would you prefer night storage over electric heaters in a rented property?

annoyd

Im renovating a 2 bed mid terraced house i bought to rent out. The night storage i have is OLD and i dismantled them to move around so i could renovate. Upon going to put back together, all the insulation has fallen to bits, the elements have bent, and knobs have broken off etc (had a few fall over when unbolting from wall). I absolutely cannot stand the sight of them, they are ugly things and i am ashamed to be putting them into such a nicely done house. However due to budget point of view, its not feasable to put gas into the house (ive just put brand new double glazing and porch on).

Even if i repair these ones, there is no guarantee they will work. So im thinking maybe buying some new heaters.... Duoheat obviously the expensive option, and doesnt seem to have that much of an advantage over normal storage heaters from what i've seen apart from looking better? Panel heaters/oil filled ones are the cheaper option to buy... But i want to know from a tenants point of view, would you be MORE put off if they were NOT night storage, and only ran on normal rate electric? The house itself is actually really warm, it's been freezing outside lately and had no heating as its dismantled and at no point have i felt cold in it... but its hard to get that point across to tenants that would obviously think its just a story to sell it

Cardew

It depends what type of tenant is likely to rent the house.

Home all day - storage heating.

Out at work - panel heating.

annoyd

ok... kind of hard to tell then really.... so with night storage..... Im guessing they store the energy well, compared to oil filled etc..... so (i think i have this right) they only come on at night, to use the cheap electric and store it then release throughout the day..... And you cannot heat them up in the day as it is wired into the night meter??? So, whats to stop me from wiring the storage heaters up to the day meter, and the tenants having them on for an hour or so before they come in from work.. and then it will release energy throughout the evening? and only use an hour or so of electric instead of 7hours in the night time....

or does it not work like that (im guessing not because it seems to simple)

Richie-from-the-Boro

annoyd wrote: »

Im renovating a 2 bed mid terraced house i bought to rent out. The night storage i have is OLD and i dismantled them to move around so i could renovate. Upon going to put back together, all the insulation has fallen to bits, the elements have bent, and knobs have broken off etc (had a few fall over when unbolting from wall). I absolutely cannot stand the sight of them, they are ugly things and i am ashamed to be putting them into such a nicely done house. However due to budget point of view, its not feasible to put gas into the house (ive just put brand new double glazing and porch on).

Even if i repair these ones, there is no guarantee they will work. So im thinking maybe buying some new heaters.... Duoheat obviously the expensive option, and doesnt seem to have that much of an advantage over normal storage heaters from what I've seen apart from looking better? Panel heaters/oil filled ones are the cheaper option to buy... But i want to know from a tenants point of view, would you be MORE put off if they were NOT night storage, and only ran on normal rate electric? The house itself is actually really warm, it's been freezing outside lately and had no heating as its dismantled and at no point have i felt cold in it... but its hard to get that point across to tenants that would obviously think its just a story to sell it

Depends how you see your [good landlord] investment :

- duo heat is preffered for E10 not E7 but works on E7
- panel heater retail £50 - a DimDuo500i 2.6kW retail £400 + DEL
- NOTE - you only need 1 big duo in the living area
- cheap 13a panel in other areas will suffice
- or considerably cheaper smaller storage radiators at about £200 per 1kW
- panel heater running costs are 2-3 times more than E7 for your tenant
- panel heater purchase & install costs running costs are 4-5 times cheaper than E7 for the landlord

Unless you've insulated to uber, your renters will regret long term agreements and with either, with panel however they are liable to disappear after one winter. Voids are always an issue, however panel heated homes unless they are of a particularly high insulation value are always high turnaround. REM assuming you are already on an E7 tariff a selling point of that tariff is 365 days boiling hot water at a very cheap rate. If however you go panel you lose that rate and pay full whack water & space heating at core rate.

Now to """The house itself is actually really warm, it's been freezing outside lately and had no heating as its dismantled and at no point have i felt cold in it... but its hard to get that point across to tenants that would obviously think its just a story to sell it"""

- you are correct, I don't believe a word of it, or you did no work while sitting in front of a 3-phase Clarke Industrial reading the MSE boards

- wiring 20a into a 13a system is ill advised and illegal
- even your insurance would not pay out, and any morgage would be invalidated
- a million law officers would be after you including the HSE
- wait till NOV 4th to do it - they'll enjoy it !

So if I was you I'd stay E7, invest in a biggest DUO in the living room and variously small manual nightstore elsewhere, safe panel in the bathroom [IPX4 - (Zone 2)] & kitchen - read this on E7 in general

annoyd

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- wiring 20a into a 13a system is ill advised and illegal
- even your insurance would not pay out, and any morgage would be invalidated
- a million law officers would be after you including the HSE
- wait till NOV 4th to do it "

is this in response to my wiring it up to day meter? are they different ouputs then? I am getting the house rewired, had upstairs done, gettin downstairs done soon. But havnt asked my sparky yet about this. The heaters were wired up with 1.5 lighting cable, and the fuse was made alot higher amp buy the previous owner (the wires going into it were black from burns).... So if me wiring up to that with the correct cable is illegal, he should be lined up and shot

and it is actually really warm... the windows have made a massive difference, and the floorboards are chipboard, so no gaps what so ever... no drafts in the house what so ever

Richie-from-the-Boro

annoyd wrote: »

is this in response to my wiring it up to day meter? are they different outputs then? I am getting the house rewired, had upstairs done, getting downstairs done soon. But haven't asked my sparky yet about this. The heaters were wired up with 1.5 lighting cable, and the fuse was made a lot higher amp by the previous owner (the wires going into it were black from burns).... So if me wiring up to that with the correct cable is illegal, he should be lined up and shot

- shot he should be "the fuse was made a lot higher amp" explains all !

