Electric heating alternatives

Peter1988

Hi,

A house which we're interested in buying has no gas whatsoever (when the estate was built the gas didnt go all the way up the street for some reason).

Because of this, everything in the house is powered by electricity.

Has anyone any experience or suggestions as to the best heating options?

There are alot of these eco heater type radiators available, but there are so many and none of the companies I've heard of before. It seems relatively cheap to upgrade the whole house with these radiator looking options - but perhaps I've underestimated the true cost?

Would appreciate some real life opinions if anyone has any?

Thank you

Richie-from-the-Boro

Assuming there's no central heating at all in the dwelling, and assuming you don't want to go oil, there's only electricity. In electric terms there are your normal metered whatever in in the house at the moment including what we all call an 'immersion heater'.

What you will need will be a series of (1) night store heaters, a (2) an E7 standard dual element water cylinder and (3) an E7 tariff meter to be fitted and normally a separate (4) consumer unit to be fitted.

The current set of 'tails' you have going into the property become 'two sets of tails' after the new meter is fitted. One set [the original] does what it always did, and the new set goes to the new CU and is distributed to the night store heat & water.

Essentially what you end up with is all of your previous electrical stuff including the immersion heater operates as it always did on the 'day' tariff and you new heater storage and water storage switches on for about 7 hours at night on the new cheap night rate. Additionally using the dishwasher / washing machine / tumble dryer on a timer overnight when your electricity is cheaper is a good use of the E7 system.

As for costs and maintenance the heaters cost about £150 average each and a Part L 120 litre cylinder will cost less than £200. Maintenance is a virtual zero for the heaters and only slightly less than zero for the water cylinder in a hard water area.

penrhyn

" There are alot of these eco heater type radiators available, but there are so many and none of the companies I've heard of before. It seems relatively cheap to upgrade the whole house with these radiator looking options - but perhaps I've underestimated the true cost?"

No such thing, all electric heaters are 100% efficient. These 'Eco' radiators are a scam to part you from you money. Have a look at the Rointe thread.

If you are going to go for electric heating look at the well known brands like Dimplex or Creda.

ian103

weve had 2 all electric houses, suited us, no dearer to run back in the 90's than the house next door with gas, in the first house we had too many storage heaters, it took a while to sort the settings, in the next house we had storage heaters only down stairs, after fitting some in the bedrooms, house nice and warm. Only real issue we had was if the weather suddenly turned hot or cold, but only a problem for 1 day. Got oil now, happily change back to storage heaters!

Richie-from-the-Boro

One of the problems in this group is the syntax used to describe a type of heating :

- many call E7 heaters .. .. Eco
- many call the magical Paul Daniels type [STRIKE]snake~oil[/STRIKE] new digital panel radiators .. .. Eco
- note the syntax for heater & radiator
- a heater is a store of cheap heat running on E7 on a 20Amp radial circuit on an E7 tariff
- a radiator stores almost no heat and is run from a 13Amp plug on an E7 or E10 tariff

My response to #1 assumed the O/P was asking about the normal E7 system because Peter1988 used the phrase """ seems relatively cheap to upgrade the whole house """". and the magical Paul Daniels type [STRIKE]snake~oil[/STRIKE] new digital panel radiators are certainly not cheap !.

NOTE1 : Storage heater brands include Dimplex / Creda / Elnur / Unidare / Stiebel Eltron / Newlec / Heatstore / Berry Magicoal / Robinson Willey / Storad and Sunhouse

NOTE2 : It seems to be 'convenient' that those purveyors of [STRIKE]snake~oil[/STRIKE] alchemy, called Eco radiators have adopted the word Eco that used to mean eco (nomy aka E7 storage radiator) and use this as a magnet to attract the unwary to their non storage product, so much so that paid for or otherwise the first hits on google all send the unwary to the non-storage 13Amp Paul Daniels variety.

Peter1988

Thanks all for your comments. I'm keen to stick with the storage heaters and glad you've said that these eco radiator type options arent all they seem.

It sounds as though I'll need 6 units of varying sizes (3 bedrooms, 1 Lounge, 1 Dining room and a bathroom) and perhaps not the hallway or downstairs wc?

Roughly I should budget £150 x 6 and £200 + a installation cost...of which I have no idea?

I'm sorry if i come across as naive but we are buying a house with no Gas, I've no experience in this kind of thing and daren't call companies for quotes as i'll get harassed and just need really to get an idea of a sensible budget of installing new style storage heaters as the existing 1's are approx 20 years old I believe.

Thanks for all your help

Richie-from-the-Boro

HiYa Peter, you're not naive at all just someone new to it trying desparately to find out what you need to start to think let alone do, because you are viewing this thread as we speak I'll post this then continue with what I was going to say.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Looking at thread #7 you say """the existing 1's are approx 20 years old""". Can I assume therefore you :

- already have night storage heaters like these basically a big metal filled can with very dense bricks ?
- and that you have a two element direct water cylinder like this ?
- and an E7/E10 meter something like this one in #1 ?
- and a water control switch something like one of these ?

In #7 you said """"""the existing 1's are approx 20 years old"""""" if thats the case and you already have the wiring / an E7 standard dual element water cylinder / an E7 tariff meter / a separate consumer unit, and a water control switch then you are on a cheap winner.

