I'm back! :-) and in need of OT boiler help... :-/

[Richard]

We dream of reaching 21 degrees.  When I got up this morning the living room was on 7.

We did manage to get it to 15 the night before with the central heating on.  Old detached house with lots of rubbish windows and a remarkably poor central heating system that runs at great expense to little effect.  External temperature has been knocking around -10 mind.

Bitter.  Moi ?

Richard

[guest7]

Wifey has gone off to her job at Laura Ashley tonight with instructions to buy a heavy material for a door curtain. I used to have some heavily-lined door curtains in my old house (which had a wide hallway) and they made a huge difference. I will report back on the results.

Our house is currently happy to sit at 15 or 16 degrees all evening with the boiler only kicking in occasionally. I'm sure we couldn't manage this without our full uPVC duble glazing. It may upset the old house purists, but it's bloody brilliant stuff.

GC

[trophydave]

The insulation in my loft is OK but I figure I could always add some more.The question is,is it OK to just lay it over stuff like cables and water pipes?

Edit.It looks like I have found the answer.I have Googled it and have found that lighting cables should not really be covered by insulation and never shower cables due to the current that they carry.

[guest18]

We are using a meter to get an idea of power consumption for various items and the electric showers are just scary, one was 6Kw and the other 9!! 
Good job they're only on for short periods, at that rate of consumption a bath may be cheaper! 

[guest7]

The insulation in my loft is OK but I figure I could always add some more.The question is,is it OK to just lay it over stuff like cables and water pipes?

It is a worry, but most reasonably modern lighting should be wired using 1mm twin core and earth and if you are using low energy bulbs there's very little chance of heat build up, even if the wires are completely covered. Using all of the lights on my upstairs circuit equals roughly the same wattage as just one old style 100watt bulb. I've covered all of my lighting cabling, but it's up to you to decide on what to do with yours. One thing to point out is that Halogen downlighters should never be covered, they get damn hot.

I can't see how you can over-insulate water pipes 

GC

[trophydave]

I can't see how you can over-insulate water pipes 

I'm not really sure why I mentioned water pipes.

[johnr]

The insulation in my loft is OK but I figure I could always add some more.The question is,is it OK to just lay it over stuff like cables and water pipes?

Edit.It looks like I have found the answer.I have Googled it and have found that lighting cables should not really be covered by insulation and never shower cables due to the current that they carry.

im not too sure thats right. if a cable was so undersized that it was actually generating heat due to the resistance of the cable being unable to transmit the current, then you would  have had trouble with it melting before now. as for pipes, yes, cover them, you cant over insulate pipework and plumbing in my opinion. i would just lay your new insulation over the old stuff, done it myself, and seen it done thousands of times in other places to no detrimental effect.