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Ground floor flat no insulation in floor. Draughts everywhere. Cold exterior walls. When raining or very cold the air in flat is icy cold even with heating on. Any suggestions. The kitchen floor is icy even through lino carpet tiles and rugs. Noticed skirting boards are icy cold too. I've tried carpet tiles in kitchen and when standing on them feels almost wet damp. Is there any insulation that covers concrete asphalt floor to improve it. I'm trying foam wall tiles to add a bit of insulation. It's council property.

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  • If you owned out right and wanted to stay there, You would probably need to rip out everything(walls, ceiling and floor) and add insulation and sealing. The job can be done in sections instead of everything at once. Is your heating sized for area? Too small heating capacity can leave you cold also since it won't keep up with the heat loss, but you will save money heating with better insulation than spending more money heating more.
    – crip659
    Mar 15 at 14:48
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    Your question is too broad and you haven't provided enough information about the structure for good answers. Please see How to Ask and take the tour, then revise to be more specific and address just one issue.
    – isherwood
    Mar 15 at 15:21
  • Could you ask a friend or neighbour to take a look at the problem? If there is a leak, then you have to open the area around the sink in the floor a bit. If it is dry it can be glued again. For the wall is a insulation with Styrodur (from BASF) a option. The ground can be insulated too with Styrodur, but you have to add a layer of MDF boards and then a PVC flooring.
    – MikroPower
    Mar 15 at 15:38

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Draughts everywhere

That's where I would start. There are often, but not always, some quick fixes that can cut down significantly on heat loss:

  • Weatherstripping around doors, especially at the bottom.

Typically this takes the form of rubber/foam/plastic strips that are glued to the door frame and threshold. The catch is that you need to balance between too little - not effective - and too much - hard to open/close the door. If the door is hard to open/close then the weatherstripping won't last very long.

  • Weatherstripping around windows.

  • Add a dead-air layer inside each window.

This is typically using a plastic wrap that is stretched across the window with plastic pieces around the edges and use a heat gun (inexpensive substitute = hair dryer) to get it to stay. Something like this Frost King from Amazon:

Frost King window insulation

Moving air takes away your heat/brings in the cold. Dead air is an insulator. Essentially you turn a single-pane window (or a leaky double-pane window) into a double-pane window. Not perfect, but can make a big difference.

Those are the easy things. If the easy things are not enough to solve the problem then you have to search more to figure out where there is heat loss and/or what can be done to improve your heating system.

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