storage heaters/electric central heating or gas?

MRF

I think this will make interesting reading given the posts in this thread. It would appear (if this is correct) that there is no major advantage of going for storage heaters on an economy tariff over panel heaters (or similar instant electirc heat).

I still think GCH is superior, but in my small 1 bed flat, which is reasonably well insulated I think I will kit of out for under £400 on electric non storage heaters on a cheap electric tariff rather than spend £3k on GCH.



http://www.fool.co.uk/news/money-saving-tips/household-bills/2007/09/27/is-economy-seven-a-con.aspx?site=UKFool&source=isdbroban0050001

tomstickland

I'd be surprised if non storage heaters are cheaper to run than storage heaters.

I've just had a look through my spreadsheet.
My average daily use for this year:
Day: 3.6KWh/day
E7: 10.1KWh/day
ie: 73% of my usage is nightime.

In the summer months my daily use is closer to 4KWh/day for both tarriffs.


Taking some typical unit costs from British Gas click energy.
non e7: 12p and then 7p.
e7: 2.5 night, 25p and then 11p.
Tier 1 applies to first 225units per quarter.

I'm going to use 1330 daytime units per year, so 330 per quarter.
Hence effective day rate for non e7 is:
(225*12+ (330-225)*7)/330 = 10p.
e7 is
(225*25 + (330-225)*11)/330 = 21p.

Night time rate is 2.5p.
The night time proportion to use to balance the prices up is:
r*2.5 + (1-r)*21 = 10
Hence r has to exceed 0.59.

ie: if I use more than 59% of my electricity at night then it'll be cheaper to use Econ 7.

My records show me using 70% of my electricity for the last year at night.

If less than 225Kwh are used per quarter then the ratio is:
r*2.5 + (1-r)*25 = 12
so r= 0.57
Pretty similar, and quite a high percentage.

I find this weird though, because I would think that it's everyone using their heating at night that is the biggest usage.

I thought that this was a silly thing to say.How many people have E7 heating? Not many.

MRF

yes, agreed using that British Gas Tariff and your usage patterns it certainly shows that you save on economy 7. But you still get all the problems with storage heaters (wrong time, limited control etc)

The main point that I drew from the article is that there is less of a gap between economy 7 and traditional tariffs then there once was. One size doesn't fit all, it just depends how much of a premium you are willing to pay for the flexibility that comes from no storage heating Personally I am willing to pay that premium, as the install costs are so low, my flat / lifestyle suits it and GCH is so pricey.

Plus theres nothing worse than a cold flat :mad:

tomstickland

Yes, when I can be bothered, I'll do a hypothetical analysis comparing heating my flat with "on demand" heating versus Econ 7. I just noticed that I made a mistake in my previous post and the break even ratio is closer to 60%.

At 70%, I'm effectively paying 8p per unit on Econ 7 (70% of 2.5 plus 30% of 21p).
If I was non E7 then it'd be 10p per unit. So I might be saving 20% by being on Econ 7.

It is pretty marginal.

MRF

would be interested to see it based on the Npower rates, as yes, I'm not an expert on all the calcs so the best I can go on is all the research I can can get hold of, so any further input from yourself would be helpful !

Maybe the thread should be renamed electric storage v electric on demand v GCH

NB my mum works for the council (architect), and on every new build they have to pass certain benchmarks on energy efficiency. They did one (surestart nursery thing) last week and they couldn't get a gas boiler to pass, and ended up on electric with no gas supply to the building. Don't ask me how, but I thought that was interesting

Its also going into a lot of new builds, see the spec on the flats below!

http://www.admiralty-quarter.co.uk/images/pdfs/aq_specification.pdf

icstm

OK, so part of the issue is the difference in E7 to normal tariff. I SW london it appears that the best prices are about 4p vs 8p, so E7 off-peak is 50% cheaper than a non timed tariff.

It this were cheaper then yes E7 comes into it's own.

So I think what we are saying is:

* Running Storage heaters is only slightly cheaper than running normal heaters.

* Storage heaters often needs to be topped up in the evening

* Storage heaters are rarely used in every room so some rooms only have panel heating (eg dimplex)

* Instead of using both Storgage and Top-up (run on peak rates) you could use just panel heating on a non-timed tariff

* In the panel heater market some makes claim to be better than others

* In any market some makes are better than others!

* Defining better can be subjective, but here we mean a mixture of 'cheaper' and 'easy to use'

* However, these 'better' heaters often cost more (higher capital outlay)

Which makes of panel heaters meet this defn. of better and how much more do they cost, thus how long would it take to recoup these costs AND what other benefits do they deliver?




