Electric Rads or Storage Heaters

macman

davidso wrote: »

My apologies, I shouldn't be using the word 'efficient' as I don't mean it in the sense of energy in/energy out of an individual heater. I just mean can an electric heater be switched on and off by an intelligent controller and waste less heat than a storage heater and by doing so compete with the running costs of a storage heater. Rogerblack says 'no'; I'd be interested to hear any other opinions on this.

No because when the programmer says 'off' it is off and not producing any heat! You need the same amount of heat energy to warm your house to x degrees, regardless of source.
As pointed out above, the only loss with storage heaters is any heat loss during the day, so you'd be far better off improving your insulation, than spending hundreds on designer panel heaters that will cost 3 times more to run. And possibly the cost of a meter change as well.

davidso

My flat is not a closed system so some of that energy is being lost.

I'd like to improve the insulation but thanks to the lease Im restricted in what i can do. I can't change the single glazed windows and I'm not sure there are cavities in the walls for insulation. Heat produced during the day will leak out.

As I said before I'd be happy to consider paying a £400 outlay for an electric radiator that looks like a HW rad rather than the sort of panel heater you'd find in the hut of a security guard on an industrial estate.
I just want to know whether the heat lost during the day by storage heaters on E7 allows gives any space for electric rads to compete in terms of cost. Electric supplier Dealec said 'yes' they sell storage heaters and electric rads without any hard sell.

macman

No. The heat loss in the day is nothing like the 300%+ increase in running costs.
You might be able to install secondary double glazing with he LL's permission. The LL should take care of cavity wall and loft insulation. Draught reduction?

Richie-from-the-Boro

You can get all manner of non storage electric 13a convection radiators that look like old school hot water rads, but will never get storage rads that look like old school hot water rads because they don't .. .. and can never exist.

A storage rad is nothing more than a metal box with one or more 850W elements



I'm out of this thread, its going nowhere, let me leave you with this thought. If night store can't cope with your needs, panel won't cope either, but it will cost you 3 times the running costs & initial purchase & install costs of a new panel system to really find that out by actual example. Lots of people come here with the dream they can get rid of the 'tins', for some dwellings with better than good insulation they can successfully go 'panel', for most however is unachievable other than at a year on year cost not worth paying.

Most are attracted to the notion by the snake~oil purveyors of sexy looking magazine adverts of designer style 'clay core' products that are designed for CAT D or less dwellings and are useless even in modern day UK housing stock, let alone the one the O/P lives in.

davidso

Thanks for your input Richie, Macman - you've addressed everything I've asked. From what you've said I now understand that without perhaps a super-insulated house there is no grey area in which electric radiators can compete with storage heaters.

I'd be interested to hear any dissenting voices out there but it looks like it's the pig ugly metal boxes of hot bricks for me!

Owain_Moneysaver

The main 'alternatives' to individual storage heaters would be a central thermal store, and have the heat from the thermal store distributed around the house. There are two main variants - "electricaire" which uses hot air ducts and stores the heat in bricks (like a big storage heater) or "thermal store" which uses a ginormous tank of hot water and can run ordinary central heating radiators.

However, the central stores are big and bulky - if you have a walk-in cupboard you could say bye-bye to that - and the hot water radiators have the disadvantages of a wet system (cost of plumbing, risk of leaks, etc) as well as the disadvantages of night storage. The electricaire system needs hot air ducts so is very difficult to retro-fit to an existing building.

You can also get fan-assisted storage heaters, they are even more 'pig ugly' as a lot bulkier than ordinary storage heaters, but they are better insulated and do not lose heat like ordinary storage heaters. The fan output can be timer or thermostat controlled. They are also a lot more expensive to buy.

You might want to consider insulating your flat's external walls with internal cladding using something like Marmox board, which can be less than an inch thick, and would help reduce heat loss through the walls.

Draughtproofing and secondary d/glazing are also worth considering.

macman

Modern storage heaters are somewhat less unsightly than the ancient ones used to be, but there's no way of disguising what is basically a big tin box full of bricks.