Oil-Filled Rad - buy another one to make up the KW?

dogstarheaven

daughter has just moved into a small studio 1-bed flat and is provided with a 1.5kw rad. but found it not effective for her room (unfortunately, don't know the size of room, but in london won't be big as it combines the kitchen as well as her bed! but has double glazed windows x 2 and it's a long narrow room with a bit around the corner. and no, i haven't seen this).

can i buy her another 1.5kw rad. to double up the heat in the room and will this temp. be maintained, or should i buy her a 2kw or 2.5 kw one instead? it would be rather cumbersome (and expensive) to carry down on a london high st trying to go down the tube station with this!:o

i'm going down on Sat. so hopefully, someone can advise me soon! i was thinking of buying online (argos, if they deliver to timed/day w/e slots, maybe?)

HappyMJ

I would just buy a cheap convector heater. It'll give her instant heat and the current oil filled radiator will give long lasting background heat. The two together would be ideal.

dogstarheaven

thanks for replying to me, HappyMJ...

I was also thinking about costs as well as convector heaters are meant to be dearer to run.

It's doubtful that the letting agency will tell her that the electric (card , possibly?) meter is set on Economy 7, so she'll be v. mindful about spending too much on the heating. Can someone give me an average running costs of a typical oil rad. for an average sized studio flat pls, per hour? this is so that she can factor in her budget...

Thanks in advance. :beer:

jay1181

that all depends how much she pays for a unit of electric kwh eg if it was 11p a unit kwh she pays then if she had a 2kw (fan heater) on 8 hours a day then it would cost £1.76 a day to run but if shes on e7 then that would be lower at the night off peak. if you bought her a 2kw oil rad(a good one) then the rad would not be on all day long eg the thermosat would turn on and off making it work out a bit, not much cheaper to run eg £1.76 a day if it never turned itself off but if the room reaches temp then it will turn on and off when required but nobody will be able to tell you how much cheaper it would cost so just assume the dearest eg £1.76 and you wont go far wrong. so find out what she pays for a kwh unit then mulitply by how many hours she is going to use it and you will get your answer

fightyfish

to work out cost the equation is

kw x running hours x price per kw

so to run her current one for 5 hours if her electric price was 12p per kw would be

1.5x 5 x 12 = 90p

dogstarheaven

I don't she'll know how much is the kwh (how can she find out. pls excuse my naivety here)

do you think that by having an additional oil filled rad. i hope to increase the heat in the room, thus making it more effective than one. there are two in argos that i'm thinking of buying for her:

Challenger 2kw at £59.99
Bionair 2.5kw at £80.99 (with timer)

or would it be better to take the old one out (the 1.5kw) and use of the above?

is it neccessary to leave the heating on all day when she's out from 7am - 6pm as i would think that is terribly wasteful. I hear that these oil ones take a while to heat the room up (how long?)

so if she's using both rads. she'll be doubling up on her costs.

thanks for helping, i really appreciate this!

penrhyn

All electric heaters are 100% efficient. The running costs of an oil filled radiator will be the same as a cheap convector assuming the thermostat is set to achieve the same room temperature.
I have a small Dimplex convector with a timer that I use in emergencies. I would have thought it would fit the bill.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-Convector-Heater-Timer-kW/dp/B0000W5E9A/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1354180069&sr=8-7

They do a 3Kw version as well.

PS Doubling up on the heaters should not double up here costs, it would get the room to the desired temperature more quickly, then the thermostat would swich on and off to maintain the temperature.
Get a room thermometer as well.

dogstarheaven

spoke to a friend who confirmed much of your advice that all kinds of electric heater costs the same and that they are all 100%. he adv getting an electric fan or convector. so I bought one from argos -

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4151797.htm

worked out that it would cost £1.80 for 5 hours but this would only be used for about 10 min bursts over that period. thanks for all your help, guys!

macman

dogstarheaven wrote: »

spoke to a friend who confirmed much of your advice that all kinds of electric heater costs the same and that they are all 100%. he adv getting an electric fan or convector. so I bought one from argos -

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4151797.htm

worked out that it would cost £1.80 for 5 hours but this would only be used for about 10 min bursts over that period. thanks for all your help, guys!

Unless you buy a Fischer of course...

penrhyn

dogstarheaven wrote: »

spoke to a friend who confirmed much of your advice that all kinds of electric heater costs the same and that they are all 100%. he adv getting an electric fan or convector. so I bought one from argos -

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4151797.htm

worked out that it would cost £1.80 for 5 hours but this would only be used for about 10 min bursts over that period. thanks for all your help, guys!

Bit noisy though?