Each dwelling should have two circuits or one per floor each with a 5a fuse or 6a trip, each circuit should cope with twelve 100W incandescent bulbs usually unlike a power ring the lighting does not form a loop returning to a CU, if the predecessor has had 20a on that circuit how its never set fire inside the walls I'll never know.

You need to make a quick decision on E7 not E7 or you will end up paying your sparky twice, in fact a 20a cable and associated outputs [1st fix] should be in the bit your sparky has already completed.

annoyd

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

So if I was you I'd stay E7, invest in a biggest DUO in the living room and variously small manual nightstore elsewhere, safe panel in the bathroom [IPX4 - (Zone 2)] & kitchen - read this on E7 in general

oh right... i have just read your link, would you still recommend a duo.... basically the house is Portland stone exterior.... mid terraced.... like i said new grade A windows, and chipboard flooring. The bathroom is in the middle of the house and therefore has no windows etc, i just installed a big inline fan to extract.

The insulation in the loft however, is poor. It says on the EPC when i bought it that it needs more. You say in the other one that without insulation the duo is not effective? (think i read it right)..... but the insulation is in the roof... the stone, windows and chipboard i would have thought would be enough insulation for the groundfloor?

I see no point in heating within the bathroom, as it is in the centre of the house so doesnt loose too much heat, and is not really used much when you think about it.

And definitely small night storage in the bedrooms? as opposed to something like http://www.cnmonline.co.uk/Dimplex-OFX-Oil-Filled-Panel-Radiators-pr-30835.html

annoyd

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

- shot he should be "the fuse was made a lot higher amp" explains all !

Each dwelling should have two circuits or one per floor each with a 5a fuse or 6a trip, each circuit should cope with twelve 100W incandescent bulbs usually unlike a power ring the lighting does not form a loop returning to a CU, if the predecessor has had 20a on that circuit how its never set fire inside the walls I'll never know.

You need to make a quick decision on E7 not E7 or you will end up paying your sparky twice, in fact a 20a cable and associated outputs [1st fix] should be in the bit your sparky has already completed.

my sparky is my brother in law he said he would do my electrics as i wanted light switches repositioning (the previous owner rehung the doors, but didnt move the lights, so had to lean round the door to find the light switch!) but when he started the work, he just unearthed one thing after another. Hes now rewiring the whole house, but in his spare time. Most the sockets were ran with lighting cable aswell. He couldnt believe there hadnt been a fire there. Im just glad he spotted it or i would have never known, and could have ended up renting out a deathtrap!

Richie-from-the-Boro

annoyd wrote: »

oh right... i have just read your link, would you still recommend a duo.... basically the house is Portland stone exterior.... mid terraced.... like i said new grade A windows, and chipboard flooring. The bathroom is in the middle of the house and therefore has no windows etc, i just installed a big inline fan to extract.

The insulation in the loft however, is poor. It says on the EPC when i bought it that it needs more. You say in the other one that without insulation the duo is not effective? (think i read it right)..... but the insulation is in the roof... the stone, windows and chipboard i would have thought would be enough insulation for the groundfloor?

I see no point in heating within the bathroom, as it is in the centre of the house so doesnt loose too much heat, and is not really used much when you think about it.

And definitely small night storage in the bedrooms? as opposed to something like http://www.cnmonline.co.uk/Dimplex-OFX-Oil-Filled-Panel-Radiators-pr-30835.html

- yes duo save real estate, tenants hate both a night store and a same sized panel taking furniture space
- the DUO point is, its the same, its both a night-store heater and a day rate heater panel - a 2 in 1
- either or for the bedroom, a cheepo non-IPX panel will do, but a smallest night-store gives leached heat elsewhere on that fllor

Insulation - I said without good insulation everything is less effective in general .. .. panels in the particular because they are low output leeching .. .. night store in general because they leech much of their stored heat during the day when the tenant may or may not be out. OAP's hate panel, a very expensive in-all-day option.

Given costs, look at the tenants energy billing after 3 cold [ish] months. If you lose your tenant before the onset of winter look again at the room / loft and rethink core-panel-only costs ~v~ cheap rate-E7- costs.

Owain_Moneysaver

annoyd wrote: »

o, whats to stop me from wiring the storage heaters up to the day meter, and the tenants having them on for an hour or so before they come in from work.. and then it will release energy throughout the evening? and only use an hour or so of electric instead of 7hours in the night time....

or does it not work like that (im guessing not because it seems to simple)

They don't work like that.

They store up heat over the 7 hours cheap rate charge period, and release it slowly over the following 10-12 hours.

3 kW x 7 hours = 21 kWh stored. Discharge over 10 hours = 2 kw per hour, so equivalent to a 2 kW convector heater on for 10 hours, but at about 1/3rd of the cost.

If you connected them for 1 hour they'd barely get warm. 3 kW x 1 hour = 3kWh stored. Discharge over say 10 hours for the evening = 300 watt per hour or 3 conventional lightbulb's worth of heat. And they'd still be discharging heat at 4 am when everyone's gone to bed. High cost for you and a lot less convenience for your tenants.

Usually storage heaters are not used in bedrooms, as convector heaters on midnight-7am are using the cheap rate lecky anyway, and bedrooms are assumed to not need heating much during the day or early evening.

If you do an ebay search for 'nearest first' you may well find good quality used storage heaters for next to nothing as people change over to gas.

Owain_Moneysaver

Add - it's usually to provide a decorative electric fire in the lounge for an evening boost as the storage heaters will usually have given up by about 5 pm, which is why they;re better for people at home all day and not so good for people at work. In fact for people out at work, panel heaters can be cheaper to run overall because the economy 7 heat is wasted during the day, and the peak rate lecky in the evening is more expensive on E7 than on an ordinary tariff.