Storage heaters, are they worth it?

amtrakuk

Hi there.

At the moment I use single rate electricity at 23p T1 and 11p T2 - non E7/E10 electricity using a mix of regular convection heaters and oil filled radiators around the house for warmth and a 200 litre thermal store running on thermostat for hot water - which I am delighted with.

Last week I couldn't resist bidding on some 2Kw Dimplex Mk1 radiators, although they do work and can get scorching hot if you let them, it takes up to 3 hours to heat a cold house even when the radiators are set to max. Therefore Im assuming they should be left on low all the time letting the thermostat judge when heating is required and turning them up when needed.

Checking my energy consumption form the meter I'm shocked to see my daily electricity usage up to 50-60 units a day between the 4 heaters (3/4 of the house heated) costing between £5-£6 daily.

This lead me to rethink, should I be looking down the route of storage heaters as Economy 7 in my area is at 5.6p?

My typical patterns are, a couple of days a week I work from home, else I'm out the house typically 8-10 hours a day returning home at about 6pm and I usually get to bed about midnight. Weekends I'm usually out most the day. Currently I come home to cool house and go around the house switching on the heaters as I draw the curtains, switching them off as I goto bed.

My main concern preventing me from already going down the storage heater route is hearing horror stories in the past about them running out of puff half way though a cold winters evening, is this more fact or purely rumour? I understand from speaking to Dimplex storage heaters are designed to trickle out heat though out the day even when the vent is closed keeping the fabric of the house warm, this lead me to think how much heat will be left for when I get home? I appreciate there are many variables to take into consideration, ie, correct sizing of heaters for the rooms, how warm I want the room to be, the heat loss of the house etc.

On the flip side I have heard modern storage heaters are better than older ones with some people saying they love their storage heaters and the house is always lovely and warm. Storage heaters are near enough maintenance free. "Automatic" storage heaters are relatively set and forget. With the exception of a draft from the cellar to the kitchen I've just identified the house is pretty draft free.

Ground/air source heat pumps isn't an option as any outside equipment would attract unnecessary attention from undesirables.

I phoned the electricity company and was told they will fit a white meter free of charge but warned me if I chose I may have to pay for the meter to be changed back.

Should I stick with what I've got or should I seriously look at storage heaters. Any advice or constructive comments regarding whole house systems would be welcome.

andyrpsmith

Rather than advise you what you should do I will tell what I did in similar circumstances. I moved into an old property in 2008 with no gas, electric only with Storage heaters on E10 tariff with Southern electric. My bill was £3500 for the year. The storage heaters were flagging by 7:30 pm even after a 2pm boost via the E10 tariff.

I decided to switch supplier to OVO energy and opted for a fixed rate for all electric at any time of 8.2p inc vat compared with 8.6p for the off peak E10 and 14.5p everything else. I had the storage radiators disconnected (Main fuse removed) and moved to using Delonghi Rapido 3KW oil filled radiators on timers and thermostat set at 3. My annual bill dropped to £2,300 (I use about 22000 units) and we find the Delonghi perfect for our needs, I have 5 of them and one is over 8 years old and working perfectly. If I go on another fixed rate this year (from Jan) the rate will be 11.33 inc vat.

rogerblack

amtrakuk wrote: »

My typical patterns are, a couple of days a week I work from home, else I'm out the house typically 8-10 hours a day returning home at about 6pm and I usually get to bed about midnight. Weekends I'm usually out most the day. Currently I come home to cool house and go around the house switching on the heaters as I draw the curtains, switching them off as I goto bed.

Properly sized modern heaters will not 'run out of puff', as you put it later.
However, you may not benefit from storage much, simply as you have the wrong lifestyle. It does however depend on the thermal inertia of the house.

For the entire time you're out, the heaters will be leaking heat into the house.
Some of this warmth will be retained, but much will be lost before you return.

In principle, you could play with the existing heater you have, and place it on an energy monitor, and timer, to get a better idea of the performance.

chris1973

If you are up until midnight, you'd be hard pushed to find any kind of storage heater which will still singlehandidly have enough heat within its internal storage to output the 4kw - 5kw which an average sized living room needs to keep it heated on a freezing cold winters night, 16 hours after it last received power when the E7 tariff clicked off.

Even panels from off the starship enterprise don't have the thermal characteristics to do that, certainly not from seven hours worth of power input at the 3.4kw power rating of a larger sized storage heater.

simply as you have the wrong lifestyle

Absolutely, in future he should make sure he's in bed for 7pm :mad:

it takes up to 3 hours to heat a cold house even when the radiators are set to max

Correct, unfortunately you are witnessing the fact that I often keep harping on about, in that most larger rooms will require more than one heat source. Otherwise the room is slow to heat up, or simply doesn't warm up to a comfortable temperature at all. If the physical room size requires 4kw of heat and you only input 2kw worth of heat into it, then the maths speak for themselves. However put 5kw or 6kw of heat into it, and you'll get a nice warm room far quicker.

Instead of guessing, use a room size heat calculator in order to work out exactly how much heat a given room needs in order to warm it adequately

http://www.qvsdirect.com/kW-Heating-Calculator-p-50.html

If it calculates you need 5kw, and you have one 2kw heater warming it, then BINGO - problem solved. :T

Of course these figures will change slightly, and possibly require slightly more heat, especially if you have a poorly insulated or draughty property. Equally ultra modern buildings with the best EPC rating could be downrated slightly, but its a workable and fairly accurate guide, and far better and more accurate than either wishful thinking, guessing or hoping your 700w mini radiator will heat the local townhall

You can also use the same calculator to work out the same for storage heaters. Consider that a 3.4kw model running for 7 hours on its highest input setting would store a maximum of 23.8 kw worth of heat by the time the E7 timer cuts off the power to it..

