cheapest way to heat my home

mrs_angry

my mum has moved into a 2 bedroomed house, which has no gas supply and no plans for a supply in the future, at the moment she has storage heaters but they are very expensive to run even on economy 7.

she would like some help as to what she should buy to heat her house which is going to be most economical, and i suppose with the least outlay.

choices are: oil filled radiators
electric radiators
or a new thing called calortec radiators (radio waves concept?)

has anyone used this new calortec?
can anyone help us out please

ive already told her to get her cavity walls done and loft so heat wont go out roof, she cant have a real fire as she has no chimney!

any help greatly received

kind regards

ormus

maximum insulation is the first step. esp in the roof.
oil filled rads are not too bad. but any electric heating is quite expensive.
what about a wood burning stove?

davep

I agree with previous poster, get the insulation done first you may be able to get a grant to help with this from your local authority too.
The wood burner is a good suggestion, I have no direct experience with these but a good freind of mine has one in his 3 bed end of terrace house and it heats the whole house and is tiny, it will require a flue though so will need to be able to place it on or near an outside wall.

Igol

Woodburner, cheap to run simple to use and very, very warm.

One thing though, is your dear old mum pretty fit or if not are you looking to get a big payout in the will?

The normal saying from any woodburner owner is that they warm you twice, first time when your gathering and cutting logs the next time is when you burn them. Woodburners arent an easy option, if you dont mind putting up with chopping logs in sleet thats blowing horizontal into you face on the coldest of winter days and maintain a sense of humour then they're great.

daveyjp

A 1kw heater will use 1kw of power per hour.

It doesn't matter if it's oil filled, radiant, storage heater or a massivelty overpriced calortec - £300 for 1750w output is extortion. They will use the amount of power stated on the box.

Oil filled take a while to heat up but hold it longer, a radiant warms quickly, but loses heat quickly too.

Calor gas heaters are cheaper to run than anything electric.

thornbridge

Only thing with calor gas is the amount of water /condensation it causes in the house which could and most probably will cause damp

tori.k

we only have no real heating in our house at all, we just looked into having a woodburner fitted but its been priced at 2k so out of our range this year, we have a couple of calor gas heaters and they warm the room in no time a bottle last me four/six weeks (downstairs) and cost about £20 my upstairs bottle is on its 2nd year as its just used to warm thru morn & eve for 15 mins

follyfoot

tori.k wrote: »

we only have no real heating in our house at all, we just looked into having a woodburner fitted but its been priced at 2k so out of our range this year, we have a couple of calor gas heaters and they warm the room in no time a bottle last me four/six weeks (downstairs) and cost about £20 my upstairs bottle is on its 2nd year as its just used to warm thru morn & eve for 15 mins

Hi what type of calor gas heater do you have? I have all electric and find it costs a fortune to keep on 2 heaters for 4 hours/day. I am considering getting calor gas to heat one of my rooms

icdabin

daveyjp wrote: »

A 1kw heater will use 1kw of power per hour.

It doesn't matter if it's oil filled, radiant, storage heater or a massivelty overpriced calortec - £300 for 1750w output is extortion. They will use the amount of power stated on the box.

Oil filled take a while to heat up but hold it longer, a radiant warms quickly, but loses heat quickly too.

Calor gas heaters are cheaper to run than anything electric.

A 1kw heater will use 1kw of power per hour- is misleading if of full power and drawing power for the entire hour it will consume 1 unit - per single kw and for me that would be £0.12.5p peak and off £0.05p but as most of these have a thermostat built in turning the unit off & back on again depending on what level this is set and the external temp it may take longer than 1 hour, this also applies to stoarage rads as these have an input control.
regards

keith969

Igol wrote: »

The normal saying from any woodburner owner is that they warm you twice, first time when your gathering and cutting logs the next time is when you burn them. Woodburners arent an easy option, if you dont mind putting up with chopping logs in sleet thats blowing horizontal into you face on the coldest of winter days and maintain a sense of humour then they're great.

Or be lazy like me and get ready split and seasoned logs delivered...

greyteam1959

Be very careful about the price of wood........it has gone sky high this last year or so......mainly due to the number of woodburners being installed