itsallaguess wrote: ...but it was also in the back of my mind that we had a large pair of heavy, lined curtains at the back of our 'other room' in the knocked-through configuration, that offered up an opportunity to install an additional curtain-rail 'above and behind' the knocked-through dividing-wall that sits centrally to our large downstairs living area.
The idea behind this test was that for the sake of around £25 for a nice-looking curtain-rail, and the drilling of six holes to hold the rail-brackets above the wall-arch area, and where the rail and rail-brackets would then normally be 'invisible' from the side of the knocked-through rooms where we'd normally be located in our sitting area, it would be an interesting low-cost and low-impact experiment to see if halving that large knocked-through living space with a pair of heavy, lined-curtains would then allow the undersized-radiator in that 'thermally reduced' living space to be more efficiently heated.
And what a job it's done...
We did something similar in our previous house. The stairs went off the lounge meaning we were heating up the stairs and landing with our lounge radiators and/or gas fire. A heavy curtain at the bottom of the stairs not only cut our heating costs but greatly improved comfort by reducing the draughts caused by cool air tumbling down the stairs and into the lounge.