We have a solid well built thirties house which for some reason seems to specialise in freezing cold external walls. I've lived in similar houses before but never had this problem. Just wondering if anyone else has suffered from this and found a way of dealing with it? Insulation companies can't suggest anything as they aren't cavity walls. I've been resorting to moving bookcases and sofas against the external walls, and filling corner cupboards with clothes, but still the walls are freezing to the touch and horrible to sit near even with the central heating on, and of course a lot of valuable heat is being lost... any suggestions gratefully received.

we have late Victorian terrace and front rooms walls always v. cold too. It is north facing which doesnt help (back south facing rooms v. warm!!) We put temporary film glazing over sash windows which stopped draft and insulation under floor boards but cannot do anything with walls as you stated. Flip side is it is a lovely cool room when hot in summer.

This is something I'm looking into at the moment as I live in a '30s block of flats with no insulation. Having a preliminary look around, the easiest way I think is to insulate the inside of the flat. The only downside is that you do lose a bit of space because of the thickness of the insulation. Googling 'interior insulation' throws up lots of options. I'm not an expert, though. Would be interested to hear of options myself.

If you have lots of external wall area and some type of existing cladding or rendering then your best bet is external insulation.

See:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Home...insulation

We are considering this for a '30s semi we are currently purchasing.

Let me know if you find any local installers. Good luck.

We looked into this with our place (A victorian terrace).

There are 4 things you can do.

1. EXTERNAL INSULATION.
The external insulation as shown above. Only problem with this is that it sticks out from the front of the house (so if you are a terrace it can look horrible. Remember Bradstone wall cladding? And it's expensive.

2. DRY LINING.
You can dry line the internal walls with batons and insulation inbetween. Lambswool insulation is good as it is breathable and eco friendly (and is as good as, if not more efficient than glass fibre insulation). You could also use a silver foil insulation which has many sheets of foil stuck together. It's thin and has a high insulation factor. Over the top of the batons you can enhance whatever insulation you use by using insulated plaster board. You will have to leave an air gap between the insulation and the wall if you use a non breathable material to stop condensation.

If you have original features like coving, architrave etc, this obviously isn't an option (although you can get coving made to any design, the company I used for my coving do this, I found them on ebay, they were REALLY excellent).

3. THINSULITE.
This has limited effect, but I used it on my place. There is a material you can put in paint called thinsulite. It's basically lots of small insulating beads that make the paint feel slightly rough. After we painted a section of the wall with it and touched it with our bare hand we noticed a difference between the coated and uncoated sections of the wall. Not huge, but it was definitely warmer.

4. WATERPROOF PAINT BARE BRICK.
If you have bare brick walls, paint them on the outside with a clear water repellant or water with pva glue mixed in with it. When walls get wet and wind blows on them it acts a bit like a fridge. If you can limit how wet the wall gets the wall will stay warmer.

It's worth checking the insulation in your loft. In mine it's about 2 foot thick and is made from recycled plastic bottles so it's non itchy. I also used the silver foil insulation on the rafters. It made a MASSIVE difference.

Don't forget the floor. You still lose heat through it, especially with bare floorboards. We lifted all the floor boards and insulated under them on the ground floor with the silver foil insulation. It took a weekend (the main with was lifting the floor boards and replacing the ones which were too old to reuse. We have yet to to do this in the hallway and the difference between the living room and hall is incredible.

We have installed a wood burning stove. I recommend it. It really gets the room warm and you get ash for your garden. You will have to get a model for a smoke control area though.

Keep warm!

sydenham central, thanks for all this info. really useful stuff

Thanks very much for everyone's helpful advice. I'm going to try out some of the above, and some thermal lining paper I was just reading about, and report back.

sydenham central, did you find decent damp people to do the job for you? I'd love a PM if you could recommend them.