If you are at home all day, and need to heat a room where physics state that it requires 4kw of heat, and you are awake / at home from 9AM to 11PM, then you would need 4kw x 14 hours = 56kw/h of heat, either in real time or from storage.

So the best and most economical way of providing heat for a room requiring 4kw of heat input for 14 hours, would be 2x 3.4kw storage heaters and 1x 1.7kw storage heater.

Anything less than that, then its not going to make it.

Of course if you go to work and the damper is firmly closed, whilst you are out, then you will only need to heat the house when you return home and open the damper. However no heater offers a perfect airtight seal, and heat will be leaking into the building fabric, into the metal case of the heater and some out of the vents, so you may only have 12kw out of that 23.8kw worth of stored amd usable heat in an average 3.4kw storage heater by the time you come home at 6pm.

In a room which requires 4kw worth of heat, that remaining capacity is only 3 hours worth of remaining stored heat per 3.4kw heater. Again, another working example of why you need more storage heaters for that room.

pooch

chris1973 wrote: »

If you are up until midnight, you'd be hard pushed to find any kind of storage heater which will still singlehandidly have enough heat within its internal storage to output the 4kw - 5kw which an average sized living room needs to keep it heated on a freezing cold winters night, 16 hours after it last received power when the E7 tariff clicked off...

Which is why you won't find many properties that have NSH systems professionally sized and installed, with just one NSH in

chris1973

Which is why you won't find many properties that have NSH systems professionally sized and installed, with just one NSH in

So thats virtually every rented property in the UK out of the equation then, where the landlord has just bought a skipload of second hand storage heaters from Ebay and got his mate the Polish sparky to fit them for a pint and a pork pie.

I move around with my Job, and as such I must have temporarily rented 15+ properties with storage heaters and i've yet to see one which has been professionally sized. The biggest joke was a combined lounge-diner in a barn conversion heated by a single 2.55kw unit which wasn't even fitted to an external wall.

Have a visit to the IET Electricians forums and see if you can find a sparks who is even paid to professionally specify the heating, let alone work out the best system for the property, the majority of the time they are just paid to fit whatever the LL / owner asks for (or has already pre-purchased on the cheap), 9 times out of 10 they even want the Electrical installation of them done on the cheap too.

'professionally sized' - sorry but when it comes to a lot of rented properties that phrase is a bigger work of fiction than Harry Potter, in some properties you consider yourself lucky if its even been 'professionally fitted'

'Rigsby' doesn't give a flying toss, he's 20 miles away in his nice centerally heated bungalow and the bills aren't his problem, and he's happy because he's fulfilled his legal obligation to provide some minimum form of heating to the tenant.

There are also enough posts on this forum, hundreds actually, where the OP's are expecting to heat a living room or lounge adequately in the middle of winter with a 600w oil filled radiator or one bar of a Halogen Heater!, which is enough to suggest that the majority of people know nothing of professionally sizing a room for its heat requirement and are certainly not calling on the services of a professional to work it out for them. So what makes you think buyers of NSH are operating or budgeting any differently?.

So your point is what exactly?

Wywth

chris1973 wrote: »

So thats virtually every rented property in the UK out of the equation then, where the landlord has just bought a skipload of second hand storage heaters from Ebay and got his mate the Polish sparky to fit them for a pint and a pork pie...

Not every landlord is a rogue; there are a lot of really good, honest ones out there who let good quality properties ... but may insist they have good quality tenants too.

chris1973

Not every landlord is a rogue; there are a lot of really good, honest ones out there who let good quality properties

Well perhaps i've been jaded by 19 years of personal experience, plus what I read on The Landlord Zone, where every other thread seems to be 'What Can I save Here' or 'Do I really need to spend....'

I also find many who not only have Storage Heaters, but are lumped on uncompetitive Prepayment Tariffs. That doesn't affect me personally, as i'm rarely there longer than the minimum term before I cover another region, but it must cost longer term tenants an absolute fortune, given that 'Standard' (inc Prepayment) Tariff's are anything upto 8% - 10% more expensive than the best Direct Debit, in an industry where we have just seen upto 12% increases across the board. Regular threads also appear here where the LL isn't happy for the tenant to change utility suppliers either.

Then there are the LL and Agents who insist that their Tenants use a certain energy supplier, or who lock them into contract with Spark Energy as part of their tenancy agreement (one example) who generally are / may be uncompetitive. I'm struggling with the concept of how this is beneficial to the tenant?, the very fact that even before the LL has met the Tenant, often a prepayment meter is installed, conveys mistrust, because perhaps the LL doesn't believe that any tenant is credit worthy or can't be trusted to not get into debt (despite some tenancy agreements requiring a credit check themselves)

Trust of course works both ways, and when I get confronted with a Prepayment meter that aspect doesn't really ring true.

Of course there are good landlords.....they just seem to be diluted in number by all of the bad ones.

Wywth

chris1973 wrote: »

Well perhaps i've been jaded by 19 years of personal experience, plus what I read on The Landlord Zone, where every other thread seems to be 'What Can I save Here' or 'Do I really need to spend....'.

Please don't believe everything you read on t'interweb

macman

LL's cannot prevent their tenants from changing suppliers, whether they agreed it in their STA or not.