Please help!!

lbiddington

Hello,

I really need some help! We have pound coins electricity meters in our flat. We have no boiler and we have 3 separate gas heaters. The one in the bedroom is useless, so we have an electric heater but it is using far too much electric! This week it has cost us £20 in pound coins for electric! We have it set on a timer to come on an hour when we go to bed, and an hour before we wake up. But sometimes, we see it sparking inside and turn off for a few seconds which I'm sure is very dangerous.

We live in an old victorian flat and the ceilings are very high, which is why it is so hard to heat. Which type of electric heater is the most efficient to use? We are young so cannot afford anything expensive, like storage heaters. The most we can afford is £50 at a push! At the moment we are sleeping on the sofa because it is too cold in the bedroom! There is a lot of damp and mould in there too.

I hope someone can help!

misterbarlow

no utility company uses coin meters any more..
So i assume this is a private sub meter installed by the landlord...
he gets this money from you and uses it to pay your bill, and make profit on top..
they can pre-set these to any price they wish, I have seen some at TWICE the price the supplier charges...
that could be half the problem to begin with....

for the sake of £20 or so over b&q i would get a new heater anyway if it appears faulty...
basic convectors and heaters with blower fans seem to cost more imo, i have found when needed to use them, an oil filled electric one to be best..

happy35

i find a cheap blowy type heater gives off a lot of heat and wouldnt need to be on long to take the chill off. I would get yourself and electric blanket so when you are in bed at least you are warm. It is the kw of the heater that determines how expensive it is to run, I definitely wouldnt be using the one you have that is faulty as too much of a fire risk

sniggings

all electric heater are the same, a 2kw heater is the same as any other 2 kw heater, as in it will cost the same and give of the same amount of heat, so just buy a heater with a big enough rating for the room it will be in, no use buying a 500watt heater for the living room as it would be like trying to light a room with a candle, buy at least a 2kw or better still a 3kw heater, Dimplex are very good and good customer service too, if you don't mind blow heaters, they are cheaper as they are a bit noisy but still heat the room, something like this, you could even buy 2 for your £50 .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-DXUF20T-Upright-Electric-Kilowatt/dp/B002DGTML2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358617377&sr=8-2

or

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-FX20V-Wall-Mounted-Heater/dp/B000BNDGF2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1358617377&sr=8-5

as said above, your landlord sets the rate on those meters so the rate could be 30p a unit but your landlord could set your meter to 50p a unit, so you need to check you are not being riped off, but saying that, £20 a week for what you say you have been using doesn't sound that much as electric is very expensive, gas is much cheaper.

lbiddington

misterbarlow wrote: »

no utility company uses coin meters any more..
So i assume this is a private sub meter installed by the landlord...
he gets this money from you and uses it to pay your bill, and make profit on top..
they can pre-set these to any price they wish, I have seen some at TWICE the price the supplier charges...
that could be half the problem to begin with....

for the sake of £20 or so over b&q i would get a new heater anyway if it appears faulty...
basic convectors and heaters with blower fans seem to cost more imo, i have found when needed to use them, an oil filled electric one to be best..

He promised they make no profit on it, but I don't believe him! He said it is set at 5.6.. But I don't know what unit that is? I'm thinking of getting the oil filled one but I have read they are not good for big rooms, i.e. our huge ceilings! I hate being an adult !

lbiddington

sniggings wrote: »

all electric heater are the same, a 2kw heater is the same as any other 2 kw heater, as in it will cost the same and give of the same amount of heat, so just buy a heater with a big enough rating for the room it will be in, no use buying a 500watt heater for the living room as it would be like trying to light a room with a candle, buy at least a 2kw or better still a 3kw heater, Dimplex are very good and good customer service too, if you don't mind blow heaters, they are cheaper as they are a bit noisy but still heat the room, something like this, you could even buy 2 for your £50 .

or

as said above, your landlord sets the rate on those meters so the rate could be 30p a unit but your landlord could set your meter to 50p a unit, so you need to check you are not being riped off, but saying that, £20 a week for what you say you have been using doesn't sound that much as electric is very expensive, gas is much cheaper.

