My kitchen extension is built onto the back of my garage. No matter how hard or long the central heating churns out, the room is always cool. It's a struggle to reach 18 degrees C. In cold weather, even with an additional oil filled radiator, it's still cool. I keep my heating on a timer and as soon as the heating goes off, the temperature plummets and takes forever to build up again. I'm not sure how much insulation my builder put in the cavity and roof space when he built it but he was a reputable tradesman, so, I imagine he put in what was considered necessary at the time (2004). I have a thermostatic valve on the radiator and it's always up at the highest option.

Can anyone suggest what needs to be done to solve this problem? As an amateur, could I tackle the job myself?

If the radiator only gets warmish you have a heating problem but if it gets too hot to touch and the rooms still cold it's either undersized or you have insufficient insulation - probably the latter given the temp goes down so quickly.

Can you gain access to the loftspace to check how much you have?

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We need a lot more information.

It's already been pointed out that we need to know if the existing radiator gets properly hot. But we also need to know

1. what size the room is
2. where in the room the radiator is located
3. what the construction of the outer walls of the room is
4. what construction the roof of your kitchen is
5. what construction the floor of your kitchen is and whether it's insulated
6. the amount of insulation in ceiling, walls and floor of your kitchen (in that order)

Yes, there's lots you can do to improve the situation, but priorities will vary according to the above information.

It's not at all clear what the relevance of your garage is in this whole matter. Your kitchen is presumably built on primarily to your house rather than to your garage. Are you indicating that your kitchen is built in such a way that it's attached to both your house and your garage?

Give us some more information and we'll attempt to come up with some meaningful suggestions.

Thanks , Razor. Unfortunately, we don't have an opening into the roofspace....but the radiator is always hot to touch.....

John,
Room is L-shaped and about 20 sq m. Radiator sits on interior wall- it's 5' long, 18ins high. It sits in the main body of the room: the L- part doesn't have a separate heater .
The outer wall construction is brick .
Kitchen roof interior is gyproc:exterior tile.
Kitchen floor is concrete base overlaid with ceramic tiles.
I don't know how much insulation is in ceiling/wall/floor space and can't get access to check....

Yes, my kitchen is attached to both my house and garage...there's a door from the kitchen to give access to the (cold) garage,so, the back wall to my kitchen is a garage wall.

I'm not sure if this information will be enough for you....

Is it a flat roof ?

Is it a single or double radiator?

I'd say not enough insulation and undersized radiator

As a very rough guess you will need around 10000 btu's to heat the room a single rad the size you have will give around 3500 btus and a double around 7000 depending on make.

Can you get a 600 high radiator in?

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Well, at least you've got heat coming into the room. Think about putting a shelf above the radiator to keep the heat down and foil behind it to throw the heat out into the room. Is there a route by which you could extend the pipes to the currently-unheated part of the room without having to deal with door openings, etc.? In kitchens, there's often space behind base units etc.


Without some form of heat, the chances are that that part of the room is always going to be cold


Cavity wall?
What's on the inside? Though it's not nearly as big a job as you might think to pull out all the units and fix solid insulation board inside. Gives you the opportunity to put in much more sold mountings for wall units, too.


Good. So you must have a pitched roof.
Cut a hatch and get plenty of insulation in there. 9" or more.


Pity. underfloor heating is ideal for a kitchen but you're not going to want to take up ceramic tiles.


Well, we've already covered the ceiling -- a hatch is quite easy to sort out. Still don't know exactly what the walls construction is, but surely you can see something by taking off an electrical fitting -- or at least find out whether the plasterboard is on studs or whether it's plastered on the hard.


Well, you're certainly losing a lot of heat there. You could try insulation boards on the garage side of the wall.
Is that an exterior specification door? Is it fully weather-stripped? Does it open into the kitchen or into the garage? Would you consider fitting an additional door behind it, so that one opens into the garage and the other opens into the kitchen.


Probably not enough to give definitive answers, but enough to give you some ideas to get going with.

It's a double. I could get a 600 radiator in the space but it's beyond my capabilities, so, I think I'll definitely go for that option but get a professional in!
Thanks, Razor.

Thanks for all this onfo, John. Plenty to be going on with and areas to look at that I hadn't considered.
I'll do what I can myself and get experts for the rest.
Can I ask what you'd recommend for insulation boards on my garage wall?

A lot depends on what you're going to do with the rest of the kitchen by way of insulation and on what you get easily locally. Kingspan is good.

Thanks for all your help, John. It's really appreciated