Instantly boost your wifi speed if your house was built in these years

Internet speeds are getting faster, more stable and more widespread than ever before - which is just as well given how vital super fast broadband has become in every aspect of our lives, from web browsing to working from home, streaming 4K TV content and downloading huge games. We want it all at the click of a button, and we don't want to wait.

But you could be wasting money by spending big on a high-end fibreoptic connection but destroying your speed, especially if you live in an older pre-2000s built house. In fact, you could be paying for 300mbps fibre but get internet speeds of just 50mpbs. But before you complain to , or - check your walls.

Asking on the r/AskUK sub-Reddit, u/haywire said: "Anyone know the science of why old houses have really spotty Wi-Fi?

"We live in a tiny two-bedroom house which was built around the 1890s in SE London. Brand new ASUS XT9 router is in the front room. Signal in the master bedroom (directly above) is 90%. However, the second you go through a doorway (e.g. to the secondary bedroom) signal goes to say 0%-10% and continuously drops out. In bathroom/kitchen (to rear of house) it similarly drops out. This house is TINY. Is there something about the composition of the walls?"

The answer could be that older houses tend to have thicker walls, which make it much harder for your wifi signal to travel.

In fact, thanks to sturdy British construction built to trap heat and keep it in, houses built before 1930 are the worst for thick walls which block wifi. But those built as recently as the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s can still have patchy wifi coverage because of how thick the internal walls are compared to new builds.

According to Erikas Grig, chartered surveyors, the thickness of our homes' walls has changed a lot over the years. They pointed to houses built before 1930 as being particularly notorious for thick walls.

They said: "Masonry is one of the UK's most distinctive forms of construction. In England, houses built before the 1930s and older periods such as Victorian or Georgian will often have solid brick walls. A solid brick wall is usually 215 mm thick, which is the length of a normal brick.

"Modern homes will likely use lightweight concrete blocks as the inner leaf since they are substantially more affordable and energy-efficient than bricks."

According to networking experts Comms Express, the best way to get better coverage is to focus on the position of your wifi router in your home - to try to avoid thick walls, corners and metal objects.

They said: "Where you place your router plays a major role in wifi performance. For stronger whole-home signals, position your router as centrally as possible in a location away from appliances, metal objects, and thick walls or corners that block signals.

"Also, elevate it off the floor and avoid stuffing it in closets or cabinets. Getting it higher up and closer to the home's center will better broadcast signals to all rooms."

Of course, there are other ways to boost your wifi across your house, including wifi boosters and repeaters. These plug into walls and will copy your network across to other rooms, carrying and duplicating the signal.

And if you have more money to spend on the problem, you can invest in a 'wifi mesh network'.

As Comms Express adds: "For the ultimate wifi upgrade, mesh networks build expandable "blankets" of strong wifi signals across homes of any shape, size and building material. Mesh wifi systems include a main router connected wirelessly to compact satellite modules placed in additional rooms to form extended networks."