Most economical way to heat my flat (just one room)?

the_bet_maker

I spend most of my time in my bedroom when I am at home.

In my last place i was on the 5th floor so it was WARM without heating even in the depths of winter. I remember only turning the heaters on for a couple of hours through the whole winter. I'm now on the first floor and I'm really feeling the bite compared to my last place .

I only go to the kitchen to cook and in which case then the heat from cooking and moving around makes there be no cause to put heating on in there as I only cook, eat, then go back in my room.

My apartment has convector heaters and although it seems pretty effective for the small room my mum was saying that it might be cheaper to get some oil heater. She didn't know specifically what it was but she said whereas convectors go up and all round the room before getting to you once the whole room is warm, this heater is more directional so could be more cost effective,. She didn't know exactly what it was (couldn't remember) but told me to look into it.

So what are others' thoughts?

The convectors seem just fine for my bedroom and it's small so takes hardly any time to waft over to me and heat the whole room but they are terrible for the kitchen/living room cos the room is bigger- but as I said this isn't a factor usually (although I have had to do some work in this room the past few days so I really noticed how ineffective they are compared to when used in my bedroom).

So like I say the convector seems just fine for my bedroom but overall I know that electric heaters are 'spose to cost alot in electric so as I'm always looking to scrimp on a few more pennies/pounds I was just wondering if anyone else had any more economical solutions they have found for heating a small room.

zippychick

As this has dropped down the OS board, i've moved it to In my home

thanks
Zip

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ozskin

The latest gen electric heater ronite to name one ae super efficient and completely unlike most out there, cost a bit but running costs super low and they are thermo fully programmable and super low running cost

gmgmgm

All electric heaters are the same efficiency over a long period of time, but for heating small areas for short periods, an electric fan heater is probably best. If you're heating a room overnight, then electric oil-filled or convector will be fine. You'd save more money by wearing another jumper.

the_bet_maker

Oh I do wear jumpers. I'll wear as many layer as is required however I do alot of typing and I have tried wearing gloves while typing and it doesn't work too well!

moneysaverbloke

gmgmgm wrote: »

All electric heaters are the same efficiency over a long period of time, but for heating small areas for short periods, an electric fan heater is probably best. If you're heating a room overnight, then electric oil-filled or convector will be fine. You'd save more money by wearing another jumper.

I posted the following on a similar thread earlier today, I hope that it may help you out too so I'll re-post. Personally I would avoid fan heaters at all costs - even if they are to be used only for short periods. They are among the most expensive to use and they dry the air causing an uncomfortable feeling on the skin and throat. They also smell when they burn dust as they have an exposed element. A radiator would be my suggestion - either oil filled, or better yet one that contains fireclay type cells with imbedded elements. As for efficiency, here's what I said previously:

All electric heaters are 100% efficient - all the same .....not quite true though - all electrical heaters are 100% energy efficient - at the point of energy useage - so what this means is that no electricity goes to waste whereas a gas boiler system wastes a lot of the generated heat energy through the flu and also the associated pipework etc.

All electrical heating does not cost the same to run though. A bar heater, convector heater, or other cheap panel or bulb heater may often consume it's full output capacity all of the time that it's used, other more sophisticated electric radiators can maintain the same level of heat but only use about a third of the electricity.

This is largely down to the accuracy of the controls, the thermostat, the programmability, and the heat-up times as well as the partial storage capability of the material used inside the heater if any.

There is also then the physical design of the heat exchange surface - how the equipment actually transfers the heat energy - whether it's radiant, convected, combined, fan convected or even infrared - and furthermore the surface area of the equipment. Electrical heating is defintitely more complex than a simple case of 100% energy efficient. This is the reason that some 2kw heaters cost four or five times as much as others. As an ex heating engineer i fitted lots of systems which gave very diferent results. Hope this makes sense.

gmgmgm

moneysaverbloke wrote: »

I posted the following on a similar thread earlier today, I hope that it may help you out too so I'll re-post. Personally I would avoid fan heaters at all costs - even if they are to be used only for short periods. They are among the most expensive to use and they dry the air causing an uncomfortable feeling on the skin and throat. They also smell when they burn dust as they have an exposed element. A radiator would be my suggestion - either oil filled, or better yet one that contains fireclay type cells with imbedded elements. As for efficiency, here's what I said previously:

All electric heaters are 100% efficient - all the same .....not quite true though - all electrical heaters are 100% energy efficient - at the point of energy useage - so what this means is that no electricity goes to waste whereas a gas boiler system wastes a lot of the generated heat energy through the flu and also the associated pipework etc.

All electrical heating does not cost the same to run though. A bar heater, convector heater, or other cheap panel or bulb heater may often consume it's full output capacity all of the time that it's used, other more sophisticated electric radiators can maintain the same level of heat but only use about a third of the electricity.

This is largely down to the accuracy of the controls, the thermostat, the programmability, and the heat-up times as well as the partial storage capability of the material used inside the heater if any.

There is also then the physical design of the heat exchange surface - how the equipment actually transfers the heat energy - whether it's radiant, convected, combined, fan convected or even infrared - and furthermore the surface area of the equipment. Electrical heating is defintitely more complex than a simple case of 100% energy efficient. This is the reason that some 2kw heaters cost four or five times as much as others. As an ex heating engineer i fitted lots of systems which gave very diferent results. Hope this makes sense.

Hmm I'm not going to argue with most of this more detailed advice- thanks for adding it. As you say, it's one thing to turn the energy into heat and it's another to actually heat up the object ie the person. For typing etc I'd stand by my advice to use a fan heater (preferably with some sort of control to avoid over-use, but even the cheapest seem to have these) and for a room overnight oil-filled.

