Plug-in type storage heaters. Do they exist?

macman

The catch being that mains gas is available at the same price 24/7, whereas E7 cheap rate is only available for 7 hours during the night.
And being on E7 then requires you to pay a premium rate for the other 17 hours per day when you use electricity.

pooch

macman wrote: »

The catch being that mains gas is available at the same price 24/7, whereas E7 cheap rate is only available for 7 hours during the night.

That why they invented electric storage heaters.
You shouldn't need to consume high cost electricity for space heating if you have these

macman wrote: »

And being on E7 then requires you to pay a premium rate for the other 17 hours per day when you use electricity.

Yes, but the 'premium' (often less than about 10% on a like for like basis) pales into insignificance when you can get dirt cheap electricity (typically 50-70% less) for 7/24 of the day.

All electricity supplied at the low rate period is charged at the cheap rate on E7 (there are some odd, more complicated dual or triple rate tariffs but we won't go into those few here for the sake of simplicity). Many take advantage of this cheap rate for other high usage applications too, such as heating the hot water, doing the laundry (washing & drying) using a dishwasher, etc.

Only cooking is really the only high usage application that cannot easily be carried out at the low rate, and that is rarely for more than an hour per day.
(Boiling a kettle is also a high usage application, but I've ignored that too as boiling a kettle for a couple of cuppa's should take less than a couple on minutes)

macman

Fine, if your lifestyle and storage system works in a way that you can exploit the cheap rate hours.
Start boosting your hot water out of night hours, or topping up your heating with a convector because the storage heaters have gone cold at 9pm, and your bills will rise consequently.

pooch

macman wrote: »

Fine, if your lifestyle and storage system works in a way that you can exploit the cheap rate hours.
Start boosting your hot water out of night hours, or topping up your heating with a convector because the storage heaters have gone cold at 9pm, and your bills will rise consequently.

Attempting to keep warm by setting fire to ten pound notes is also a good way to waste hard earned cash

But as this is supposed to be a money saving site, lets keep our advice to best ways to save money, eh?

Kernel_Sanders

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- in the summer you can get a dozen nearly new storage heaters free, on a 'pick up only' basis, they give them away to get rid
- even at this time of the year they're still available collect only for 99p each, set ebay sort 'nearest first'................."""internal walls""" people could considerably improve storage capacity and comfort by fitting an additional 0.85 in the living area
.

Surely 99p is just the opening offer.

Did you mean 0.85 kWh? That's a small amount of stored heat. Why don't these units state the capacity in the ads?

Richie-from-the-Boro

macman wrote: »

Fine, if your lifestyle and storage system works in a way that you can exploit the cheap rate hours.
Start boosting your hot water out of night hours, or topping up your heating with a convector because the storage heaters have gone cold at 9pm, and your bills will rise consequently.

HiYa macman M8,

Knocking on 36+ years, never needed to 'boost', even when the kids were little and we had HOT&COLD fill washing machines. You are right I do, in fact everyone with E7 does use 'supplementary' heating when we get caught out, it's so fractional [applies to the summer on occasions] as a part of the annual cost its hardly worth calculating.

My bro's got one of those digital all~singing thingy's that tells him to the second what he's using. Last Wed he said to me "just lately ower lass has that soddin table lamp on every day in the afternoon reading, and she used more than an extra quid on the thing last month". So in the 5 winter months the poor lass is costing him five quid a year .. .. and she gave him 4 children and 24 years - cracker-jack !

Richie-from-the-Boro

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Surely 99p is just the opening offer.

Did you mean 0.85 kWh? That's a small amount of stored heat. Why don't these units state the capacity in the ads?

- you tag 'em all and wait, eventually 0.85 or 3.4 you get what you want, they are h e a v y

- 0.85 kWh - I said an extra storage to supplement existing storage in a living room
- 0.85 kWh - they usually do, if not, you can tell by size - big - small

Just don't choose anything over say 20 miles or anything your not prepared to lift, and importantly, ask before bidding if they live in a block of flats without a lift or have 900 steps up / down to their dwelling.

jamesd

Sirlaughalot wrote: »

i have just converted my garage into a spare room/laundry area ... We currently have gas central heating with radiators supplied with micro bore piping, Fitting CH radiators to the room would be messy and expensive so i thought 2/3 storage heaters might be an answer

Have a look at Kingspan K17 or K18 solid wall insulation. 50-60mm or so should make a huge difference to the amount of energy it takes to keep the place warm. Pay attention to good door sealing and insulating the door also, you can get sheeting, flexible or otherwise, suitable for that from DIY stores as well. When looking at the Kingspan search results, the high price ones are for packs of many sheets.

Gas may be more costly to get fitted initially but just look at the price difference per kWh of energy/heat compared to electricity. Getting on for three times the price for electricity as gas. So you'll pay for any savings in installation in higher bills.

Your local building control office will probably have views on what they need to approve and what you need to do to get approval, particularly how much insulation has to be installed if you insulate a wall at all. Not that it's much more expensive to get high insulation levels with the Kingspan type of product if you have the internal space available to do it.

JohnnyBaloney wrote: »

As the days became colder I came up with an idea of replacing my oil filled electric radiators with a plug-in type storage heaters. First, I live in a rented accommodation and would not want to permanently install a storage heater.

Maybe have a look at the huge price difference between gas and electricity and have a word with your landlord about you paying extra over the winters while you're there to cover the cost out of the reduced heating bills, so you can pay less and the landlord get you paying for some of the cost of upgrading the property? Might be doable under the Green Deal which could provide financing for the landlord to get the work done, with you and later tenants paying out of the electricity bill. Green Deal looks like it may be the solution to a lot of cases like yours, if gas can be installed.

Kernel_Sanders

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- small

Thanks for all the advice. I know little about these things, and am perplexed about what the vendor states for this one: Note: This heater does not have user adjustable controls.
Does this mean you can't use the heat for two separate periods?

He states This model is a 0.9 kw heater.
Does this mean it will consume 6.3kWh over the E7 period, and can you estimate what the equivalent wattage might be whilst it is losing its heat?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice. I know little about these things, and am perplexed about what the vendor states for this one: Note: This heater does not have user adjustable controls.
Does this mean you can't use the heat for two separate periods?

He states This model is a 0.9 kw heater.
Does this mean it will consume 6.3kWh over the E7 period, and can you estimate what the equivalent wattage might be whilst it is losing its heat?

The one you specifically ask about is essentially two heaters in one, it has a two speed manually adjustable low velocity fan heater which is set once only at installation time, thereafter its controlled thermostatically to within ∓ 0.5°C.

Look for some its an excellent performer as it gives the end user that great facility of (1) an instant 'boost' when needed, particularly in the spring & autumn when the 'night store is turned off. It (2) is fully automated and some might find that useful, others a restriction because they no longer have full control, and (3) both the night store and the fan heater are housed in one single slimline box.

For myself any heater 'dual' or otherwise I would prefer to have manual override of everything. For others as stated they might love the idea of a 'set & forget' functionality.

NOTE : I don't think they make that sexy little .7, 6 bricker - single element size any more .. .. because it only stored 10 hours of heat, the minimum E7 standard kWh is as you know 17 hrs. Having said that it would make a perfect 'supplementary' [extra - in addition to] heater in someone's living area, or small room, or etc. With the damper permanently shut a fully charged little 7 will hold sufficient to radiate for the whole 17 off peak hours. A brick is a brick, a stat is a stat, etc there's almost nothing that ever goes wrong with these things.

Best of luck, hope this helps your understanding.