Knocking the chill off..........

OK, bit of an update to this. Installation of the new tap is complete, and we took the opportunity to investigate draughts whilst we had everything cleared out of the cupboards. From inside the house, nothing was immediately obvious which concurs with my previous investigations. I did find one small damp area, and found the cause - one of the connectors on the trap under the sink was leaking very slightly, with the drips making their way down the pipe to the floor. That has now been fixed.

We then took a look at the outside, and found a few possible culprits - the main one being where a gas pipe comes out through the wall to up to the boiler (installed in the loft); there was absolutely nothing around the pipe, so any cold air would be able to blow straight in. That has now been sealed with silcone.

Then, looking at the air bricks that were sealed when the cavity insulation was installed, it appeared that two of them had holes in the sealant where it had been sloppily applied - that too was sealed with silicone.

Then, it was on to my main suspect, the water inlet from the meter. The meter cavity itself has a foam frost protection 'bung' so should stop most of any cold draughts, however there was quite a gap around the water pipe where it disappeared into another wider pipe that carried it to the house. There was no way to get silicone in there (barely room for fingers, let alone anything else) and I didn't fancy using expanding foam as it would only make things infinitely harder if there was ever a problem with the water meter. So, I chopped up an el-cheapo kitchen sponge into strips, and then wrapped them around the water pipe, pushing them into the cavity between it and the wider pipe - that, coupled with the frost protection bung already in there, should see that one off.

To finish things off, I have just ordered one of these which I intend to mount on the wall on the left as we walk into the kitchen from the living room:



Currently, there is a 13 amp switched, fused supply hidden underneath the kitchen units on the right hand side of the kitchen next to the fridge; this currently has the electric plinth heater plugged into it, which I would not use as I do not consider it to be fit. So, my thinking is to run an extension cable from this socket, behind the fridge and then into self-adhesive conduit to run up to ceiling level, across the top of the wall, then down in the other corner by the back door, which the heater can then be plugged into. At only 800 watts it is significantly below the maximum load for an extension cable, and this also avoids having to have a permanent installation done (and all the cost that comes with it) - plus, if/when we ever move out, it is simply a case of plugging the fitted heater back in.

Hopefully, all of this will see the kitchen have the chill knocked off it sufficiently to stop the draught into the living room (although we will still use our heavy curtain in between the kitchen and living room)

 

Heater has arrived - nice and slim, and even on 500w setting it gives off a nice warmth. It will never 'heat' the kitchen in a month of Sundays when the weather is really cold, but then it was never intended to. All I need to do now is get the conduit and get my finger out and get it all done....

 

The one we have is electrically heated, so it is essentially a 2kw blow-heater fixed to a bit of fake wood that lives under the cupboards. It is wired with a fused 13 amp plug which goes into a socket, and that socket is switched by a wall mounted switch (fused), so all I will do is unplug the plinth heater and use an extension lead to plug the new fellow into.

I am all a bit premature with this, as it is still summer, but I would rather be prepared......

 

Thanks @Charlie996 - since sealing the holes that I did find up, it has not been cold enough to see if I have made any difference. Depending on what overtime I end up doing this weekend, I will hopefully get the heater installed into its new home, and then all we can do is wait and see if we have resolved things; if not, I might well take your advice (not least as I have wanted an excuse to buy a laser surface temperature gauge for a while - - - I love a good gadget! )

 

Bit early to say for sure, as it wasn't all that cold here - having said that, I did run the kitchen heater for an hour or so, and the difference was noticeable to the point that we felt comfortable without the central heating kicking in or having to turn the thermostat up.

 

Bit of a chill to the air when we got home tonight, so I cracked the wee heater in the kitchen on and left the curtain open between the living room and the kitchen - - that wee 800w heater not only warmed the air in the kitchen, but in doing so raised the temperature in the living room by 0.4ºC - doesn't sound much, but it makes a hell of a difference. Our central heating didn't even get a chance to fire up!

 

It certainly seems to be so - I suppose we won't know for sure until we have a really baltic night, but so far so good.

 

Now that the cold has arrived, I thought I would update this - the heater is running on its lowest setting this evening (300w) and is nicely keeping the chill off the kitchen, and in turn stopping the cold draught into the living room. I am only kicking myself for not doing this before.

I can highly recommend these Dimplex heaters to anyone - they give off a nice warmth, without being blisteringly hot.