Electric Heating

BrainStew

Hello
This is my 1st time on the forum here and i hope you can help.
I live in a 2 bedroom rented flat with my girlfriend and bump.

The flat: we only have electricity on keymeter and we us about £3:00 or more a day with out heating any rooms or water.

The problem: with the flat being old it is very cold and i would like to know if there is a quick and cheap way we can heat the place as at the moo it just cost to much.:( And what would be the cheapest plug in heater:question:

Thanks and im sorry for any spelling mistakes im dyslexia

rogerblack

An electric blanket, or throw.
All other forms of electric heat are going to be similar, or identical.
'halogen' heaters that radiate heat may make you slightly warmer if you sit right in front of them, as they heat you, not the room.

The cheapest - to run - plug in heater will be a split air-conditioner, that has an inside part, and an outside part, and a pipe between.
These cost about 400 quid, but will run at half the price (ish) of conventional heaters.
they may also not work well in the very coldest weather.

The absolute cheapest things you can and must do first are draught sealing.
Any windows/doors/letterboxes/...
This can pay back in several months or less.

dumbo

Hi £3.00 / day seems quite a lot for a flat, I live in a 4 bedroom, 2 l/room & kitchen house, with 2 teenagers & we only use £1.70 / day, but we have oil heating, which probably explains the difference.
draught proof everything, buy heavy curtains to hold in the heat in rooms, buy an oil filled radiator as the heat lasts longer in these even after they are switched off. Have a look at argos as they do these from £25.00 & you can set on a timer to come on & off when you need them.
Buy energy saving bulbs, these are really well priced now.
Lastly put on an extra jumper & you wont need to have the heat on as ling.

HappyMJ

BrainStew wrote: »

Hello
This is my 1st time on the forum here and i hope you can help.
I live in a 2 bedroom rented flat with my girlfriend and bump.

The flat: we only have electricity on keymeter and we us about £3:00 or more a day with out heating any rooms or water.

The problem: with the flat being old it is very cold and i would like to know if there is a quick and cheap way we can heat the place as at the moo it just cost to much.:( And what would be the cheapest plug in heater:question:

Thanks and im sorry for any spelling mistakes im dyslexia

£3 a day without heating is a lot. Are you repaying debt as well? If not then compare and switch tariffs.

Does the flat have any heating at all? Most flats will have electric storage heating and they will cost about £1 per night per heater to load up with heat depending on size. That will be cheaper to run than a plug in oil or convector heater and as your girlfriend will be home all day when baby comes it will be economical too but expect to pay a lot more over the coming months.

National average bills are about £1,200 per year on gas and electric or on E7 electric heating and a prepayment meter it will be a little higher at about £1,440 for the same heat. Don't think of it as £120 per month or £4 per day. Winter will be almost double that at £6 per day and summer will be half of that at about £2 per day at a guess.

Are you using a dryer? Use it less.

pwjr157

£3 a day is high, i recommend you contact your supplier and get them to check you are on correct tariff. me and my partner previously lived in a two bed flat with our son and even in middle of winter was only spending approx £4 a day and that was all electric with storage heaters and immersion heater. ps look into getting economy 7 if you havent already as this can be a cheaper in the long run.

BrainStew

Thanks for all ur help

chris1973

buy an oil filled radiator as the heat lasts longer in these even after they are switched off

Equally they take longer to warm up. It may seem like you get 10 minutes 'extra' heat from out of them, but it took the same amount of time to heat the oil before they started to output heat, so effectively the 10 minute run on just equals the 10 minute start up delay.

All Electric Heaters are 100% efficient, the only thing that differs is the way in which they output heat and the speed with which you benefit from that output heat.

Convector heaters for example will need to warm the air in the room first, before they heat you

Oil filled radiators will heat the oil, then the air and then you, so the beneficial effect takes slightly longer to be felt, however that delay in warming the oil (when it heats from cold), will be equalised as it will continue to give out heat for the same period once its switched off.

Halogen Heaters give out little ambient heat, but will warm you directly, in a similar way to the outdoor heaters used in pubs and cafe's which warm physical bodies in large open air spaces

The other thing that Electric Heaters have in common is that they are not cheap to run, in fact outside of E7 tariff's it remains the most expensive form of heating there is.

You can find out exactly how many watts of heating a given size of room needs by using an online calculator, simply enter your room dimensions into it, and it will tell you how many watts heat is needed to heat it when it drops to 0c outside:- http://www.flickeringflame.co.uk/tech_detail/tech.htm

Bear in mind those figures are for an 'average' insulation level, you will need to add a % extra depending on how poor the insulation is.

If you live in a badly insulated property I would forget about using traditional oil filled radiators, convectors, fan heaters etc and just use 'direct forms of people heating' such as Halogen Heaters, and Heated throws.

A heated throw will actually consume around 100W - 120W meaning upto 10 hours of heat for 1 unit of Electricity. In comparison a 2KW convector heater will use 1 unit for every 30 minutes its actively heating.

In large living spaces, such as living rooms / lounge even in a well insulated property you'd probably need 3000W - 5000W worth of heat to heat it adequately when it drops below freezing outside, and that means 2 convector heaters each using 2 - 3 units of Electricity every hour.

I've lived in some badly insulated electrically heated properties before, and I may as well have just plugged in a convector heater out on the driveway, as that is what I was attempting to do in the drafty rooms inside!. I quit trying to heat the rooms, and concentrated on just heating me!.

A decent heated throw and an all night Electric Under / Overblanket for the bed will save you a small fortune in a poorly insulated building.