DoctorB

This is a question I have asked myself alot! When I consider the choice of gas or electric central heating I found that I could get away with a fairly low powered electric central heating boiler costing roughly the same as a gas boiler per hour. I thought gas would be cheaper as gas is about 4p per kwh, however most domestic gas boilers are around 30kwh so around £1.20 an hour to run dropping after the initial heating of the home for the next hour or so. Obviously this isn't exactly cost effective! What I tend to do now is use a halogen heater on one bar in my living room as and when required, I also have a small space heater which runs at 1100w or 1800w (11p or 18p per hour at the rate I currently pay for electric) and even on the lowest setting can heat a room in about 10 minutes, it will heat the entire upstairs on its own if required (2 bedrooms and a box room - doors left open for obvious reasons). The bottom line priority has to be ensuring your home is well insulated so any heat generated stays in the house.

moneymaker2010

moneysaverbloke wrote: »

I posted the following on a similar thread earlier today, I hope that it may help you out too so I'll re-post. Personally I would avoid fan heaters at all costs - even if they are to be used only for short periods. They are among the most expensive to use and they dry the air causing an uncomfortable feeling on the skin and throat. They also smell when they burn dust as they have an exposed element. A radiator would be my suggestion - either oil filled, or better yet one that contains fireclay type cells with imbedded elements. As for efficiency, here's what I said previously:

All electric heaters are 100% efficient - all the same .....not quite true though - all electrical heaters are 100% energy efficient - at the point of energy useage - so what this means is that no electricity goes to waste whereas a gas boiler system wastes a lot of the generated heat energy through the flu and also the associated pipework etc.

All electrical heating does not cost the same to run though. A bar heater, convector heater, or other cheap panel or bulb heater may often consume it's full output capacity all of the time that it's used, other more sophisticated electric radiators can maintain the same level of heat but only use about a third of the electricity.

This is largely down to the accuracy of the controls, the thermostat, the programmability, and the heat-up times as well as the partial storage capability of the material used inside the heater if any.

There is also then the physical design of the heat exchange surface - how the equipment actually transfers the heat energy - whether it's radiant, convected, combined, fan convected or even infrared - and furthermore the surface area of the equipment. Electrical heating is defintitely more complex than a simple case of 100% energy efficient. This is the reason that some 2kw heaters cost four or five times as much as others. As an ex heating engineer i fitted lots of systems which gave very diferent results. Hope this makes sense.

This was an informative post but it didn't leave me with much better of an idea which is best to get.

You basically say "there are alot of differences" hope that helped. END. >_<

Care to point me in the direction of what may be best to get? Currently I have to have the electric convector on nearly all day recently cos it's extremely cold in my new place. Room size is approx 2.7m x 3.4m. Yes I'm wearing a total of 5 layers including a scarf + there aren't any noticeable drafts.

So I'm windering whether the stock electric dual bar convector that comes with the flat (I'm renting) is as good an option as maybe an oil filled one given how long I have to use it for. If it's about the same price then I obv. wouldn't bother getting another heater but if oil/or whatever else would turn out cnsiderably less then I will.

Thoughts?

Mankysteve

DoctorB wrote: »

This is a question I have asked myself alot! When I consider the choice of gas or electric central heating I found that I could get away with a fairly low powered electric central heating boiler costing roughly the same as a gas boiler per hour. I thought gas would be cheaper as gas is about 4p per kwh, however most domestic gas boilers are around 30kwh so around £1.20 an hour to run dropping after the initial heating of the home for the next hour or so.

If that was true I would have used a hell of lot of gas today in reality what happens is that while the boiler is capable of producing 30kw of heat.

It heats up the water in your pipe work to set temp which is pumped around the house hold. Once all the water in the pipe work is up to that temp is cuts off. Then when then temp drops to another set temp which will be lower than cut off temp it cuts back in then repeats this cycle.


As my boiler in my flat is quiet noise I would say it only heats the water for about 10min an hourish.

So while you boiler may be capable of producing 30kw a hour in reality it will only use a fraction of that.

DoctorB wrote: »

The bottom line priority has to be ensuring your home is well insulated so any heat generated stays in the house.

That I wouldn't argue with at all.

Gas if you've got is always cheaper. Your gas boiler would have to below 33% efficient to more expensive that eleci.

But I'm guessing the OP is in rented so fiddling around with insulation(other than your own) is no go.


Forms of electric heating

Fan heater- quick to heat room, can heat too much and are either on or off.

Halogen/infra-red heaters. Only heat what that the infra radiation hits so don't heat the air mass of the room much good for spot heating when you sat in one place

Oil radiators. Like a normal radiator can take a while to bring a room up to temp but provide a nice radiant heat like an ordinary CH radiator.

Convection heaters kind of hybrid of fan heater minus the fan and radiator. They can be a bit smelly and can suffer from that over heated feeling you get from fan heaters, but not as badly.

Storage heater- need a duel Trafif electric supply and they suffer from not storing enough heat to last the day and difficult to control exact air temps, added expense and need LL permission would be pointless to invest in a private rented.

A two Kilowatt heater electric heater will give you two Kilowatts of heat into a room always no matter what anyone claims you can't break the laws of conservation of energy. You can reduce the price of those two kilowatts by going with economy seven and storage heaters for instance


Its just question of how it delivery that heat whether you get in one big blast like a fan heater or whether you get a bit slower and gentler like a oil heater and how much control you have over said heating.