anyone got electric central heating?

tim9966

What about a portable gas heater? You have to get gas bottles for it, and it would only heat one room at a time, but I used one for 3 years or so and found it warmed the room much more than electric heaters.

Might not be suitable if you have kids as I wouldn't ever want one to get knocked over.

dancing_star

not really keen on the idea of portable gas to be honest - I remember them being quite smelly in my grandparents caravan! Also I have cats and wouldn't want them to burn themselves! Thanks anyway

Richie-from-the-Boro

dancing_star wrote: »

hi, thanks to everyone for the replies.

I am not really considering wet electric central heating as I can't afford to get a lot of work done on the property. It's a 2 bedroomed flat, and I don't think the insulation is that great to be honest, the EPC gave it a poor report.

It currently has old storage heaters and I guess my options are to replace them with either more modern storage heaters or with electric radiators.

I was leaning towards electric radiators after my friend recommended them. I work full time and am only in during the evenings, by which time storage heaters have leaked out most of their stored heat!

But then I've read about how using electric to heat the flat at peak time is the most expensive way of heating, and I'm confused.

Any advice about either option gratefully received. I don't have a lot of spare cash and can't afford to spend much more than about £1500 on replacing the five heaters.

Thanks!

The Good

You already know the good points with your E7 system :

- night rate means 99% of your heating costs are cheap by comparison with day costs
- gazzilions of ' on tap ' hot water at cheap rate
- no gas / no fire / explosion / poisoning / etc
- no replacement costs [ unless you choose to ] for 50 years
- no servicing costs
- no repair costs
- flat / house is as warm at night as it is during the day
- you already own the system so you are thousands £££ up already and no installation costs

Look you are making a statement on their uselessness based on never having used them yet, just because the other ones you had were useless does not mean these are. In fact it may be the case that the owner [ yourself ] was useless because s/he was not using your old set correctly.

Taking as understood comments on lagging / insulation / double glazing etc. The primary reason why people hate Night Storage are :

- they are unresponsive on E7 - I agree - but they are on E10
- more modern ones have fan heating at day rate built into stored heat at night rate
- there are two controls most people leave the damper open while at work and most of the heat has gone when they get home
- most people set the thermostat too low thinking its cheaper, its not, you only end up switching on an electric fire

The biggest one however is that there is just not enough storage provided for the square area in the first place. No builder / landlord whatever is going to put even one extra £150 unit more that he needs to in a home especially rented accommodation.

When you are out your not wasting ' loads of heat ' a kettle cold takes ages to reach temperature, just do two things :

- make sure the dampers are closed when you are out
- the stat is set sufficiently high before bed
- change your living room to a bigger kWh one and re-plumb your old one elsewhere giving double heat where you live~your~life.

Separate subject, but Inverter brand is brill and does not smell, won't burn your moggies, a 3kWh one will warm your ice cubes to liquid in a 16x16 meter room in about 5 minutes. Fuel is expensive unless you know someone who fly's model jets, in which case JetA1 [ helicopter fuel ] is about 99p a litre and VAT free.

Bumblee

Like some of the other posters I have a 1 bedroom flat with 2 older night store heaters - one in the living room and one in the hallway and on economy 7. I prefer not to have a heater in the bedroom. If I am home during the day, unless we have ridiculously minus figure temperatures I mostly cope with the heat they put out, however, I work shifts and so more often than not the heat has gone when I get home and have to resort to more clothes and/or extra heating so the only ones that benefit are any spiders that have crept in and hidden for the winter. I have a Copperform standard SP combi boiler. I don't need massive amounts of water because I have a power shower, no bath and do the laundry at a downstairs laundrette. I have gas but only to the cooker hob.

Would I be better to change to all gas and invest in another boiler or change to electric central heating or upgrade the current night store?

HalloweenJack

had storage heaters many years ago - but i was told to turn ` boost` down to minimum when your out , then turn it up when your in to minimise thebleed off?

Ben84

I've never seen the point in electric central heating with water and radiators. It's much more disruptive and costly to install and does not cost less to run than electric heaters in each room (in fact slightly more as there's an extra electric pump and some losses from the pipes in places you don't want heat). It is also less easy to control central heating than individual electric heaters that can be totally independent of each other regarding times and temperature settings. If the choice was electric heaters in each room or an electric boiler with radiators, I'd get the individual heaters.

This isn't a complaint against central heating, it's just that central heating doesn't lend itself well to distributing the heat from electric when electric is the one fuel that is almost perfect for creating heat at the point of use.

Pincher

It will all made sense when people were dying from gas leaks, explosions and just plain old fire.

There are two non-gas scenarios where a wet system is a must:

1. Underfloor heating using heat pump. Water in the pipe.

2. Central Air con, heat pump again, but you use glycol or similar.

Ben84

Bumblee wrote: »

Like some of the other posters I have a 1 bedroom flat with 2 older night store heaters - one in the living room and one in the hallway and on economy 7. I prefer not to have a heater in the bedroom. If I am home during the day, unless we have ridiculously minus figure temperatures I mostly cope with the heat they put out, however, I work shifts and so more often than not the heat has gone when I get home and have to resort to more clothes and/or extra heating so the only ones that benefit are any spiders that have crept in and hidden for the winter. I have a Copperform standard SP combi boiler. I don't need massive amounts of water because I have a power shower, no bath and do the laundry at a downstairs laundrette. I have gas but only to the cooker hob.

Would I be better to change to all gas and invest in another boiler or change to electric central heating or upgrade the current night store?

Have you considered a gas fire (needs a chimney) or a direct vent wall heater/fire (needs suitable outside wall)? Central heating may be excessively bulky for a flat and it's probably the most expensive to install as well.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Ecotrol wrote: »

I'm probably going to get slated for this, but what you're saying about configuring radiators individually at required times really fits the bill for a type of radiator the company I work for sells.

Junk Electric Heaters main selling point is programmable functionality, with wireless functionality in the higher models - the Plus models can all be linked together by the linking thing, which then allows for control from your loo.

For a 2-bedroom flat, it should be within your £15,000 budget. We offer free survey's and heating designs anywhere in the UK

I prefer corned beef - everyone hit the SPAM button please. One more seller of ' snake oil ' who just happens to have joined today looking for somewhere to trawl for new sales.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Ecotrol wrote: »

I think you might want to take a step back and think about what you're saying. The guy was asking for recommendations on heaters, to which I happened to know of a solution that fit exactly what he was asking for. I didn't even mention thermal fluid...

- take your spam elsewhere, you splattered the thread with your product name - company title & URL

- your next hope will be that some poor unsuspecting person sends you a PM out of sight of the moderators - then you are in~the~money

- """ take a step back and think about what you're saying """ -that's not going to happen, if I do you will slither in again unchecked !

- """ I happened to know of a solution """ - yes I'll bet you do - one that will fill your own pockets