storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

ACEELECLTD

Cardew wrote: »

The first thing I want to establish is the cost of running any electrical heating system on a daytime tariff(i.e. not Economy 7)

The average household in UK uses 20,500 kWh gas pa. Given gas boilers are between 60% and 95% efficient, the useful output is approx 12,300kWh to 19,500kWh. So taking an average figure this is approx 16,000kWh.

Now the cost of 16,000kWh of electricity @ 10p/kWh is £1,600 to produce heating and hot water; plus of course the 'normal' electricity bill for lighting appliances etc.

So let us be very clear that the figure of £1,600 is a ball park figure for heating an average house. No amount of advertising blurb along the lines of "it costs xx pence to warm a room to yy degrees C" can alter that fundemental fact.

So if I have 8 rooms in my house and use 1Kw for one in each rooms then the cost with your figures quoted above would be

8 x1Kw x 1Hour @ 10p/KwH = 80pence

but hang on a minute if I am the only person in the house and I do not leave that room - I could be using
1 x 1Kw x 1Hour @ 10p/KwH = 10pence thats a saving of 70pence!!!!

That means that just by being in control of my system I could have saved myself 88%
or heated my entire local environment for 8 hours
for the same amount as I was paying to heat my 7 empty rooms previously.

Are we in agreement that from this calculation we have the potential to save money

Cardew

ACEELECLTD wrote: »

So if I have 8 rooms in my house and use 1Kw for one in each rooms then the cost with your figures quoted above would be

8 x1Kw x 1Hour @ 10p/KwH = 80pence

but hang on a minute if I am the only person in the house and I do not leave that room - I could be using
1 x 1Kw x 1Hour @ 10p/KwH = 10pence thats a saving of 70pence!!!!

That means that just by being in control of my system I could have saved myself 88%
or heated my entire local environment for 8 hours
for the same amount as I was paying to heat my 7 empty rooms previously.

Are we in agreement that from this calculation we have the potential to save money

I suspect you are being deliberately obtuse.

If you leave your house and go and live with my Granny(and be warmed by her 3 bar fire!) you will spend nothing on heating – an equally specious argument.

We need to establish a ball park figure for what it costs to heat an average house with electrical heating, before we talk about the merits of a control system for electrical heating.

The average figure of 16,000kWh(adjusted) I gave for Gas CH is for a fully controllable CH system. so you don't heat a room you don't wish to.

i.e. regardless if you heat by by gas, oil, electricity or solid fuel, the average property will use the equiv of 16,000kWh for heating and hot water?

So do you concede that is realistic or not?

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.