Alternatives to ceiling heating

MDWRG1

Hi all,

We have a 3 bedroom top floor flat with high ceilings that is heated exclusively by ESWA ceiling heating which was installed about 15 years ago.

The ceiling heating in the living room / kitchen has a programme timer but sometimes appears to be on despite being off. All of the other rooms are have independent thermostats with 'Min' to 'Max' and no programme timer.

Our SSE Economy 10 bills are huge, down to this heating system and / or lack of programme timers, and our Ariston Primo ITD 300 immersion heater.

We are weighing up options:

1. Install new thermostats and programme timers to control the heating in every room.

2. Replace the ceiling heating with something like the Quantum heaters because the ceiling heating is already 15 years old and may have a limited lifespan. We're waiting for Dimplex to confirm whether 'totally controllable' means you can adjust the Quantum heaters to draw electricity at Economy 10 off peak hours.

3. Something else.

Any experience or perspectives on these options would be appreciated. Thanks.

Owain_Moneysaver

Almost certainly storage heaters, whether Dimplex Quantum or the less-advanced but possibly more reliable (and certainly cheaper to buy) Duoheat or equivalent from other manufacturers.

If you are not at home during the day, and can tolerate the extra thickness, fan assisted storage heaters hold their heat for longer.

Alternative is a thermal store and a conventional wet central heating radiator system.

ic

Surely its going to be far cheaper to improve the controls on the existing system, than install a new system entirely?

lstar337

ic wrote: »

Surely its going to be far cheaper to improve the controls on the existing system, than install a new system entirely?

If the existing system is creating 'huge' bills, then the OP may be better off moving to a new system.

Sometimes people get fed up with throwing money away on an inefficient system.

CashStrapped

I must admit, i had not come across ceiling heating before today!

At a breif glance, are you sure the issue is not the fact you are on an Economy 10 tariff?

Economy 7 or 10 is only cost effective if you use more than 50% (minimum) of your electricity in the cheap period.

Therefore, the only heating system sutiable for Economy 7 or 10 are those which can charge and store the heat.

This system (as far as I can see) is just a panel heater spread out over the whole ceiling. It cannot store the heat and is used at a moments notice when required. That is not what economy 10/7 is designed for.

So I would assume during the day, it would just use the extortionate day rate, unless you time it to only come on in the Economy 10 hours.

Have you done the calculations to see how much you are using on the normal and cheap rate and compared this to a standard electricity tariff?

stator

I too don't understand why you are on Economy meters if using non-storage heaters?

MDWRG1

CashStrapped wrote: »

I must admit, i had not come across ceiling heating before today!

At a breif glance, are you sure the issue is not the fact you are on an Economy 10 tariff?

Economy 7 or 10 is only cost effective if you use more than 50% (minimum) of your electricity in the cheap period.

Therefore, the only heating system sutiable for Economy 7 or 10 are those which can charge and store the heat.

This system (as far as I can see) is just a panel heater spread out over the whole ceiling. It cannot store the heat and is used at a moments notice when required. That is not what economy 10/7 is designed for.

So I would assume during the day, it would just use the extortionate day rate, unless you time it to only come on in the Economy 10 hours.

Have you done the calculations to see how much you are using on the normal and cheap rate and compared this to a standard electricity tariff?

Agreed, if we were on Economy 7 it would make no sense. Our off peak hours with Economy 10 are a bit better though: 00:00-05:00, 13:00-16:00 and 20:00-22:00.

We were using 60% peak, 40% off peak but we're trying to adjust our routines since receiving the last bill!

MDWRG1

Unfortunately we don't have a gas supply so it's difficult to have a conventional wet central heating radiator system. We're pretty stuck with ceiling heating, underfloor heating (as we're likely to replace most of the flooring soon), storage heaters / Quantum or convection heaters.

CashStrapped

Indeed, as long as you are only using the heating in the non peak Economy 10 windows (impressive if you can in this cold weather), then it does look like it could be cheaper than a stand tariff at 40% use.

However, what are your actual unit rates as well as standing charges?

As there are not many companies that offer Economy 10, I would be interested as to how competative they are.

Owain_Moneysaver

A top floor flat with ceiling heating is likely to be warming the pigeons rather than the occupant.

Owain_Moneysaver

MDWRG1 wrote: »

Unfortunately we don't have a gas supply so it's difficult to have a conventional wet central heating radiator system.

the option is a thermal store, which heats up overnight on cheap rate electricity, and the heat is distributed from that by wet central heating radiators.