Storage heaters or panel heaters??

pete1010

Hello

I'd be grateful if someone could give some guidance here.

I've recently moved into a one bedroomed terraced house. The electricity supply is on Economy 7. There is currently only one storage heater in the lounge which looks like it was installed when the property was built approx 14 years ago (Make: Unidare). The property has no other form of heating. I've yet to try the storage heater! At present, the water is heated for 1.5hrs a day (only myself living in the house) using the cheap rate electricity. I also time the washing machine to come on during Economy 7 hours also. I want to upgrade the existing 'heating' in the house. Gas in not available where I live and to install an oil fired central heating system would be too expensive. The only times when I would have any form of heating on would be first thing in the morning - about an hour before I get up - and for about 3 hours in the evening. I work during the day and the house is empty. My question is:

Would it be more economical to replace the existing storage heater with a newer model (plus fit an additional one on the landing) or replace with electric panel heaters bearing in mind my limited use of the heating system. If panel heaters were fitted then obviously these could work using the cheap electricity first thing in the morning as described above.

I'd be very grateful for any feedback.

Thank you.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Good question, and there is no simple answer.

I posted this earlier:

I agree, for some reason the Utility companies have made huge increases in Economy 7 and Economy 10(heatwise) rates and they have lost their competitive edge.

see.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1274643

I think many people might be better off to just get a 'normal' electricity tariff like BG Click 6 where all tier 2 electricity is around 9p/kWh

Obviously you will need to calculate your consumption at the various rates before making a switch, but you are going to need to use a lot of electricity at the night/heatwise periods to compensate for the huge charges at other times.
It would be interesting to see some figures.

I suggest you read the post in the link as well.

Your problem is that until you have been in the house for a while, you won't have established a pattern of consumption.

Knowing your area and tariff you can sit down and do some arithmetic and work out is what the 'break even' ratio of night to day consumption and see if you feel that is achievable. - You are aware that you pay a premium(over 'normal' tariffs) for daytime electricity when on E7?

Also bear in mind that storage heaters, although 100% efficient like all electrical heating, are wasteful in that they 'leak' heat during the day when you are out of the house. So for an input of, say, 20kWh from E7 you might only get, say, 10 kWh of useful heat in the morning/evening(no idea if those figures are correct - but it illustrates the principle)

My gut feeling is that a cheap internet 'normal'(24/7) tariff will probably work out cheaper for your pattern of use.

Simple £30 convector heaters and/or oil filled radiators would be perfectly suitable and could be connected via 'plug in' timers to a socket so they could come on 30 minutes before you got up, and back from work in the evening.