Storage heaters - should they be left on all the time?

Daydreamerjade

I'm completely new to storage heaters, and switched mine on for the first time on Monday. I'm on Off-Peak A tariff with Southern Electric, with 2 meters.

I was just wondering if the storage heater should be left on all the time, or if I should switch it off during the day? The instruction manual didn't make it very clear. Having done a bit of research, I think it should be left on all the time as, due to the way it's wired to the 2 meters, it only starts charging when the cheaper rate kicks in.

But I'm worried about doing this as the electrician seemed to think it needs to be manually switched on and off. His English wasn't great, though, so he may not have understood my question. The neon light at the wall also seems to stay on all the time.

Can anyone give me any advice? Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere.

MrBrindle

Hi, your situation sounds similar to mine. We had storage heaters installed recently and our electrician left us instructions to manually turn them on and off each night. This is NOT the correct way they should operate, you should be able to leave them on 24/7 and they charge automatically from the lower tariff. We knew this before hand, and didn't really understand why he wired them that way. Unfortunately, he is not accepting any blame for this as he didn't understand how our meter worked exactly, and now wants £240 to sort it out. There's a thread which I created about this, should be a few threads down from this one called 'Storage heater wiring questions'. With us, I'm expecting an engineer from our supplier to come down and inspect, to see if I've got a case of unsafe wiring to take back to my electrician, and obviously to tell him how it should be done. If he doesn't agree to do it for a much cheaper price or for free he'll be told where to go! Best of luck sorting it out.

tberry6686

they should be left on all the time if they have been wired correctly.

Depending on the heater there may be 2 connections at the wall, one will be for a convector heater built in to the storage heater and is there to add additional heating if required. If so then this is probably wired to the connection with the red light and should be left on at the wall all the time and controlled by the storage heater controls.

If there is only one connection to the wall then the storage heater will be drawing power all the time that the red light is on.

Storage heating/off peak power should be controlled by a time switch of some form.

darren_clarke

if wired in correctly, they only come on with the eco 7, so are turned off during the day, due the fact that eco 7 is turned off, turn on and leave

Daydreamerjade

Thanks for your replies, everyone. I'm starting to suspect it hasn't been wired correctly, and may contact Southern Electric to find out if one of their electricians can come and take a look at it. An additional complication is that I'm in a rental flat, so if it does need fixing I'll obviously have to go through the landlord. Sigh.

MrBrindle

Just to update my situation. My suppliers (Swalec) engineer came out this morning, and confirmed that the heaters were wired wrongly.

The solution is quite simple though. As each heater is on it's own circuit, all that needs doing is taking each circuit from the the main fuse board and putting them in a new fuse board dedicated to the storage heaters. Then a Swalec engineer will come out and wire the new fuse board into the meter/time switch, as legally only the supplier is meant to wire the storage heaters directly into the meter.

Hope your situation is just as simple.

Daydreamerjade

MrBrindle wrote: »

Just to update my situation. My suppliers (Swalec) engineer came out this morning, and confirmed that the heaters were wired wrongly.

The solution is quite simple though. As each heater is on it's own circuit, all that needs doing is taking each circuit from the the main fuse board and putting them in a new fuse board dedicated to the storage heaters. Then a Swalec engineer will come out and wire the new fuse board into the meter/time switch, as legally only the supplier is meant to wire the storage heaters directly into the meter.

Hope your situation is just as simple.

Thanks, I also hope my situation is as simple! I spoke to Southern Electric on the phone who confirmed the heater's wired wrongly, as I've noticed the reading on my off-peak meter hasn't moved, while my expensive meter has shot up alarmingly.

My problem is that I'm in a rented flat, so my landlord will have to organise (and pay for!) it to be rewired. I've sent her an email, but she has a tendancy to really take her time to do anything.

I still have to heat the flat in the meantime, so does anyone know if it'd be more cost efficient to use the convector heater that's part of the storage heater or to buy an oil-filled electric heater? I'm tempted by buy an electric heater, as my storage heater is in an alcove so it'll probably take longer to warm the flat.

MrBrindle

Daydreamerjade wrote: »

Thanks, I also hope my situation is as simple! I spoke to Southern Electric on the phone who confirmed the heater's wired wrongly, as I've noticed the reading on my off-peak meter hasn't moved, while my expensive meter has shot up alarmingly.

My problem is that I'm in a rented flat, so my landlord will have to organise (and pay for!) it to be rewired. I've sent her an email, but she has a tendancy to really take her time to do anything.

I still have to heat the flat in the meantime, so does anyone know if it'd be more cost efficient to use the convector heater that's part of the storage heater or to buy an oil-filled electric heater? I'm tempted by buy an electric heater, as my storage heater is in an alcove so it'll probably take longer to warm the flat.

Good luck. We've just had a quote from another electrician to fix the problems, £200 ish. Still very annoyed that the previous electrician refused to acknowledge that he was wrong and wouldn't fix it for free.

As far as using a convector part vs oil radiator, they will both cost the same to run. We have a convector heater in the bedroom which is on a timer to come on at 4.30am - 6.30am as we are up early, and also in the night around 8pm-10pm. It has a built in fan boost, so it heats the room up pretty nicely (but also a bit noisy). If you want heat quite quickly then Id go for a fan assisted convector. But some argue an oil filled radiator gives a more radiant consistent heat, and will also provide some heat after being switched off due to the oil cooling down. It's up to you really.

macman

Was your 'electrician' even qualified? If he was not from the UK then he may be completely unfamiliar with E7 dual rate systems.
Any UK qualified electrician would know that NSH's need to be wired to the E7 meter side (on an older system), otherwise they're completely pointless. You'd hardly want to wait up each night to manually switch them on at midnight or 1am and the off again in the morning at 7 or 8am!
They'res no way the original install was acceptable.

Daydreamerjade

macman wrote: »

Was your 'electrician' even qualified? If he was not from the UK then he may be completely unfamiliar with E7 dual rate systems.
Any UK qualified electrician would know that NSH's need to be wired to the E7 meter side (on an older system), otherwise they're completely pointless. You'd hardly want to wait up each night to manually switch them on at midnight or 1am and the off again in the morning at 7 or 8am!
They're no way the original install was acceptable.

That's a good question and the answer is, I don't know if he was qualified... but I doubt it.

My landlord's told me she'll get the original electrician back to look at it, which isn't what I wanted but I'll take what I can get.

She's also asked me if one of the meters is sealed. The problem is, I'm now staying somewhere else (as I can't live in an unheated flat in winter) so it isn't easy for me to go and check. Nor do I know what a sealed meter looks like. I've pointed this out, but I think she'll just use it as an excuse to delay getting anything done.

MrBrindle wrote:

As far as using a convector part vs oil radiator, they will both cost the same to run. We have a convector heater in the bedroom which is on a timer to come on at 4.30am - 6.30am as we are up early, and also in the night around 8pm-10pm. It has a built in fan boost, so it heats the room up pretty nicely (but also a bit noisy). If you want heat quite quickly then Id go for a fan assisted convector. But some argue an oil filled radiator gives a more radiant consistent heat, and will also provide some heat after being switched off due to the oil cooling down. It's up to you really.

Thanks for this. I'm actually staying with my mother so I can't remain there indefinitely. I think it will come down to using the convector heater or an oil heater, so this is very useful.

J_B

A couple of suggestions
1. stop paying the rent - tell her the house is 'not fit for purpose'
2. Most E7 systems - the cheap rate is from 12.30am to 07.30am so any 'leccy' you use will be cheap then, so, if you have heaters with timers, at least you can sleep warmly!!