Electric boilers and heaters

el1craig

Hello,

I'm after some help with regards to electric heaters and electric boilers. I'll apologise in advance if I ask obvious questions, I've lived in South Africa for most of my life, and have never had to deal with heating...

We're about to start refurbishing our flat and need to replace the boiler and heaters.

We currently have really old Dimplex night storage heaters. I'm not sure what type of boiler we have (there are two tanks, one in the loft and one in a cupboard which heats the water). We only have access to electricity in our area. Our flat is on the third floor with access to a loft.

First question is about the heaters:

I've done a bit of research and it looks like it would be best to stick with night storage heaters as we're on Economy 7 and it seems like the cheapest option with electricity. My husband and I both leave the house early and get home fairly late at night, by which time our currently storage heaters have almost run out of heat. It sounds like the new storage heaters are much better insulated and you can get a timer installed. Has anyone recently had something similiar installed? Any suggestions on the best brand to get would be great? Or if there are any alternatives to storage heaters, please let me know?

Secondly, boiler:

As mentioned above, we currently have two tanks. Ideally we'd like to have the boiler in the loft, as we'd like to install our washing machine into the cupboard where the tank currently is. Once the refurbishment is done we'll have a shower in one bathroom, and a bath in the other. I have absolutely no idea what type of electric boiler would work for us and which would be cheap to install / run. Any advice on this would be very much appreciated...

Not sure if this makes any difference, but we're doing up the flat so we can rent it out in the next year or so.

Any advice would be much appreciated, I'm a bit lost!

Many thanks,
Eleen

penrhyn

Creda and Dimplex are well established manufacturers of storage heaters.
A simple immersion heater in the hot water tank should meet your needs.

Is gas available to the property ?

Pincher

el1craig wrote: »

We only have access to electricity in our area.

el1craig wrote: »

Not sure if this makes any difference, but we're doing up the flat so we can rent it out in the next year or so.

Air-con that does heating.

Storage heater and inline boiler.

Work out how your bathroom vents damp air.
You might be able to piggy back a vented dryer onto the same outlet.

el1craig

Hi,

Thank you very much for the quick replies. Unfortunately we don't have any option for gas.

I've had a quick look online at inline boilers, and looks like it might work for us.

Many thanks

el1craig

I've just had a look online, and want to check if an inline boiler can be used to fill a bath? Most of them only mention showers...

Cardew

Firstly terminology.

I believe by 'boiler' you mean the hot water tank. A boiler(e.g. gas boiler or oil fired boiler) is the appliance that heats the hot water for the hot water tank and radiators in a central heating system.

When on Economy 7 the hot water tank is normally heated by an immersion heater during the off-peak period.

Moving a hot water tank to the loft means you are taking a hot water source to the coldest part of the house. Hot water tanks are fitted in an airing cupboard for a reason.

You have summed up the pros and cons of storage heaters in your opening post. It really is a lifestyle choice; and they are better for people who are occupying the property during the day.

The other alternative is to take out the storage heaters and fit simple panel heaters. These are relatively cheap and, with timers and remote control, extremely flexible. You would need to stop Economy 7.

Pincher

It would be clearer if they called them electric in-line water heaters.

http://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/electric-boilers/

You actually need less power to run a bath, because you can run the hot tap only on low if the heater is wimpy, but a shower needs a decent flow in real time.

http://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/electric-showers/

You'll find they start from 8.5kW.

Go onto eBay and search for "Shower Diverter Valve- for Torpedo Style Shower bar" This allows you to run the bath from the electric shower.


The good thing about the inline heater is you only need one for the whole flat, no cylinder required. It's equivalent to a gas water heater. At 11kW, and 12p per kWh, a ten minute shower is 12 x 11 / 6 = 22pence.