thinking of installing water filled electric radiators, anyone have experience?

yuwaret

New to the forum so hopefully I have not posted on the wrong board? apologies if I have!
I have a flat that I rent out which had gas c/h in it for years, but the 60's boiler packed in last year. I put in cheap simple wall mounted electric heaters as a temporary measure hoping I would manage to get a new boiler through one of the energy firm schemes but all the funding seems to have run out here in Scotland? It is a fairly big system and estimated to cost around 5k for the new boiler and rads which is a little out of my budget. I have been researching other options as I am not looking forward to the upheaval either due to having laminate floors! I was doing some research and was told that water filled electric heaters may be a great alternative to gas, are very cost effective to run! just need to plug them in to the wall socket, hang them on the wall and that's it. The fitted cost is around 3k therefore a significant saving but I wonder if the technology is proven and will it be good for my tenant financially? I have read some older posts that mention that all electric heaters are 100% efficient i.e you get back in energy what you put in financially regardless of the price of the heater used. What I read from this is that these new radiators will be no better than the cheap radiators I installed as a stop gap?? I don't really understand all the technical jargon and wonder if anybody has experience or knowledge of these radiators?
Would really appreciate your help.

shammyjack

It could make your flat un-letable !

Running costs will be at least 3 times gas . Electric is almost 100% efficient but those radiators cannot take advantage of cheap rate electric such as economy 7 .

I would bite the bullet and go for gas.

amiehall

They are most certainly NOT cost effective to run. It's a huge amount more than gas. E7 is bad enough, but surely no-one would deliberately live in a flat with peak-rate electric heating. Particularly in Scotland!

If you ever come to sell your flat, I'm sure you'll find it much easier with gas CH in place.

matelodave

Electricity costs at least three time that of gas per kwh. Any sort of heater that uses electricity whether it be a fan heater, oil filled, water filled, flat panel, radiant or convector will emit the same amount of heat for the same rating.
As said above you might make the place unlettable and ultimately unsaleable. You will waste £3k by putting them in. £5k for gas would enhance the value of your property, £3k for electricity could easily knock £10k off it's value

Owain_Moneysaver

Remember that in Scotland you have to show prospective tenants the EPC for the property, which states the estimated running costs.

macman

Apart from the absurd running costs of electric water filled rads, how would you then heat the hot water in the property?
Landlords and developers love all-electric heating because of it's low capital cost and low maintenance. The tenants pay the price in massive running costs, unless it's E7.
Whatever you've been quoted for is way overpriced.

Richie-from-the-Boro

I have no personal experience of them.

The decently engineered ones, in addition to the heating cost also have a mini pump that is permanently switched on circulating the heated water around the radiator. The thermostat is built into the rad itself, the very worst position. Assuming high user 15ppkW that's 30p per hour plus 10-15p per day standing charge when its drawing its 2kW for a £400.00 2kW unit. If I was forced this temporary way I'd have £50 each radiative panels not £400 a shot convective water.

Gratis

yuwaret wrote: »

New to the forum so hopefully I have not posted on the wrong board? apologies if I have!
I have a flat that I rent out which had gas c/h in it for years, but the 60's boiler packed in last year. I put in cheap simple wall mounted electric heaters as a temporary measure hoping I would manage to get a new boiler through one of the energy firm schemes but all the funding seems to have run out here in Scotland? It is a fairly big system and estimated to cost around 5k for the new boiler and rads which is a little out of my budget. I have been researching other options as I am not looking forward to the upheaval either due to having laminate floors! I was doing some research and was told that water filled electric heaters may be a great alternative to gas, are very cost effective to run! just need to plug them in to the wall socket, hang them on the wall and that's it. The fitted cost is around 3k therefore a significant saving but I wonder if the technology is proven and will it be good for my tenant financially? I have read some older posts that mention that all electric heaters are 100% efficient i.e you get back in energy what you put in financially regardless of the price of the heater used. What I read from this is that these new radiators will be no better than the cheap radiators I installed as a stop gap?? I don't really understand all the technical jargon and wonder if anybody has experience or knowledge of these radiators?
Would really appreciate your help.

Welcome to the MSE forum.

Please, however, would you use paragraphs when you post.

Many, including I, simply ignore vast blocks of unparagraphed text :eek: and just move on to the next posting.

Which is not to your advantage, if you're seeking help.

yuwaret

Hey

Thanks for feedback and to all the others giving their valued input.
Should I re post using paragraphs?

Yet to hear some positive views of these radiators - initial responses are quite scathing and looks like I should go the gas central heating route.

Thanks

drobe

Yet to hear some positive views of these radiators

That is because there are non.

ChumpusRex

I've used wet electric heating, gas, and storage heating.

The wet heating is expensive to install and expensive to maintain (needs regular servicing, power flushing, corrosion inhibitor, etc.)

It has poor responsiveness, because only a single heating element has to heat all the radiators, so they take a long time to come up to temperature. A gas boiler has 3-4x the power, so will get the radiators up to temperature in 5-10 minutes. It'll take at least an hour to get the radiators up to temperature in a wet electric system.

No heat storage, so super expensive electricity bills.

What do you do about hot water? This generally means a stored hot water tank with immersion - needs a lot of space for a 200 litre tank. Heating water is super expensive, unless you have economy 7 electricity and heat the water overnight.

However, if you have economy 7, because the wet electric system used all of its power during the day when E7 electricity has a premium price, E7 isn't worth while, so you should be on a normal single tariff.

At least with storage heaters, you can charge over night. But if things get unpredictably cold duriung the day you can turn on a fan heater (many modern storage heaters include a built in fan heater for this reason). Although expensive to use, the fan heater doesn't need to be used often; and because of its high power, it heats the room up to temperature quickly.

Summary:
Disadvantages:
High installation cost
High maintenance cost
Poor responsiveness
Need for extra large hot (200-250 litre) water tank which may need floor reinforcement due to weight
Very high fuel cost
Unlikely to benefit from E7, blocking energy savings elsewhere

Advantages
None