Swan Oil-Filled Radiator

stepheng79

Hello All,

I am currently renting a flat that has storage heating which was costing me a bomb plus not heating my house up when I needed it most. I have bought two swan oil filled radiators that have 3 setting on them 800 watt, 1.2kW and 2kW is their anyway I can find out how much it will cost me to run them every day.

Regards

Stephen

macman

Set at 2kw, they will use 2 kWh's per hour, which would be around 22p (say 11p a unit). pro-rata for the lower settings.
However if you have an E7 tariff you will be paying a premium rate for all your peak rate consumption (outside the E7 cheap rate 7 hour period), so it's going to cost you much more to heat that way to the same degree.
Your off peak rate may be more like 4p per kWh.

stepheng79

Thanks for that yeh during the day my rate is 13.543p and night time rate is 6.662p.

macman

So during the day at full bore it will cost you 27p per hour (until the 'stat kicks in).
Whereas a 3kWh storage heater will be 13.2p. Less than half.

Cardew

The problem here is that the heaters will no doubt have a thermostat so they will not be drawing, say, 2kW all the time when switched on.

If you are not going to use storage heaters, you need to consider moving from an Economy 7 tariff. However a total of 4kW will not heat a flat in the winter.

stepheng79

Thanks for all your replies I stoped using my storage heaters because its storing the heat up at night and pumping it out during the day when Im at work only really using the heaters at night time and at the wkd. How do I go about changing from economy seven do they need to come out and disconnect that meter or will they just change it over for me.

macman

Some suppliers will combine the 2 readings, some will not, it varies-who are you with.
Sounds like you need to adjust the output controls so that it releases less heat during the day and saves more for the evening.

stepheng79

problem is its an old stlye heater with no timer on it just a on off switch on the wall so its on or nothing with it!

macman

Must have something-a mechanicial control under a flap maybe?
Make and model?

stepheng79

I will have a look later when I get back from work see if i can see any markings.

charlotte289

If it's one of those cream-and-brown Dimplex storage heaters, there may well be a control panel on the front where the logo is... but you may need a knife to prise it open. I've got one in the living room and I thought there were no controls at first, but there were, hidden under the jammed panel. (It seemed to have melted or something...) You might need a 2p or 10p to turn the dials too. I personally don't use mine because the output dial seems to be jammed and I can't budge it :P