on both edges was icy. The sky was all but clear. Apart from the horizon being entirely circled by tumbling cumulus. A deer dashed away as I wandered past. Only a few gulls and geese wandered the skies.
The stove has been on for a little over an hour. 61F/16C upstairs and down. [down, meaning the lounge] 55F/13C maintained in the kitchen by the little electric radiator. 45F/7C in the unheated bathroom. 44F/7C in the greenhouse before the low sun reaches it.
I have cut down one towering "pencil" conifer. To avoid its shadow falling on the greenhouse all day. There are two others but they only affect the late afternoon. Where they might actually be useful in hot summers. I am keeping temperature readings to whole degrees F now. No point in trying to be more precise.
Plans for today: I was going to do more rendering but fear I lack the skill to improve what is already done in the available time. I have only a few days left before my next visit from the council bereavement lady. If there is any hope of her being able to reach an armchair in the lounge. Then I have at least a couple of hours of tidying to do first.
I have removed the bookshelves and there are boxes of books literally everywhere. In fact there is clutter in every room now! Perhaps I should abandon all hope of an impressive wall finish by then?
I could just pile all the book boxes in a neat row along that wall. Or against the long, brick wall as well. A stack of book boxes in the left corner? Not ideal, but it would save me constantly having to climb over "stuff." I had to leave the window wall and floor clear to have easy access for rendering. Which made the clutter far worse!
I was sensible [for once] and tidied the lounge. There were another three removal boxes worth of books on the floor. Once full, they are difficult to lift, due to their sheer weight. Lots of lovely, illustrated books on the arts, crafts, interior design, gardening and many other subjects.
Then I had to see to the furniture. Which had wandered across the room to allow me space for rendering. The lounge rose to 67F/19.5C. So I was soon stripped down to a T-shirt. Upstairs rose to 64F. The greenhouse was 55F/13C last time I checked. The bathroom crept up to 47F/8C. It has been sunny all morning but I was far too busy to go to the observatory. Still half the room full of boxes to attend to.
13.20. 34F/+1C.A quick shopping trip for essentials for lunch. Which is over. It is clouding over more now. I am being visited by blue tits on my dormer window. No doubt they are looking for spiders in the corners.
We had a fully glazed door just standing in an inaccessible corner of the lounge for twenty years. I have just rediscovered that it is the correct size to replace the entrance door! Its original purpose was to form an airlock in the hall. The problem there was the small size of the hall. The coat rack was also on the wrong wall beside the entrance door. So it would have interfered with any door swinging within the narrow hall.
The door is an attractive unit with eight, bevelled glass panes. Probably a window? How can I best use it? Being single glazed it would be poor thermal and security performer as the main entrance door. As an air lock door it would block draughts without causing severe claustrophobia in the hall. If only there was room for it!
Blocking heat from rising up the open stairwell might be an option. I could build a partition across the long leg of the L-shaped lounge. Insert the "glass door" for access to the rest of the lounge just beyond the stairs. A counterbalanced, hinged trapdoor above the stairs? Or, close off the open side of the stairs. Then have the glass door to allow light and access to the bottom of the stairs?
Do I really want to block the heat rising naturally to the attic? It provides a large, open and comfortable sitting and sleeping area. Except at the height of heatwaves and very cold winters. The lounge has never been a real sitting room. Because of the storage clutter, excess furniture, dark surfaces and dim lighting in the past.
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