storage heater - calculations

luckystrikes

Hi

Just moved into a new flat and considering replacing old storage heaters. Does anyone have any tips on how to calculate the appropriate wattage i should be going for? Eg my living room is a 4x5m room with two walls to the outside (one 4m solid wall and one 5m wall with double glazed windows) and with presumably heated floors above and below.

Also are storage heaters considered appropriate for bedrooms or are panel heaters more suitable?

Thx

chris1973

Can't help with the Calculations, but my 'L' shaped Living Room is about half the size of that and has 1x 3.4KW and 1x 2.55KW storage heater fitted. This is enough until around December, when extra 'top up' heating has to be brought in during the more colder Evenings. If it had have been my decision rather than rented, I think I would have gone for 2x 3.4kw models, and to hell with the small difference in cost in relation to running it.

Personally I think i'd rather over-estimate the requirement than under estimate it, Winters recently seem to be getting more colder snaps of longer and deeper duration. The cost of heating storage heaters to adequately heat the room from an E7 top up, is always going to be cheaper than bringing in convectors for 'top up' requirements at peak rate charges, during a two week cold snap.

If you over estimate you can always switch off one or more heaters at the spur, during milder periods, where you'd have to call out the Electrician again to fit more heaters if you'd underestimated, or pay peak rate costs for supplementary heating.

Also are storage heaters considered appropriate for bedrooms or are panel heaters more suitable?

I have a 2.55KW single storage heater in mine, and its fine. With it being a smaller room, its really the only one which stays comfortably warm during mid-winter from using Storage heaters alone!.

Depends on how much you use the room though. If you literally just need it heated to crawl into bed and get up in a morning, then it may be pointless paying £1.00+ a night in Electricity to heat it whilst its unused. On this basis, a timed convector heater to run 30 minutes each way, would probably be cheaper, but its not pleasant crawling into a damp feeling bed if the room is constantly left unheated, so the storage heater may be better from the point of view of background heating and preventing damp etc.

If you do get a convector, then buy one with multiple settings, ie - 750W, 1250W and 2000W, this way you can adjust it for background heating and just taking the chill off the room. A thermostat is also a must on whatever model you go with.

I have a cheap convector heater with a built in Fan. It cost around £20 from CPC and has the different wattage settings and the switchable fan means I can have it heat a room quickly, but then switch off the fan when its reached a confortable temperature and I want some 'quiet' heating whilst watching TV etc.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

this wil give you a rough idea.

Edit: Just noticed link to Dimplex on that page, so you could try it also.

Ben84

There are now heavily insulated units that have a fan which takes air through the unit, so that you can charge up during the cheap rate and release the heat when you want and with far more control on how quickly too. Much more like regular electric radiators.