What would you think of a 2kw oil filled heater? I work at Premier Inn and we used those in rooms, but I've never felt how effective they are.

sniggings

lbiddington wrote: »

What would you think of a 2kw oil filled heater? I work at Premier Inn and we used those in rooms, but I've never felt how effective they are.

the only trouble with oil filled is they are slow to heat up and the oil can give off a smell some people don't like, they do oil free too

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-OFRC20C-Electric-Column-Kilowatt/dp/B002DGTMJO/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1358618250&sr=1-1

either one will be good, just think if you want a timer on it, for night time use and a thermostat as both of those can save you money, no need to have a heater on all night if a few hours will do and once the room gets to the level you want, say 19 degrees a thermostat will turn it off, which again will save you money.

lbiddington

sniggings wrote: »

the only trouble with oil filled is they are slow to heat up and the oil can give off a smell some people don't like, they do oil free too

either one will be good, just think if you want a timer on it, for night time use and a thermostat as both of those can save you money, no need to have a heater on all night if a few hours will do and once the room gets to the level you want, say 19 degrees a thermostat will turn it off, which again will save you money.

I'm going to buy this one. Thank you for all your help!

My landlord said that he isn't making a profit on my meter, but I don't think this is true? He said it is set at 5.6, but I don't know what unit he means.

sniggings

lbiddington wrote: »

I'm going to buy this one. Thank you for all your help!

My landlord said that he isn't making a profit on my meter, but I don't think this is true? He said it is set at 5.6, but I don't know what unit he means.

good choice, couldn't have chosen better myself it comes with a 3 year warranty too and as said Dimplex customer service in my experience is excellent.

easy way to find out is find out who your supplier is for electric and ask them what a unit costs, there are a few different rates it could be on but most are near enough the same or you could just take 12p as about the average rate, then take a reading on your meter when empty, put a pound in and when it runs out take another reading, then times the units used by 12p and see if it comes to a pound, if it only comes to 50p you will then know he is charging you double the amount, you have to expect a little more in the cost as on his bill he will have a standing charge maybe but if it works out at much more than say 15p a unit you are being over charged.

chris1973

If the heater has a thermostat and you hear a substantial mechanical click at the same time as the spark then believe it or not this is normal, especially as the heater ages and attracts dust.

In order to get those lovely £20 price tags, most Electric Heaters are made in Poland and China. To keep manufacturing costs low, high spec Triac switched solid state zero voltage thermostats have been abandoned in favour of cheap bi-metallic types, this is basically a piece of exposed metal with two contacts, when the metal heats as the room gets warmer, it eventually expands to the point where it parts company with its 'mate' breaking the circuit and switching off the heating element, when it cools down, it sinks back downwards and eventually reforms the contact, re-establishing the circuit and the element heats again. Its just an automatic heat senstive switch.

Since the two contacts are switching 230v at around 8 - 9 Amps (2kw heater), it creates a spark, and this is more obvious especially if the heater is getting old and the contacts are becoming pitted from the carbon created by many hundreds of previous 'sparks'.

If your spark is caused by the Thermostat then buying a new heater is probably just going to leave you with exactly the same problem in a few months of use, if its caused by bad wiring or a loose internal connection then it needs replacing.

If the heater is part of the internal furnisings of the property and came with it, then the LL should have it PAT tested or checked as part of their Electrical Safety Inspection.

Unfortunately Electric Heating is extremely expensive, and if the room is as poorly insulated and as large as you described then you will need a fairly substantial heater to produce the heat required to heat it adequately when the building is covered with snow and its freezing outside (ie now)

Guessing what kind and rating of heater you need is ludicrous. Work it out properly using the room size heat calculator and enter in your physical room dimensions. Use the 'KW' one on this site

http://www.centralheatingshop.co.uk/room-heat-calculator-c-91.html

Putting a single 2kw heater into a room in a badly insulated victorian era building with a cathedral high ceiling would be about as effective as taking an extension lead and trying to heat the back garden with it!. What if the physical room size would routinely need 6kw to heat it? do you really think a piddly little 2kw is going to do the job when / if we get the predicted -10c outside ???????

Still it looks pretty so that ok! they can sit and look at it......with their coats on - Geez do people here REALLY use heaters as ornaments?

He said it is set at 5.6

Sounds like complete bollox to me, overnight off peak perhaps but I don't know any utility company who will be selling him 24/7 Electricity at 5.6p per unit, we use over 1/4 million KW/H at work, and even we pay over 9p per unit.

If he means that you get 5.6 units for your quid, then even at 17.8p per kw/h then he needs to shop around for a better deal for his tenants as it is possible to still get it for 12p - 13p per kw/h

Personally, my advice is that if you can't afford the bills for this property then once your minimum tenancy period is up, find another property which is better insulated, comes with a better EPC rating, a credit meter where you can pay for a Direct Debit Tariff and perhaps the most important - has gas central heating. Its a stark fact that utilities are extremely expensive and the cost of them goes up by at least 20 - 30% every year.

Ich_2

These are the rules landlords should follow if using private meters.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/domestic-consumers/Documents1/11782-resaleupdateoct05.pdf