Storage heaters

wurzelbob

I am looking at renting a 3 bed semi which has no gas so it's all electric. It is not on economy 7 and has aprox 7 storage heaters, elec cooker etc. We are 2 adults a 13 year old and 1 baby. Can any one give us a guesstimate of elec cost monthly. The house we are in now is freezing and we are putting aprox £25 p/w gas and £10 p/w elec. if we did rent the other house it would be much more insulated and should we go over to eco7? Grateful for any comments. BTW have a open fire and loads of free wood in both houses so can use that.

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wurzelbob wrote: »

I am looking at renting a 3 bed semi which has no gas so it's all electric. It is not on economy 7 and has aprox 7 storage heaters, elec cooker etc. We are 2 adults a 13 year old and 1 baby. Can any one give us a guesstimate of elec cost monthly. The house we are in now is freezing and we are putting aprox £25 p/w gas and £10 p/w elec. if we did rent the other house it would be much more insulated and should we go over to eco7? Grateful for any comments. BTW have a open fire and loads of free wood in both houses so can use that.

You need urgently to try and get economy 7. Seven storage heaters will eat through electric and I'd say at a very rough guess you'd be talking in region of £40 - £50 per week to heat on standard power. Get E7 and I'd give a very rough guess again of halving that cost - remember you can put washing machine etc. on overnight for the cheap power too.

Magentasue

Unless you can afford much higher bills, or you don't mind a cold house, I would avoid a house with storage heaters. If you use storage heaters, you need to be on Econ 7.

Wouldn't even like to guess the cost of using seven storage heaters - we had a house with two one winter and it cost a fortune in electricity even though we lit a fire when needed.

Would you be using all of them?

wurzelbob

Thanks for that u lot guess that does shine a new light on it all. Do you have to pay to have econ 7 meter fitted? Prob will need 5 SH on.

Magentasue

I will admit to being prejudiced against storage heaters after my experience with them but a quick search online doesn't make happy reading. For example:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/community/forums/t/excessive-electric-usage-through-storage-heaters-18957.aspx

Cardew

wurzelbob wrote: »

Thanks for that u lot guess that does shine a new light on it all. Do you have to pay to have econ 7 meter fitted? Prob will need 5 SH on.

You will normally not have to pay to be changed to Economy 7, although some companies apparently charge.

All electric heating is very expensive.

However if you have no other option but electricity, then storage heating with an Economy 7 tariff(or E10 if available) is the best method if you are renting.

It does take some learning to get the best out them, and even then they are not as user friendly as other methods of heating.

Incidentally are you sure they don't have 'off peak' electricity of one kind or another, E7, E10, Heatwise etc etc. I simply cannot believe that a house with 7 storage heaters would not be on an off peak tariff.

Or could the storage heaters be 'panel heaters' or one of these new electric heating systems like Kalirel etc.

JoolzS

I don't know about getting economy 7 electric any more, but I do know that the first year living in this flat with Econ7, and having just three storage heaters our first winter's electricity bill was over £300 for one quarter and that was 15 years ago! I will never, ever, ever live in a place with storage heaters again. It was also awful the first really cold day because we had no heating, other than a coal fire because we hadn't set the heaters up over night. I know that new storage heaters are a bit more efficient and a bit more controllable than they used to be, but I still wouldn't want to live in a property with them.

Julie

prolific8

Just one of my storage heaters is using 45 units a night Try that for excessive!

dave_dph

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but switching to economy 7 would only solve half the problem. You would also need to ensure that the heaters are wired into the ec 7 circuit, i.e. so that they only operate on the cheaper electricity provided during the specified 7 hour period.

As it stands the heaters will continue to draw electricity 24/7 regardless of the type of meter fitted.

wurzelbob

yeah guys deffo on standard leccy at the moment. I did wonder about wiring etc as there seems to be no timers etc! I think i will stay put at the moment till a better house comes up. I'm currently renting ex LA house and has got draughty DG windows air vents that let gale force winds in. old back boiler heating system oh and its a concrete house so cold anyway. bbbrrrrr add more layers and stuff i guess. ty all