Oil Heaters or Convector Heaters

Laurakart44

Hello,

My partner and I have been renting a 1 bedroom bridge flat for almost 2 years now. Its so cold as it only has the flat panel heaters that do not give off any heat.

Therefore we use 1 large oil filled plug in heater and 2 small plug in small blow heaters we use just to warm the room quickly, plus stick the panel heaters on sometimes. But we received our yearly electric bill from EDF for £1,900.00!! We have no gas but still so expensive for a 1 bedroom flat.

Anyway now that the weather is -5 our flat is so cold but we cannot afford to be paying out so much for our electric bill.

Please can anyone advise if we purchased the convector heaters if these would be cheaper to run, and how much do they cost to run an hour? Are they cheaper than the oil filled heaters?

Please someone help, we are both very young and haven't a clue!

Thank you in advance

good_advice

Hi Laura. It does not matter what type of plug in heater you have. A 3 kwh heater costs the same weather a fan, convector or oil filled.

grahamc2003

The heating you get from a heater is simply the rating of the heater. I.e. a 1kW heater supplies heat at 1kW, a 2kW heater supplies heat at 2kW - contrary to what you'll be told over and over again on these boards, it simply doesn't matter what type of electric heating you have - they all cost the same for the same heat output (We'll forget heat pumps, which aren't resistive heaters, in this discussion, but google them, since you could get cheaper heating if you're prepared to spend £1200 having one installed).

There are one or two other factors though. What you pay for 1kwh of heat (that is, a 1kw heater on for 1 hour, or a 2kw heater on for `1/2 an gour) depends on your rate. Economy 7 users pay about 5p for 1 kWh nightrate, but single tarrif users pay something like 11p/kWh to 16p/kwh (2nd tier).

The other consideration is thermostats,m which click the actual heating elemnts on and off - so for example a 3kW heater in a small room will operate for say 20 minutes, then click off for an hour, then on for 15 minute, then off etc (depending on many factors) - so this make it difficult to estimate how much you'll actuall spend by leaving a heater switched on (but not actually operating) all the time).

Just estimate the maximum - i.e. if you have 2x1kW heaters and one 2kW heaters, the max you'll be using is 4kW, giving 4kWh of heat each hour costing 4 times your unit cost per hour, or about 60p/h say (if 15p/unit).

If you knowe the heat loss characteristics of your room, that should give a better estimate. i.e. if your room loses heat at a rate of 800W
when it's 20C inside and 0c outside, then if you have a thermostatically controlled heater set to 20C, you'll use on average 800w costing about 12p/h.

Cardew

Laurakart44 wrote: »

Hello,



Therefore we use 1 large oil filled plug in heater and 2 small plug in small blow heaters we use just to warm the room quickly, plus stick the panel heaters on sometimes.

In addition to the post above, you should appreciate that the physical size of 'blow'(fan) heaters is not an indication of their electrical consumption. Even very small fan heaters costing £10 or so can be rated at 3kW which is the maximum power for a plug in heater and very expensive to run.

The bottom line, as stated above, is that there are no cheap to run electrical heaters. To produce the amount of heat you require, your set-up is no more expensive than any other electrical heating system.

As you rent, fitting storage heaters is not an option but you should try a get your landlord to improve the insulation if possible.

Mistral001

Electrical heaters come in many forms but all produce the same amount of heat per £ you spend on electricity as good_advice and grahamc2003 have said. I use electrical heating in my house and I find that unless I monitor how much I spend, the bills rocket.

So I suggest that you read your meter daily and note down the reading on in a book. That way you will be able know exactly how much you have used of electricty in the previous day. Say if one unit of electricity costs 15p, using 20 units in one day will cost £3 and that means £21/per week or £91.25 per month.

Electrical heating will be more expensive than almost any othe type of heating, but it has one advantage in that it is versitile and it can be moved to where it is needed most so consider just heating one room at a time, ie the room you are using at a particular time. That will produce big savings.

good_advice

Glad we are all on the same page then.

yangptangkipperbang

good_advice wrote: »

Hi Laura. It does not matter what type of plug in heater you have. A 3 kwh heater costs the same weather a fan, convector or oil filled.

Would disagree with that
A cheap convector or fan is about £12, a cheap oil filled rad is about £35. So you can have £23 worth of "free" heat out of the convector/fan for the same price as just buying the rad....................

rogerblack

Cardew wrote: »

I
The bottom line, as stated above, is that there are no cheap to run electrical heaters.

Electric blankets!

VfM4meplse

rogerblack wrote: »

Electric blankets!

