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Electric Heaters

2

Comments

  • Cardew wrote: »
    Any electrical heating is the most expensive way to heat available.

    Your heater on eco setting of 300-400watts costing 4p and hour will give out very little heat.

    Your gas central heating should produce three times as much heat for 4p(around 1kWh) Even with a really old inefficient boiler for 4p you will get 0.8kWh)

    I have to disagree you on 2 points. Firstly,you'd be surprised how much heat a 400w Delonghi panel heater gives out,and Secondly at,4p per hour it is certainly a lot more cost effective than the 25p an hour I currently pay for gas.
  • No but there should be

    if your thinking of getting an electric boiler go and see a priest first-you need help; never heat with electric where you have gas, and don't be deluded by cheap rate night elec for storage heaters; night rate elec is still dearer than all day gas rate

    its simple economics realy 4 p a unit of gas - 14p a unit of elec; yes you can run elec cheaper for extremely small running times (less than an hour) in one room cmparitvely with gas-the trouble is i don't know a single household in the U.K. that ever puts on an elec fire for less than ahour aday in winter

    It is simple economics,what you fail to mention is that there once you have converted cubic metres of gas into Kwh you will use on average 5-6 Kwh of gas per hour(based on the amount that my gas central heating uses and I live in a small 2 bedroomed flat with 5 radiators).
  • penrhyn
    penrhyn Posts: 15,215 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    As pointed out previously electric heaters are almost 100% efficient, so your 400 watt heater is giving out 400 watts of heat.
    If that's sufficient to heat your room to a comfortable temperature then that's great.

    BTW the human body gives off around 100 watts so if there are four of you in the room you can turn off the panel heater.
    That gum you like is coming back in style.
  • incubus72 wrote: »
    It is simple economics,what you fail to mention is that there once you have converted cubic metres of gas into Kwh you will use on average 5-6 Kwh of gas per hour(based on the amount that my gas central heating uses and I live in a small 2 bedroomed flat with 5 radiators).

    this says less about my economics than it does about the efficiency of your boiler/centralheating system/settings if you are using 5-6 kwh of gas throug 5 radiators to get the same heat throughout the home as 1 x 400kw elec heater is providing.

    Either the gas is providing a considerably warmer home, or your boiler 's not working properly; reduce the gas warmth level to match elec by reducing boiler temp and/or radiatior valves or get your boiler fixed and your economics won't be true but your finances will be.
  • if someone i knew was usin 2 x 400w to heat their home, id be more cocerned for their health than their wealth
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,064 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Rampant Recycler
    incubus72 wrote: »
    I have to disagree you on 2 points. Firstly,you'd be surprised how much heat a 400w Delonghi panel heater gives out,and Secondly at,4p per hour it is certainly a lot more cost effective than the 25p an hour I currently pay for gas.

    You still don't seem to understand the point.

    For 4p you will get approx 0.4kWh of heat. It doesn't matter what type of 400w heater you have, they all produce exactly the same amount of heat for the same running cost as they are all 100% efficient.

    For 25p with gas Central heating you will be getting anything from between 7.0kWh to 5.0kWh; for 6 times the cost you are getting between 20 and 30 times the heat.

    I can understand you might not want to heat your whole flat with gas CH. If that is the case, turn off the other 4 radiators.

    However to imply that electrical heating is cheaper than gas CH is just not true. Gas heating is between 2 and 3 times cheaper than electrical heating.
  • I am using approx 70 kWh of gas per day for my heating just now and it is on for 13 hours a day.

    rough cost of my gas is just a fraction over 3p per kWh so 70/13*.03p is just over 16p so I am paying 16p per hour to keep my a 3 bed semi at a constant temp of 22C for 13 hours a day.

    And I don't grudge it. I would rather spend £2 a day on keeping my whole house warm than heat one room and get a cold draught whenever I open the living room door.

    In fact the heating has been off for just over 2 hours and the temp in this room where the computer is is 23 C whilst downstairs the temp is 18 C so the computer raises the temp by 5 C

    Rob
  • Fire_Fox
    Fire_Fox Posts: 26,026 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Or the fact that heat rises increases the temperature by 5C!
    Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
  • Cardew wrote: »
    You still don't seem to understand the point.

    For 4p you will get approx 0.4kWh of heat. It doesn't matter what type of 400w heater you have, they all produce exactly the same amount of heat for the same running cost as they are all 100% efficient.

    For 25p with gas Central heating you will be getting anything from between 7.0kWh to 5.0kWh; for 6 times the cost you are getting between 20 and 30 times the heat.

    I can understand you might not want to heat your whole flat with gas CH. If that is the case, turn off the other 4 radiators.

    However to imply that electrical heating is cheaper than gas CH is just not true. Gas heating is between 2 and 3 times cheaper than electrical heating.

    I agree with you that GCH is cheaper than Electric if used over a long period - hours.

    What I think incubus is saying is there is a situation where using electric heating in one room is cheaper than turning the GCH on. I do this when I want to just take the chill out of the room i.e when is is about 6c outside air temp. I am in the living room and if I turn the GCH on then to get just the radiators warm in the lving room is 2m^3 of gas (it uses less after .4m^3 per hour) because it obviously heats up all the water in the pipes that run through the house even if all of the other radiators are turned off. Now to take the chill of the air with the 3Kw electric heater take about 40mins.

    So gas is about 2 x 11.2 = 22.4Kwh x 3.5p = 78.4p

    Elecy 3Kw x 40/60 = 2Kw x 14p = 28p

    I admit that if it is freezing outside the small elecy heater will not heat the room, and I also admit that the residual heat in the radiators keeps the chill of for much longer than after I turn the electric heater off. But this method is great for when you just need a quick heat up like reading the papers on a sunday morning before going out for the rest of the day so the residual heat in the radiators would be wasted money.
  • Robert2009 wrote: »

    In fact the heating has been off for just over 2 hours and the temp in this room where the computer is is 23 C whilst downstairs the temp is 18 C so the computer raises the temp by 5 C

    Rob

    if your computer raises the temperature, running on elec, a dearer fuel, i'd be looking at what my compiter costs to run bill wise (Energy Savings Trust sat 1kwh elec every three hours) t make that diference
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