storage Heaters/ electric Radiators

will7

Can anyone help, I am about to change some old storage heaters in a flat I have recently purchased. should I change these for new storage heaters or with something like Digi Line electric radiators and which would be the least expensive to run?????

Isabel1221

I have just bought a new flat with no gas. Do you think it's better to install electric radiators or hot water ones heated by electricity

Richie-from-the-Boro

Electrorad run at core rate electricity cost which is twice the night rate cost per kW. All running costs whether a German panel heater or a night [brick] store heater are governed by the thermal efficiency of the room or dwelling [insulation, glazing etc] that's what determines heat loss and therefore running your real costs.

You currently get 365 full to the brim tanks of boiling water per year at half price, what will you do for water when you go to core rate ? You decide !

Isabel1221

I know that the electric heating is not comparabile with the gas one, but this flat , in London , has no gas so.... , it's 80 sqm with 3 badrooms, the DIMPLEX calculation is :2x 1kw for the two little bedrooms + 1,5 kW for the bigger bedroom + 3 kW for the living room, and other 2 kW for kitchen and bathrooms= 9.5 kw.
My meter is an economy 7 so Dimplex suggested me to use storage duo heater, but I think that It could be too hot at night and cold at mid day and they look ugly, so I mailed to Souther Electric and asked if it was possible to have a meter like Economy 10 in my area, but I'm still waiting for answer.
So, the first step is : wet rad or electric plates ? If there is no difference in the running cost there is no reason to install wet rad that has higher installation and maintenance cost. It could be possible to schedule the timing of on and off for the electric plates with a central thermostat clock as it is possible for the wet system?

lstar337

Go for storage, flat rate is silly money for a little bit of controllability.

Look at Dimplex Quantumn range, and you don't need heaters in hallways, kitchen, and only small ones in bedrooms if at all.

Quantumn is a big upfront cost, but will cost far less to run than any flat rate system.

Storage and E7, best solution.

Other option, if it's possible, is an Air Source Heat Pump system.

macman

An electric boiler with wet rads is the worst of both worlds. High install costs, possible ongoing maintenance costs, and 3 times the running costs of gas CH,
Cut your losses and use NSH's on an E7 meter.

Isabel1221

Is it sufficient to run the storage heater only during the night to keep the house warm during the all day or in the evening I have to run in the pick hours?

Richie-from-the-Boro

Not sure what a 'pick' hour is, I assume you mean core rate rather than cheap rate hour, and if that's the case you can not run a storage heater at core rate, only at night rate, in fact the control of when you can run them is .. .. or should be completely out of your control.

If you are even able to run a storage heater at core rate ["""I have to run in the pick hours"""] either you are not on an E7 tariff and your wiring and CU's are completely whacko or something else is very wrong, and yes if you need to supplement your heating with extra heat in the evening clearly you are not storing enough of the chap rate leccy. Moving your tariff from E7 to E10 will give you an extra 3 hours of heat but you may live to regret making that non-discounted change.

As lstar337 and others have said the Quantum or the DUO range both provide for storage [night rate] plus extra instant [day rate] on demand heat, in other words they are a modern storage heater and a modern panel heater in one box.

vickyanne_2

We've got a well insulated house which is quite open plan and have 2 storage heaters downstairs only. I'm at home all day. I use 70% elec at night and recently bought a room thermometer which stores high and low temps and much to my amazement there is virtually no fluctuation at all in temp over the 24 hrs. It's around 19.5c -21c most of the time but comfortably cooler upstairs.
If I feel cooler because I'm sat in the evening I just use a blanket and we are comfortably warm most of the time unless the weather gets really cold then we use oil filled radiators to top it up. I love our storage heaters, yes they cost more but never let us down and we save on the maintenance and repair costs of gas heating.