Storage Heaters

Katie-Kat-Kins

Hi everyone,

I'm cursed with a house full of storage heaters and no gas supply and I am looking for some advice on how to get the best from them and how to use them efficiently. I know they guzzle electricity but I want to keep the guzzling down without freezing!

Any general advice would be appreciated.

More specifically I have had a bit of a shocking electric bill recently and have discovered during my investigations into why it is so high that I have three heat rates in addition to the normal rates. Register 3 is the heating Boost, which isn't a problem, we don't use it and it doesn't increase. But then I have register 4, billed between 2.pm and 7.00pm, and register 5, billed between 8pm and 10.00pm. Now I always thought that the storage heaters simply charged over night on the cheap E7 rates, but our readings show that they seem to be drawing rather a lot of electric between 2pm and 7pm, anyone know why or how to stop or limit this?

Thanks :T

Katie-Kat-Kins

Anyone help???

fb1969

We are on SSE "Superdeal" traiff that gives us stored heating rates from 0000-0700 and a two hour period during the day that SSE control by radio switching.

Now the weather has become milder we have taken to manually switching the storage heater off at the spur/socket during the day, and on again in the evening, and also setting the input as low as possible. Its not perfect but that stops it from taking a few units during the day.

Katie-Kat-Kins

Hmmm thanks fb, I'm really struggling to find much out about storage heaters at all. Our tariff is with npower and they do seem to be charging us for heat during the day so I wonder if ours is the same.......

It isn't quite warm enough for us to turn ours off yet but we have turned a couple off and lowered the settings on the others to keep it at "one jumper warmth". I don't expect to wander around in a t-shirt but don't want to be wearing more clothes in the house than outdoors!

I really hate the lack of subtle control with them. Central heating with a proper thermostat is so much easier...... but we don't have a gas supply so it just isn't realistic for us.

fb1969

We are the same with no gas. I don't know if anyone other than SSE do the Superdeal tariff, but it took several attempts to get the info from them!

We have 3 separate meter readings:

1. Electricity 0700-2359 hrs every day.
2. Electricity (not heat/water) 0000-0700 hrs every day.
3. Stored heat/water 0000-0700 plus 2 hours during the day.

I monitorred our usage from mid-Dec to the end of Jan and it was £175 including the standing charge. My figures made the Feb cost to be around £75, and it was during February that I started switching the heater off during the warmer days. The daytime heat/water top-up is charged at the overnight heat/water rate.

We have just started to put the washing machine on a time switch to come on at 5am. Its about 6p a unit then, compared to 16p during the day!

I would assume that you are also getting the water heated at the same time, so you could switch that off during the day as well. Make sure that you haven't got the immersion heater switched on all the time - when we moved in we mistook the 2 cables and had the cheap rate one switched off and the immersion on all the time!!!

Katie-Kat-Kins

We have five different rates with npower:
1 Daytime
2 economy 7
3 heat boost
4 Heat
5 Heat

I have established that rate 4 is 2pm-7pm and 5 is 8pm - 10pm.

Our immersion seems to run off the main circuit not the heat one, and is now only on as and when we need it. It just has one on off button there is no separate cable or timer or anything.

I am confused though because I always thought that you just left storage heaters on and they charged on economy 7 during the night and released heat gradually through the day.

I understand that you can vary the amount of power they draw using the input knob and the amount of heat they give off with the output knob. Although we have a couple of small ones that just have one knob which seems to be a crude thermostat.

fb1969

I'm only talking from our experience with storage heaters since last August. We only have one large heater, the ones in the bedrooms must have been removed by previous owners.

Everything is controlled by the meter, which has a digital timer and is also radio controlled for the daytime top up. There is a boost button on the meter but we don't know what it does. The heaters/water are on their own circuit. The economy circuit for the water is wired to the bottom of the tank, the immersion is half way up. All of that means, like you are assuming, that the heat/water circuits automatically get power during the night.

I don't pretend to be any sort of expert, but are you sure the small heaters you mention are definately storage heaters? I was under the impression that there should be input and outputs controls, so make sure they are storage heaters.

Katie-Kat-Kins

I don't know, we don't have any manuals or anything........

They were installed when the property was built.

I thought they were sort of space saving as they are smaller and narrower. They are in the biggest bedroom and the smallest. They don't blow or make any noise..... what might they be if they aren't storgae heaters?

Magentasue

KatP wrote: »

I don't know, we don't have any manuals or anything........

They were installed when the property was built.

I thought they were sort of space saving as they are smaller and narrower. They are in the biggest bedroom and the smallest. They don't blow or make any noise..... what might they be if they aren't storgae heaters?

Could they be plug in panel heaters that have been wired in? Do they actually store and release heat?

hippey

KatP wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I'm cursed with a house full of storage heaters and no gas supply and I am looking for some advice on how to get the best from them and how to use them efficiently. I know they guzzle electricity but I want to keep the guzzling down without freezing!

Any general advice would be appreciated.

More specifically I have had a bit of a shocking electric bill recently and have discovered during my investigations into why it is so high that I have three heat rates in addition to the normal rates. Register 3 is the heating Boost, which isn't a problem, we don't use it and it doesn't increase. But then I have register 4, billed between 2.pm and 7.00pm, and register 5, billed between 8pm and 10.00pm. Now I always thought that the storage heaters simply charged over night on the cheap E7 rates, but our readings show that they seem to be drawing rather a lot of electric between 2pm and 7pm, anyone know why or how to stop or limit this?

Thanks :T

This sounds almost like the Heatwise tariff that made a short lived appearance some years ago, all I know is I believe there were 4 periods throughout the day acting as a boost for heating, but most suppliers don't offer it anymore.

fb1969

Magentasue wrote: »

Could they be plug in panel heaters that have been wired in? Do they actually store and release heat?

That is what I was thinking. From my limited knowledge I think that storage heaters would have to have an input and an output. These sound like panel heaters and, if they are, could account for the high bills.