storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

ACEELECLTD

Cardew wrote: »

I suspect you are being deliberately obtuse.

Many apologies Cardew because Yes I was,

I was just trying to highlight the fact that figures can be misleading and they do not give the whole picture.

I loved Storage heaters and found that they fulfilled a gap in the market dominated by Oil and Gas in my Heat electric days and under certain circumstances they can be the most suitable as they do operate on cheap rate electric.

What I was trying to get over was that not all installers are the same and not all of these new systems are the same (in the pipeless electric central heating market there are 4 different heating methods used).

You should always work by carrying out case studies for what is needed to be achieved.

I personally have Gas central heating in my property. Do to the age of the system (Boiler 6years but system 30+) only have one roomstat in the entrance hall. All radiators are fitted with TRV which are fully controllable but do to influences of sticky fingers are always fully open although I continually set them back again. The system is run by a 24hr 7day 2 channel programmer which is set to meet our daily requirements. Again this is normally overidden by others after i leave for work and continues to churn away when everyone else is out of the property. As you can appreciate I would say that this is probably repeated in many houses across the land and energy is being wasted needlessly

This was what caused me to investigate certain alternative systems and find one that would fit within my budget and go towards addressing some/ most of my requirements. As i already have a functioning heating system I needed something that could run in parallel but be installed as and when budget permitted.

In my case I have found that certain systems have worked and have saved money through reducing wastage of heat energy that was originally beyond my general control.

The figure of 16000 Kw/h for heating and hot water I am sure is correct, on paper, but may not truly relate to real life as approached above but I can give plenty of case study examples to work against

regards

Cardew

ACEELECLTD wrote: »

The figure of 16000 Kw/h for heating and hot water I am sure is correct, on paper, but may not truly relate to real life as approached above but I can give plenty of case study examples to work against

regards

Well that is really the basis of any discussion on these systems. A cost of around £1,600 for heating and hot water for the average house before you start considering your 'normal' electricy bill.

Sure. I will concede that it could be quite a bit less(or quite a bit more) depending on lots of factors; but it is probably a reasonable ballpark figure.

I am also more than willing to concede that one of these systems, well installed, is very easy to program to give the required temperature in each room.

However I would estimate about £3,000 to install professionally?? I read on a couple of these sites that they estimated it cost "about the same as a Gas CH system to install"

I don't know that there is much more to say really. People can read and make their own decisions.

The main lesson that they should take from this thread is that ALL electrical heating on a daytime tariff is extremely expensive to run and that applies to all of these new systems with their hype and misleading adverts.

samtheman1k

bryanb wrote: »

I read earlier on this thread of "a requirement" to have gas central heating checked annually. I have no knowledge of such a requirement with respect to a private house. Can anyone substantiate such a requirement/regulation, or is it merely a recommendation?

AFAIK, and IANAL, but for your own house which you live in, no you don't need to. BUT if you rent the house out, then yes you do need it inspecting.

samtheman1k

ACEELECLTD wrote: »

It is like me arguing that Saab-Scania are ripping me off charging £150,000 for a lorry to transport goods across the country when a local Farmer can Purchase 2 Shire Horses and a flat back trailer for £3000.00 which will do the job just as well and about 8 sacks of carrots

Yes, given that they both do the same job, which would you choose if it was your money?

jackieb

We had storage heaters in our last house, and it was freezing. We moved out in 1994, but even then our electric bills were well over £300 a quarter, and these were, at the time, new heaters. Our neighbours were the same.

Cardew

jackieb wrote: »

We had storage heaters in our last house, and it was freezing. We moved out in 1994, but even then our electric bills were well over £300 a quarter, and these were, at the time, new heaters. Our neighbours were the same.

Not quite sure of the point you are making.

All electrical heating was, and is, expensive to run. Storage heating is the lesser of two evils.

At least with storage heating on economy 7 you get your electricity for a lot of your heating and most of your Hot water at about 4p/kWh.

jackieb

Cardew wrote: »

Not quite sure of the point you are making.

All electrical heating was, and is, expensive to run. Storage heating is the lesser of two evils.

At least with storage heating on economy 7 you get your electricity for a lot of your heating and most of your Hot water at about 4p/kWh.

My point is, that I now live in a house that's a lot warmer, has gas CH, and the bills are half of what they used to be.

Cardew

jackieb wrote: »

My point is, that I now live in a house that's a lot warmer, has gas CH, and the bills are half of what they used to be.