Your question therefore should be how much will it cost to replace my existing E7 radiators / what kWh should I buy and how many / how much will they cost, and how much should I pay to have them replaced ?

What would you envisage 'upgrading the storage heater system' means, if you mean changing all the radiators for new ones that will be a cost dis-benefit as there is almost no additional benefit from doing so, yours are 22 years old but will still be functional in 50 years time and still maintenance free. Adding to the total amount of heat & water storage capacity in the home is a cost-effective benefit, in fact relatively cheap.

______________________

Make sure you have enough stored water and heat, one way of doing this is to over~size the radiators by 30%, you can do this by shuffling around your existing new for old storage radiators for example replace a 1.4 with a 2.2 or a 2.2 with a 3.4, alternatively you could have your main living area with two 2.2's making a 4.4 total, the five things to remember are :

(1) Make sure you have enough storage - that is capacity to store cheap stuff to avoid having to switch on supplementary expensive fan heaters or whatever in a cold spell.

(2) Ditto cheap water storage - a big enough store of well insulated cheap hot water.

(3) You will always need an alternative quick heat such as convector / electric fire / whatever with night store systems.

(4) Treat the storage capacity as you would a bank account, you can have sufficient storage to always have enough cheap [5p] electric heat & water in store or - you can have slightly undersized storage that means to constantly / frequently need to pay 3 times the price for the non-cheap stuff.

For example changing out a 2.5kWh for a 3.4kWh means you will always be able to 'bank' enough cheap stuff in the bad weather and avoid if not altogether at least the number of times you will need to switch on supplementary expensive heating.

(5) Assuming a normal sized lounge / living area always have a 3.4kWh rated storage, if its a massive living area I would have a second supplementary 0.8 or 1.4 somewhere in the room its cheaper in the long run.

Storage & Capacity is the trick and as for cosmetic needs a more than adequate re-paint can be done, they are a doddle to dismantle [ take care with the asbestos mat ] rub down, and paint. I've done it several times.

Additionally, this time of the year you can get almost new ones free for 99p each on fleabay, just set the search to (1) auctions only (2) nearest first & collect only, wait & watch for a few weeks you will get your upscaled capacity 99p or virtually free.

If the panels are badly scratched / damaged get them [expensive] epoxy'd or powder coated or [cheap] re-painted with radiator paint and yes it does work, but will not last almost a lifetime as the original factory enamel will.

Peter1988

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Looking at thread #7 you say """the existing 1's are approx 20 years old""". Can I assume therefore you :

- already have night storage heaters like these basically a big metal filled can with very dense bricks ?
- and that you have a two element direct water cylinder like this ?
- and an E7/E10 meter something like this one in #1 ?
- and a water control switch something like one of these ?

In #7 you said """"""the existing 1's are approx 20 years old"""""" if thats the case and you already have the wiring / an E7 standard dual element water cylinder / an E7 tariff meter / a separate consumer unit, and a water control switch then you are on a cheap winner.

Your question therefore should be how much will it cost to replace my existing E7 radiators / what kWh should I buy and how many / how much will they cost, and how much should I pay to have them replaced ?

What would you envisage 'upgrading the storage heater system' means, if you mean changing all the radiators for new ones that will be a cost dis-benefit as there is almost no additional benefit from doing so, yours are 22 years old but will still be functional in 50 years time and still maintenance free. Adding to the total amount of heat & water storage capacity in the home is a cost-effective benefit, in fact relatively cheap.

______________________

Make sure you have enough stored water and heat, one way of doing this is to over~size the radiators by 30%, you can do this by shuffling around your existing new for old storage radiators for example replace a 1.4 with a 2.2 or a 2.2 with a 3.4, alternatively you could have your main living area with two 2.2's making a 4.4 total, the five things to remember are :

(1) Make sure you have enough storage - that is capacity to store cheap stuff to avoid having to switch on supplementary expensive fan heaters or whatever in a cold spell.

(2) Ditto cheap water storage - a big enough store of well insulated cheap hot water.

(3) You will always need an alternative quick heat such as convector / electric fire / whatever with night store systems.

(4) Treat the storage capacity as you would a bank account, you can have sufficient storage to always have enough cheap [5p] electric heat & water in store or - you can have slightly undersized storage that means to constantly / frequently need to pay 3 times the price for the non-cheap stuff.

For example changing out a 2.5kWh for a 3.4kWh means you will always be able to 'bank' enough cheap stuff in the bad weather and avoid if not altogether at least the number of times you will need to switch on supplementary expensive heating.

(5) Assuming a normal sized lounge / living area always have a 3.4kWh rated storage, if its a massive living area I would have a second supplementary 0.8 or 1.4 somewhere in the room its cheaper in the long run.

Storage & Capacity is the trick and as for cosmetic needs a more than adequate re-paint can be done, they are a doddle to dismantle [ take care with the asbestos mat ] rub down, and paint. I've done it several times.

Additionally, this time of the year you can get almost new ones free for 99p each on fleabay, just set the search to (1) auctions only (2) nearest first & collect only, wait & watch for a few weeks you will get your upscaled capacity 99p or virtually free.

If the panels are badly scratched / damaged get them [expensive] epoxy'd or powder coated or [cheap] re-painted with radiator paint and yes it does work, but will not last almost a lifetime as the original factory enamel will.

Thanks very much for the information. Once I have some more detail from the solicitor and valuation I'll be able to look into everything more.

Much appreciated