Best way to heat a hall

Bob_Skunkhouse

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Hi,

I'm wondering, what's the best way to heat a hall? Bear with me first while I set the scene.

The house is designed as such - picture a " H", my hall is the horizontal 'bridge' between the vertical lengths. The house is currently heated via UFH supplied by a geothermal heat pump. We've a stove in the living quarters (the left verticle extension) and the right vertical extension is a sitting room (seldom used) and a kids 'playroom'. The problem is, when the stove is on it heats the living area (open planned tv room and kitchen) to around 22/23 degrees, but the hall seldom ever reaches above 18.5. Herself is always giving out about the drop in the temperature, and to her credit - she's got a point. If the door from the kitchen into the hall is left open, there's one serious draft created. I want an appliance to heat the hall up a few degrees so there's a similar temperature between the areas. It would be on approx 4hrs an evening -max.

I'm looking at these standalone energy efficient electric heaters. Would these boyos do the trick?

Thanks,
Bob.
 
Hi Bob...
Is the door / window sufficient for keeping out the cold? Have you a large stair area? The heat in the hall will rise, so if upstairs isn't being heated, then the heat goes up there. Have you an attic area near the stairs - is that properly insulated / sealed?

What to use in the hall itself, I can't guide you there - assume there is a rad in the area - is that heating sufficiently? Where is the thermostat for the heating itself - if that is in the living area, might be kicking out due to the fire being on, before the hall area comes up to the required heat.
 
Is the UFH installed in the hall area also? If so, it sounds like your issue is one of insulation / draft proofing rather than one of adding more heat input. Is the UFH zoned?

Energy efficient electric heaters are still a very expensive way of heating a space.
 
Hi guys,

thanks for the feedback and questions.
Yeah, that's my fear all a long - in that it's a design flaw of the house rather than an easy fix as I was hoping for.
Let me answer some questions first.
1)No, there's no rad in the hall at the moment. It's heated by UFH and is zoned.
2)Yes the door between the kitchen/hall is sufficient at keeping the draughts out, however the kids are getting a bit miffed with the constant "will ya keeping that door shut!?"
3)The attic is well away from the stairs and is insulated - the house would be well insulated
4)The stair area is large

The key for me is that during the night when the stove has burned out and the heat on, the house has a constant temperature throughout in the morning, so I'm led to believe that everything is working as designed.

If I expand on the house design a little more, there's a 'void' in the living room up to the first floor. Whats happening - i believe is, there's a convection air current occurring on which it is sucking the air out of the hall and 'dumping in the living room. When we sit in a certain area there's a cold draught coming down from the void. What I was hoping for was to increase the heat in the hall so that there's a certain equilibrium attained, thus alleviating some of the problem.

I thought energy efficient EH were very cost effective. Somewhere between 200 and 400w of power.
 
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I'm not answering your question Bob but do you think that 22/23C is quite high and that maybe 18.5C is closer to what the temperature in your house should be? Obviously the draft is created by the difference in temperature between the rooms but have you considered trying to lower the temperature in the living area to be more in line with the hall area to see if that reduces the draft and then see if you can live in the cooler temperature? Personally I prefer a temperature around 19C in the house - I would consider 22/23C to be very warm so just throwing out the suggestion although I appreciate it may not be for everyone.
 
You can get smoke pencils / matches that will help you trace drafts. If you can isolate those as much as possible you may solve your problem.

To Ceist Beag's point, if you leave the interjoining door open all day, does the whole house heat to a comfortable level as expected?

It doesn't matter if you get very close to 100% efficiency on the electric heaters, they are still a very expensive means of space heating when compared to oil, gas, coal, etc..
 
Check the underfloor manifold to see if there is an actuator just for the hall. If so you could get a new actuator that links wirelessly with a thermostat that you have in the hall. Both of these can be bought from a provider like Conrad heating controls. With these you would then be able to increase the heat of the hall so that your draught issues would reduce.

Else you could just have something like an air tight screen that closes off the void when the fire is on
 
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