Are they actualy cheap to run? I also wonder how safe they are, I don't fancy being Kenticky fried!

chris1973

Are they actualy cheap to run? I also wonder how safe they are, I don't fancy being Kenticky fried!

They consume around 100w - 150w so roughly 8 to 10 hours use for 1 unit of Electricity, compared to a 3kw heater which will use 3 units per hour. In other words a leccy blanket would cost about 7p - 13p to run for an average nights sleep.

If you buy a modern electric blanket made by a recognised branded name, then it will have several safety features built in to prevent overheating, some of the more expensive ones even control the heat based on where its needed and have zonal settings, so you and any partner can have different heat settings!.

Other suggestions are a heated throw for over you when you sit and watch the TV, and a footwarmer (I find that if my feet are warm, its a big head start to the rest of me feeling warm) - both of these are obviously only practical for watching tv/ reading etc, but that makes up a big part of the evening for most people and you'd be saving energy at the times you switched over to 'personal' heating rather than heating the entire room with expensive convectors and radiators. You can run a throw and a footwarmer for a combined total of about 250w, so about 4 hours of continuous use for 1 unit

Another suggestion is a halogen heater, these are not designed for heating a large room, but are made to sit a few feet away from you, direct heat directly at you and so spot heating you. These generally have 3 switchable light bars, and consume between 400w and 1200w depending on how many 'bars' you have lit on the heater at any one time.

Finally, I use two of these for room space heating

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130592360047?

They are indoor portable room heaters which are designed to run on paraffin, but I've run mine for two years now on domestic heating oil (Kerosene) with no adverse effects. A litre of heating oil costs me about 53p a litre, and I get 10kw of heat from one litre with 99.9% efficiency which works out at about 5.3p - 5.4p per KW/H cost to run, compared with the 11p - 12p which you would pay on Standard Electricity or 15p - 20p on E7 Peak daytime Rate.

Switching off my Electric Heating has reduced my Electric Bill from over £90 a month at this time of year to £30 - £35 a month. I use about £20-ish a month in Paraffin, so I effectively still save about £40+ a month just by using these heaters instead of Electricity, and the heat is there when I want it, and I can select a heat output of between 800w - 3000w just as I would with a Convector heater or fan heater.

These heaters are also incredibly safe, and have a plethora of safety features including carbon monoxide detection, Oxygen level Sensor, Tip over sensor, fan fail dectection, in fact far more safety features than a portable gas heater, and cheaper to run too.

You'll also find that these heaters are popular, and generally the room heater of choice, in Japanese Households and Apartments, where central heating systems are not common place

Unfortunately, Electricity is one of the most expensive forms of heating there is, largely thanks to all of these wind turbines and solar panels springing up, and because of green incentives and Europe wanting us to switch off our 'dirty' power stations its going to continue to suffer the highest rises in the future. The only way of reducing your bills is to either reduce your consumption, or change the way that you heat yourself, ie moving away from heating the entire room to heating you, or using a heater fueled by something else.

Cardew

chris1973 wrote: »

Finally, I use two of these for room space heating

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130592360047?

They are indoor portable room heaters which are designed to run on paraffin, but I've run mine for two years now on domestic heating oil (Kerosene) with no adverse effects. A litre of heating oil costs me about 53p a litre, and I get 10kw of heat from one litre with 99.9% efficiency which works out at about 5.3p - 5.4p per KW/H cost to run, compared with the 11p - 12p which you would pay on Standard Electricity or 15p - 20p on E7 Peak daytime Rate.

I use about £20-ish a month in Paraffin,

.

Just a word of warming about using paraffin heating. They produce a great deal of moisture and in many modern homes that are almost hermetically sealed they can cause problems with damp and mould - so ensure you have plenty of ventilation.

Moisture Reduction





Drying clothes indoors produces a lot of moisture, so always dry outside if
possible. If you have to dry clothes indoors, use the bathroom with its window
open and door shut. Portable gas or paraffin heaters produce a lot of moisture.
1 pint of paraffin produces 1 pint of water when it burns. If you use these
heaters you will need a lot more ventilation. These kinds of heaters are also
often banned by landlords for safety reasons.





Some of these measures can be taken by you at very little cost. Condensation
can be reduced, and often cured. If the points above are followed, condensation
should not be a persistent problem in your home. However, you must remember
that a balance is needed between the four factors.





Ways you can reduce moisture in your home





Avoid using portable gas and paraffin heaters. Open windows in the kitchen
and bathroom, or use extractor fans if you have them when you are cooking or
having a bath or shower. Remember to close them afterwards.