Agreed, I don't think there is any dispute that Gas CH is preferable to electric heating for the great majority of people.

sanman

Hi!

Having spent a while reading this thread I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have taken the time to supply information to help us noobs out.

My own situation is that I have a 5 bedroom house (220sqm) in a village without gas. I have storage heaters on E7, a wood burner in the living room and solar power for hot water (installed by previous owners). I had thought about moving to some other system to make the house more saleable and wondered about the new breed of Kalirel etc systems but have changed my mind now - thanks for that :beer:

Ideally, my house would have mains gas. I would personally much prefer that. But in my situation I shall now (having read this forum) not change from storage heaters because

1. E7 is, for me, fantastic. I time the washing machine, etc to come on at night where possible and therefore my total usage is approximately 70% off peak, 30% peak.
2. The upheaval would be immense (floors up, redecoration, etc) and the cost very large also (several thousand for boiler and new radiators - it would take ages to recoup that).
3. Storage is fine IF you are organised (which my wife is - I'm not, but it only takes one of us ). You need to monitor weather and adjust accordingly. We use storage radiators for the core heat in the house - timed panels in the kids rooms and the stove in the living room which gets nice and hot.
4. Oil (and, to a lesser extent, gas) is a political fuel. Prices can potentially go through the roof overnight - less likely with electricity which is generated from a number of different sources.

We save a fair amount of money because
1. The house stays coolish during the winter (17 degrees or so) but 95% of our time is spent in the living room which is toasty due to the stove, so we can live with cooler rooms we spend very little time in
2. Rooms we don't use regularly (2 of the bedrooms) stay unheated with the door closed during the winter months
3. We turn things off when we aren't using them, live TVs, etc

Thus we use on average approx 70 units of electricity per day (remember, no gas) and this works out to about £32 per month with E7 (may now be higher ... need to check latest tariff). Yes, there is the cost of wood also ... but I know some tree surgeons :j.

Anyway, thanks again to all contributors, especially the very prolific Cardew!

Cardew

sanman wrote: »

Hi!

Having spent a while reading this thread I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have taken the time to supply information to help us noobs out.

My own situation is that I have a 5 bedroom house (220sqm) in a village without gas. I have storage heaters on E7, a wood burner in the living room and solar power for hot water (installed by previous owners). I had thought about moving to some other system to make the house more saleable and wondered about the new breed of Kalirel etc systems but have changed my mind now - thanks for that :beer:

Ideally, my house would have mains gas. I would personally much prefer that. But in my situation I shall now (having read this forum) not change from storage heaters because

1. E7 is, for me, fantastic. I time the washing machine, etc to come on at night where possible and therefore my total usage is approximately 70% off peak, 30% peak.
2. The upheaval would be immense (floors up, redecoration, etc) and the cost very large also (several thousand for boiler and new radiators - it would take ages to recoup that).
3. Storage is fine IF you are organised (which my wife is - I'm not, but it only takes one of us ). You need to monitor weather and adjust accordingly. We use storage radiators for the core heat in the house - timed panels in the kids rooms and the stove in the living room which gets nice and hot.
4. Oil (and, to a lesser extent, gas) is a political fuel. Prices can potentially go through the roof overnight - less likely with electricity which is generated from a number of different sources.

We save a fair amount of money because
1. The house stays coolish during the winter (17 degrees or so) but 95% of our time is spent in the living room which is toasty due to the stove, so we can live with cooler rooms we spend very little time in
2. Rooms we don't use regularly (2 of the bedrooms) stay unheated with the door closed during the winter months
3. We turn things off when we aren't using them, live TVs, etc

Thus we use on average approx 70 units of electricity per day (remember, no gas) and this works out to about £32 per month with E7 (may now be higher ... need to check latest tariff). Yes, there is the cost of wood also ... but I know some tree surgeons :j.

Anyway, thanks again to all contributors, especially the very prolific Cardew!

Welcome to the forum,

Nice post(especially the last sentence!!)

I think the phrase that sums it up is "We use storage radiators for the core heat in the house"

That is exactly the advantage of Economy 7 heating, if you need to 'top up' during the day with other forms of electrical heating, then you are paying the same running cost as these "new breed" electrical heaters anyway.

If this message gets about it will perhaps stop people buying radiators for £hundreds each, that give out exactly the same heat as radiators costing £tens.