No central heating

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

heytoki wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brHqBcZqNzE

Try it. You would be surprised

Bill, Ben, the Flower Pot Men!

Yeah, and the next trick for the unwary is fairy lights will ...

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Pingu1 wrote: »

I bought a thermometer today, and from a starting temperature of 16 degrees, my heater cant get the room temperature above 18-19 degrees after 90 mins at full blast. My electrician has suggested Ronite heaters, are they any good. Hes saying I wont save money by switching to storage heaters and E7. I suffer from anxiety, and this isn't helping. Already I can't concentrate at work and its affecting my performance. I want to go back to gas central heating where I was renting. :-(

try the worDS BRITISH THERMAL UNIT.

To heatvtheaverage two bedroom place would require heating of between 24an 26 kilo watt.. A 1 kilo watt duster will not achieve this.

Pingu1

That wasn't very helpful, I am genuinely concerned about this. I don't have a lot of surplus cash but would like some heating. Should I go back to storage heaters and E7? What would be a good one to get? I can throw £300 at the problem.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

I assume a two bed flat. To me that would require heating to the a boiler of 24 kw. I need to look as some gas boiler sites in the morning.

danandjens_worldtravels

16 degrees at base temperature and 18-19 when its on is plenty (as long as you are fit and healthy)

Get good heavy curtains that will prevent draughts and get snakes for the doors. Once the heat is in, don't let it out!

Get an electric blanket to warm the bed before you get into it at night (the joy!)

I've been living in a house with cold outside temperatures in the winter and little solar gain to heat the house. The only heating is underfloor and I refuse to waste the electricity. The base temperature is 9 degrees but we do warm the bedroom and bathroom to around 16 so when we go to bed/get up its okay. Its currently 13.5 in the lounge (10am) and I'm warm enough (3 layers and jeans), you do get used to it.

Buy yourself some decent layers (merino is fantastic) and layer up. Its not always fun but it is liveable, give it one winter and see how you got on.

On the days you are not working go out to the library/coffee shop/leisure centre and warm up there. Get baking. The extra calories will be burnt by keeping warm (as stated above) and the heat off the oven will warm you up a bit.

Also consider if a woodburner is a possibility (do you have a chimney) as a good one will warm your home up lovely!

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

http://www.mrcentralheating.co.uk/btu-calculator

Calculator for you

Pingu1

Its a small studio flat, ground floor. No chimney. I am concerned that when the temperature really drops my heater wont be enough. What would be a good storage heater to buy?

penrhyn

All electric heaters are 100% efficient. Rointe are no more efficient to any other, they tend to be sold by snake oil salesmen. Why not buy a cheap convector heater to supplement the Oil filled radiator.
Would probably solve your problem.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimplex-Convector-Heater-Timer-Thermostat/dp/B00011FW42/ref=sr_1_3/278-5816638-7412748?ie=UTF8&qid=1412768896&sr=8-3&keywords=convector+heaters+electric

piggles1

I agree with penrhyn that you probably need another heater to heat the space.

I looked up the Dimplex OFRC20TIC heater and it's an oil-free radiator. So you could get an oil-filled radiator to sit at the opposite end.

I had electric convector heaters in a studio flat and also a delonghi oil-filled radiator. The advantage of the oil-filled ones is they retain heat when they click off (although the spec for your oil-free heater says it's more efficient so I might be wrong). Mine was right next to my desk where I sat.

The other thing, as suggested by danandjens, is insulate. Thermal blinds will help, but might not be as good as thermal curtains and/or blackouts in the bay window to stop drafts. It won't eat much into your £300 and insulation is money well spent I think. I read somewhere that light escaping = heat escaping, so you can tell looking at the outside after dark how much heat you're losing through the windows.

My electricity bill was around about the £40 per month figure you stated (all year round). I had both a convector heater and the oil-filled radiator on September - April (plus electric cooker), sometimes just the oil-filled radiator, for around about the same space you have.

I never put my heaters on a timer because electric heating is so instant it seemed a waste of money to me to heat an empty space, and the theory that heating on low constantly is cheaper doesn't work with electric, so I only had them on when I was home. And I had them both on for the entire evening, on high at the beginning to heat the space (an hour or so), then start turning it down.

You shouldn't need it on full for 4 hours until the deepest winter, but if you are having to do that and it's not heating the room then the heat's going somewhere else, or it isn't enough heating. I also wonder if the heating hasn't heated up the bricks in the two external walls yet, so it's a bit colder at the moment than it will be.

I'm not sure about storage heaters. I had them once in a flat and found them tricky to predict how high to put them on for the next day. I remember wasting heat by opening all the windows because I'd set it too high. I also remember the coldest night of my life when they hadn't been on before I moved in. Buying the oil-filled radiator swiftly followed!

Hope that helps. If it were me I'd hold back £150-£200 in case of surprises, pay monthly, buy an extra heater, insulate, and keep reading the meter. After another summer you'll know more how much it'll cost, and you'll have built some credit up so can have an easier next winter. Since you've only just moved you're on the back foot a bit not having built up credit. It will get easier, hang in there

sorry that was a bit long

Pingu1

Thank you for all the advice. I phoned Dimplex yesterday and they said my 2kw heater is not enough to heat my room - area of 20 - 25m2. They said 4kw would be better. I reckon a storage heater would be the best option on E7. One question though. If I set the input on the storage heater to half, will it use less electricity, or do they always work at full power (for example 2.55kw). How quickly do they run out of heat if the output is set to 1 during the day? The twoI have seen are below:

http://www.tradingdepot.co.uk/DEF/product/!!XLS18N!!/

http://www.tradingdepot.co.uk/DEF/product/!!XL18N!!/