My thoughts before joining this thread were:

* Kalirel are expensive, but not OTT to Dimplex

* Most stockists of both buy into their marketing speak of being cheaper to run than Dimplex

* These designs do not dry the air as much as they use continous warmth rather than bursts of super heat common in hot-wire heaters (fan or not)


Thoughts?

MRF

I'm also in SW London, and am at virtually the same stage. I have looked at Kalirel and Dimplex amongst others and have yet to decide on the bext route forwards. I think if any form of heating is to be cheaper than the other it depends on fitting it to your lifestyle i.e. if you are in all day every day storage will undoubtedly be cheaper

The favoured option to me at the moment is the Dimplex PLX panel heater with thermostat and 24 hour controls, which means I can have it on for c30mins in the morning in the bedroom and bathroom (small flat, I work all day) and set it to come on just before I get home and later as needed.

These heaters cost from £60 - £140 depending on the power you need, and the only install cost is putting a fused spur in place (my flat has circuits ready). So in total for 4 rooms, all thermostatically controlled and programmable it will cost me £250 for hardware, plus about £50 to fit (free if I can get my Dad down here).

But I'm also investigating the dimplex radiant heaters the kalirel, and other fluid filled devices that aim to replicate traditional GCH radiator heat, which seem to cost more. I'm currently trying to understand if the 'different kid of heat' will add the extra comfort necessary to justify the price tag and claims in the glossy brochres. I strongly suspect the answer will be No, but I'm open to being proven wrong, and it will have to be a big gap in comfort to justify the premium it as I am doing up my flat and the money will probably be better invested elsewhere

icstm

I believe that the Dimplex alternative to the Kalirel is the dimplex calidou.

These cost a bit more than the french brand and a lot more than the PLX but according to Dimplex they are cheaper to run for long periods of time than the PLX.

btw, who will fit for £50 and where are you sourcing your heaters from?

Bexm

Heck I didn't realise this thread was still running....!

I'd like to give an update on our situation with heating.. We are still living with our one storage heater and "blowy" heaters in each of our two bedrooms.
Currently I am unsure if our storage heater is working correctly as it seems to be coming on duing the day (as I have written in another thread), but our house is staying quite warm with just the storage heater, which is located at the bottom of the stairs.
(there has been ice outside recently too)

We have just replaced our double glazing which has made a helluva difference (this cost us £1300)
We are in the process of putting up a thick curtain by our front door as currently this seems the only place that we are getting cold from.
At night just before we go to bed we switch on the heater in our room for about half hour and that makes it nice and cosy and we stilll have the electric towel rail in the bathroom.

Strangely enough, we find keeping the two bedrooms and bathroom doors open upstairs keep them warm, we only close the kitchen to living room door. (but then the kitchen does get warmed up when we cook each evening)

We have been occasionally putting on a tiny oil heater in the living room for extra warmth, but havent really needed to that much.

We've also got our selves a roll of fibre glass insulation ready to put in the loft (this cost £35).

We are yet to know what our electric bill is going to be like, but will give an update in the spring (fingers crossed its not a fortune)

So far we have only been on DD for £30 a month which is £30 less than we were paying for gas and electric in our last place.

Will keep you updated... So far I think as we are now well insulated and draft proofed our 1 storage heater will suffice!

seeking2save

seeking2save wrote: »

Hi all

The reviews of storage heaters don't sound that great, but seem to be so much cheaper to install (our flat doesn't have gas, although there is a supply to the block), and then I presume that they're greener in that the electricity can be supplied by renewable sources.

So currently things seem to be moving towards storage heating - probably not in the bedroom though, as I can't stand sleeping in warm stuffy rooms - do new modern storage heaters emit heat when they're heating up overnight?

I was considering the Kalirel system, but am having second thoughts now after reading this thread (particularly Cardew's posts).

Further to my previous post, I've been doing some calculations. I need to double check my figures, but it seems that using the Kalirel heaters on Economy 10 actually works out cheaper (about £15 less per month than storage heaters on Economy 7). On the standard tariff, the Kalirel heaters are slightly more expensive to run than storage heaters on the Economy 7 tariff. And storage heaters on Economy 10 are extortionately expensive!

Plus the monthly energy usage in kWh of the Kalirel heaters seems to be significantly less (~60% that of the storage heaters on Economy 7), making the Kalirel heaters better (than storage heating) for the environment too.