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

OK, I know it is still summer, but I am planning ahead.... mostly as I have a few repairs to do in the kitchen anyway and it makes sense to do it all at the same time.

Generally, our house is quite warm and well insulated, however the radiator count is at the bare minimum; there are two radiators for the entire bottom floor of the house, with no heating in the porch or the kitchen - the porch isn't too much of an issue, as there is a door between the living room and the porch with draught excluders fitted. The kitchen, however, is a different story.

We do not have a door between the kitchen and the living room (nor is sufficient space for one to be fitted) and there is no heating in the kitchen (well, there is a plinth fan heater installed but it is not fit to use and would cost a fortune to run) - we have a curtain that we put up on a tension rod in the door frame between the living room and the kitchen which helps a bit, and we don't really need the kitchen heated as such - however, there is a real draught problem at floor level.

When the temperatures drop, you can literally feel an icy blast coming from under the kitchen cupboards - I presume that it is coming in around the water & gas pipes and the incoming mains cables; a couple of years ago, I took the kick-boards off the cupboards and stuffed loft insulation underneath the cupboards to try and stop the draughts, which helped but only a little bit. So, I am now wondering if I would be better to try and warm the incoming air just a bit to knock the chill off?

My thinking was, that if I removed the loft insulation material from under the cupboards, and then installed a few tubular heaters (80w-ish each) in the space under the cupboards that they would warm the air up just enough as it was coming in that we wouldn't feel the icy blast?

 

One of them is - it is the two external walls, although the south facing wall faces out onto a small alleyway, so is relatively sheltered. The other wall is west facing, out onto the back garden

 

It is all concrete floors, and I can't see any vents - I filled one hole last year, around the drain pipe, with expanding foam but that didn't do anything; I can only assume that it is coming up from the ground, or where the pipes come in.

@Zigs - no space for a cold frame on this corner of the house unfortunately, it is the only access point to the back garden without going through the house.

 

We do have cavity wall insulation, which made quite a difference when it was installed, @Scrungee - I have been under the cupboards as far as I can, with lights, to try and see any gaps/holes etc and cannot see anything. We did have a vermin problem a few months back when our (then) neighbour's son burned down their chicken shed - but they only took up residence in our outhouse, which would suggest that the house itself is secure?

@pete - the house was built in the 50's I believe, so most likely won't have any insulation built into the floor. In terms of radiators, there is nowhere to mount another one - I even considered a low-ish wattage flat panel electric one, but have nowhere suitable to mount it where an electrical supply is reasonably available.

Excuse my poor drawing skills, but I have done a diagram of the floor plan:



The shaded blue area shows where the draught comes in at floor level.

 

I wouldn't be installing anything - hence the idea for the tubular heaters as they are simply plug in jobs - simply run an extension cable round the side of the cabinets and then it can lie underneath out of sight.

I will have a closer look when we fix the tap, and see if there is anything obvious - there are no backs on the cabinets which is handy, so we can see the walls without dismantling anything.

@Sheal - it could be, but the staircase is in the living room, and doesn't have that much of a draught to it. There is a wall and an area of open room between the stairs and the kitchen. Folding door might be a possibility, but I reckon the wall is too thin (so it would stick out when open)

 

I experimented last year with an oil filled plug in radiator standing in the kitchen on the coldest nights, and it made the world of difference - again, this is part of my thinking that low-level heat knocking the chill off the air might be enough. It was awkward having the radiator standing in the kitchen, and I don't really want a 3kw heater munching electricity when all that is needed is something to knock the chill out of the air.