storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

Kimbochelsea

Can someone please help me I am totally bamboozled!

I am soon to move into a 3 bedroomed detatched cottage with storage heating and a coal fire which heats the water. I have never come across storage heating before and have no idea how it works or how to make the most of it? I've always had my heating and water run off the coal fire! The cottage is quite old and has very little or no insulation and has single glazing throughout.

Could someone please advise me on whats the best thing to do? I wondered would it be cheaper to buy plug in heaters and run these instead of the storage heating but I really don't have a clue?

Also what is this E7 everyone seems to be talking about? My partner and I would probably require the heating to be on first thing in the morning for an hour but off all day and on after 5 o clock at night.

Can someone please help me? I would really appreciate some advice from someone who knows what they're talking about!

Thank you!

Oh and on a completely different note, does anyone know what a tennants rights are to basic things like proper insulation and perhaps double glazing and central heating. I believe there is some sort of government grant you can apply for but I think you have to be in the property for a year before you can do so?? If anyone has any thoughts I would love to hear them!

Thanks again!
Look forward to hearing from someone!

Magentasue

Economy 7 is where you pay more for your daytime electricity but for a seven hour period (sometimes a little more) overnight, you have cheap rate electricity. It is, therefore, much cheaper to run your washing machine etc. at night.

More importantly, storage heaters use the cheaper electricity while they are heating up. Because of this, the house is warm overnight. When you get up, you can turn the heaters 'on', in other words, let some of that stored heat out. You could then turn them on when you get home. However ... the heaters will be slowly losing heat all day even if off, so they may be cold later on in the evening.

Storage heaters are horrendously expensive to run so you need E7 if you are using them. If you have an immersion heater, you can also heat this in the cheap period.

Is the fire a Parkray type? We had one of these years ago. Like a coal fire with a glass door? Ours ran a couple of radiators but not the hot water. Basically, you kept the fire going and it effectively heated one room and poorly heated the radiators. I've known other people's to be more efficient. I remember using A LOT of coal!

Don't know about the tenants' rights one but there are a lot of landlords and others who might know on the House Buying, Renting and Selling board.

russian

I found 2 type of electric radiator system - kalirel and suko, one French, the other German, I think. One has gel inside but I haven't decided yet so don't know what they are like. The other is a combination of stored heat in stones inside rad and instant heat. Both are prettier and sound much more user friendly than storage heaters & can be used with economy 10. Has anyone had these. They are also cheaper to install and so cost less than gas to fit.

Cardew

russian wrote: »

I found 2 type of electric radiator system - kalirel and suko, one French, the other German, I think. One has gel inside but I haven't decided yet so don't know what they are like. The other is a combination of stored heat in stones inside rad and instant heat. Both are prettier and sound much more user friendly than storage heaters & can be used with economy 10. Has anyone had these. They are also cheaper to install and so cost less than gas to fit.

Any heater can be used with Economy 10 or Economy 7!! It is just electricity.

Why not get some £20 to £30 oil filled radiators as they give EXACTLY the same heat for the money, and cost a fraction of these 'systems'.

amtrakuk

evening Cardew...

But what benefit would an oil filled rad do overnight, by morning it would be cold? Surely you would need some storage capabilities or is there an element of sarcasm there?

Here-here for convection heaters! NOT on economy 7

Cardew

amtrakuk wrote: »

evening Cardew...

But what benefit would an oil filled rad do overnight, by morning it would be cold? Surely you would need some storage capabilities or is there an element of sarcasm there?

Here-here for convection heaters! NOT on economy 7

evening armatrak...

No, there was no sarcasm.

The 2 systems mentioned are not any form of storage heating. Their cleverly worded adverts, with mention of working on Economy 10, are simply radiators filled with a gel/clay/what have you!! The implication is they have some form of storage capacity.

They plug into a normal 13 amp socket and give out exactly the same heat for your money as £20 oil filled radiators. Except a 'system' for a house will cost £thousands.

As you say, the oil filled radiators will be cold soon after the power is switched off, but so will the radiators in question.

All I am saying is if you decide to use electric heating, look at storage heating and work out if the economics are viable, or go for a 24/7 tariff using simple oil filled rads or fan(convector) heaters.

Why pay £thousands to get the same heat as £20 heaters?

amtrakuk

Hey there Cardew.


Yeah in agreement with you there. I must have misunderstood the previous message. I was under the impression of using a standard oil filled radiator on economy7 as the main heating. I thought there is little point in using a £20 oil filled rad instead of a storage heater as the house would be hot during the off peak period, the house would cool down by mid afternoon.

I think E10 offers 2 off-peak periods so perhaps an oil filled rad may be a viable option as it will heat the house in the afternoon as well.

amtrakuk

Hey there Cardew.


Yeah in agreement with you there. I must have misunderstood the previous message. I was under the impression of using a standard oil filled radiator on economy7 as the main heating. I thought there is little point in using a £20 oil filled rad instead of a storage heater as the house would be hot during the off peak period, the house would cool down by mid afternoon.

I think E10 offers 2 off-peak periods so perhaps an oil filled rad may be a viable option as it will heat the house in the afternoon as well.

m_13

hamtune wrote: »

Has anyone tried Kalriel heating? The information on their website is certainly encouraging and if I were replacing storage heaters, they would certainly be on my wish list.
http://www.kalirel.co.uk/

We installed Kalirel heaters into our all-electric flat when we bought it in April this year. The previous heating was ceiling heating which didn't work at all. The flat had been allowed to get damp and wet by the last tenants who had no heating source at all. We had black mould growing up the walls

We switched to Economy 10 as recommended and run the dishwasher and washing machine in the afternoon when the electricity is cheaper. We have a 2KW 'radiator' in the lounge, 1KW in the main bedroom, 750w in the second bedroom and kitchen, 500w in the hall and a 750w towel rail in the bathroom. Our immersion heater runs in the cheap period during the night.

We use an OWL to monitor our electricity consumption and have a Cyclope programmer. The flat is in zones (which share the same programming and target temperature) which come on at various times and if we're going out we can simply tell the programmer to stop heating until x time (hours or days) and then come back on. Our spare bedroom runs independently from the zone and comes on in the morning and when I'm working but not at night unless we have guests and only on for an hour in the morning at weekends so I can get dressed and undressed in the warm. We do have a decorative electric fire in the lounge but it's never been on other than to show off the flame effect!

We pay £55 per month on direct debit to Southern Electric and our winter usage is working out at around £2.50 per day including heating, light, cooking and power. I work from home so my laptop etc is on from 9.00 until at least 17.30 weekdays and we bake fresh bread every day (on peak rates!).

Having had storage heaters before I knew that I didn't want them again as I was red hot in the night when they were charging but freezing cold by the evening as I wanted heat whilst I was working from home in the day. It may well be that we could have obtained the same level of heat from oil radiators but I'm really happy with system we bought. The radiators are much admired as they look ordinary and take up little room. They are hard wired into the circuits previously used by the ceiling heating which used thicker cable so can support a 2KW load (or so the electrician told me). They stay warm for around 30 minutes after the power is switched off by the timer (which runs via bluetooth and controls them all from my settee).

The system might not suit everybody but I'm enjoying the warmth from a radiator looky likely as I write and no, i have no connection to Kalirel.

paceinternet

m_13, could you post your electicity rates per kwh and daily kwh useage over a few days so that readers can understand how this adds up?

Thanks