Author Topic: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?  (Read 3206 times)

How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« on: 01 November, 2019, 09:50:24 pm »
We have a 4 bedroom house being painted over the next couple of weeks with absolutely no possibility of central heating.

What would the panel suggest for heating?

I was looking at LPG cabinet heaters as a possibility. Warm up during the day and turn off at night time.

Any other better ideas. Assume I have standard 240v mains and no one is sleeping in the house.

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #1 on: 01 November, 2019, 10:04:36 pm »
Dimplex oil heaters. Old school but a dry warmth.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #2 on: 02 November, 2019, 05:58:57 am »
If the heaters are doing any combusting of fuel, need to have the 'products of combustion' vented outside.  One of the main byproducts of combustion is water vapor, another can be an oily residue that doesn't agree with paint.

Plug-in electric heaters, if you have power, could provide heat.  Perhaps there is a place you could rent them from?  (In USAnia, most every town has a rental company where you can go for equipment that you need to use, but don't want to buy)

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #3 on: 02 November, 2019, 06:07:34 am »
Yes I had completely forgotten about resultant water vapour.
We have some fan heaters and some oil heaters organised. Thank you.


Wombat

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Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #5 on: 04 November, 2019, 11:23:11 am »
I'd definitely support the "don't use an LPG heater" comment.  In fact I'd stretch it to don't EVER use an LPG heater.  Dreadful things, which not only cost more to run (yes, I've done the calculations based on cost of available gas cylinders vs. cost of electricity) but the amount of water vapour is appalling, as well as combustion fumes.  Oh, and they're good at helping tower blocks to burn down.  Its sad that people struggling to keep warm in damp homes feel they need to use them.  They don't, they're far better off with an oil filled rad or a fan heater, which is cheaper to buy, too.

I'd say the ideal is to use thermostatically controlled oil filled rads to keep the temperature up generally, with fan heaters in work areas.  I'm less than keen on leaving fan heaters unattended, due to the risk of the fan becoming bored with going round, while the heating element continues to do its thing, but oil filled rads are about as safe as a portable heater can be, really.

Yes, energy advice was my profession...  :)
Wombat

Kim

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Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #6 on: 04 November, 2019, 11:43:34 am »
I'd definitely support the "don't use an LPG heater" comment.  In fact I'd stretch it to don't EVER use an LPG heater.  Dreadful things, which not only cost more to run (yes, I've done the calculations based on cost of available gas cylinders vs. cost of electricity) but the amount of water vapour is appalling, as well as combustion fumes.  Oh, and they're good at helping tower blocks to burn down.  Its sad that people struggling to keep warm in damp homes feel they need to use them.  They don't, they're far better off with an oil filled rad or a fan heater, which is cheaper to buy, too.

Barakta's mum used one for a while when she had money troubles.  The 'advantage' of an LPG heater is that you buy a bottle of gas, and you've got a bottle of gas, rather than some bill that's going to bite you in the arse later when $electricityco get round to doing some arithmetic.

Being poor is expensive.

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #7 on: 04 November, 2019, 12:38:19 pm »
Basic electrical convectors are cheap...


Worryingly cheap IMHO. My standby oilfired/fan heater combo of > 30 year vintage breathed its last and I've replaced it with one of these. My main concern was that even it is labelled with CE (Chinesium Excrement), conceptually things that are not glowing red hot are likely to be safer. (Ceramic heaters I think fall into this scope)

Kim

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Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #8 on: 04 November, 2019, 01:04:17 pm »
Agreed.  You'd have to try quite hard to set things on fire with one of those (I reckon the best source of ignition would be a Chinesium plug or mains lead, rather than the heater itself).  A fan or convection heater need only get blocked or aspirate something combustible (human hair is a favourite).

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #9 on: 04 November, 2019, 01:10:59 pm »
The mysteriously cheap oil filled radiator I have like that has nothing like enough oil in it and rides the internal thermal cutout rather than the thermostat knob. Probably going to the tip.

Woofage

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Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #10 on: 04 November, 2019, 01:48:42 pm »
Warm up during the day and turn off at night time.

Do this the other way round. It's coldest at night so you'll maintain a higher mean temp with less variation.

And electric, as recommended above.
Pen Pusher

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #11 on: 04 November, 2019, 06:09:18 pm »
Yes, energy advice was my profession...  :)

If I may presume.  Almost all the radiators are single skin non convector ones with no fins or anything.   Some of them must be at least 5 feet long.

They have probably been in place since the house was built in the 60s.

I was planning on replacing a lot of them with modern convector radiators of suitable size for the room.  Would you say this was advantageous or not?  There is an aesthetic element to some of them which are manky and they are definitely going.

Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #12 on: 05 November, 2019, 08:22:42 am »
Chris, there are a few considerations:

Which is more important, wall space or space in the room? (you can have radiators that are slim and compact to the wall, or radiators that protrude more into the room but take up less wall room.)

Budget

Taste

I was surprised to find out that the old-victorian style of rads have a higher output than many modern flat panel. It is easy to compare - just check the wattage. However, they protrude a *lot* more into the room.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #13 on: 05 November, 2019, 07:07:50 pm »
I'd definitely support the "don't use an LPG heater" comment.  In fact I'd stretch it to don't EVER use an LPG heater.  Dreadful things, which not only cost more to run (yes, I've done the calculations based on cost of available gas cylinders vs. cost of electricity) but the amount of water vapour is appalling, as well as combustion fumes.  Oh, and they're good at helping tower blocks to burn down.  Its sad that people struggling to keep warm in damp homes feel they need to use them.  They don't, they're far better off with an oil filled rad or a fan heater, which is cheaper to buy, too.

Barakta's mum used one for a while when she had money troubles.  The 'advantage' of an LPG heater is that you buy a bottle of gas, and you've got a bottle of gas, rather than some bill that's going to bite you in the arse later when $electricityco get round to doing some arithmetic.

Being poor is expensive.

Not as bad as it was.  They're not allowed to charge more for a prepayment meter these days, so if folk can't budget (either 'cos they've got no money to budget with, or because they lack the skill to do so) then you can also do the "I've got a fiver, and I can put that on the prepayment meter, and see it gradually go down" business. The Utilita prepayment smart meters were prevalent in one of the areas I worked (Southampton) and they were pretty good at helping folk see the real cost of what they were doing with their electricity.  It often used to be hard to get folk to grasp how to get their energy cheapest, by doing all the things that got you a cheaper tariff, such as going direct debit, dual fuel tariff, paperless.  Obviously if folks finances are fragile, then direct debit is scary for them, but at least get both from the same supplier, and don't leave that cheap 55" plasma telly you bought on standby all the time, and TURN STUFF OFF if you aren't actually using it! 
Wombat

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: How to heat a house during painting and renovation?
« Reply #14 on: 05 November, 2019, 07:11:11 pm »
Yes, energy advice was my profession...  :)

If I may presume.  Almost all the radiators are single skin non convector ones with no fins or anything.   Some of them must be at least 5 feet long.

They have probably been in place since the house was built in the 60s.

I was planning on replacing a lot of them with modern convector radiators of suitable size for the room.  Would you say this was advantageous or not?  There is an aesthetic element to some of them which are manky and they are definitely going.

I'd say yes, but mainly because rads that age are on borrowed time.  They could well be full of 'orrible gunge, and if you tried to flush them thoroughly, might well then spring a leak or three.  Victorian style column rads are indeed efficient, but they're sodding heavy, and damn expensive to buy.  Modern finned convector types are quite efficient, and nice and neat and tidy.
Wombat