Experience with storage heaters?

Erebid

Does anyone here have experience with electric storage heaters? I'm looking for a new flat with my partner and we looked at a lovely one today, but it had electric storage heaters with economy 7 meters. I've heard that they can be very expensive to run, and not so convenient to use (we'd be at work most of the day), but it'd be good to hear from people who've dealt with them before.

CashStrapped

You have been put off by misinformation and bad experiences of storage heaters which have probably been installed in unsuitable properties.

Storage heaters can be the cheapest form of elctrical heating.

People have problems with stoage heaters because:

1)They do not read the manual and understand how to use them.
2) They do not undersand the economy 7 tariff and how to make best use of it.P

People attempt to use them like instant electric heaters and get fed up when they don't give out heat when they want it.

Storage heaters charge at night using a much cheaper night rate tariff. They then release that heat during the day.

Most storage heaters have an input and and output.

You adjust the input according to how much heat you want to store. If it is winter, you may want to wack it on the highest setting.

The ouput controls how much is released. You keep than on the lowest setting untill you want to release the heat.

Yes, this does mean planning ahead a bit more, checking the weather. However most of the time, you will have a winte input setting, a spring setting etc. You will get used to what you find comfortable.

Some models do vary slightly and there can be more user friendly options on more modern automatic ones. However the manual ones function fine if you lean how to use them.

The economy 7 tariff is a cheap night rate and expensive day rate. This means you need to shift as much of your electric use to betwen midnight and 6.

As the majority of electric is heating and hot water, this is usually not an issue.

Some people time their domestic appliances to run at this time too. Especially things like tumble dryers. Others do not like to do this.

The more you shift to night use, the cheaper your electric be can be.

Owain_Moneysaver

And problem (3) a lot of storage heater installations date from the 1970s when people thought that 17 deg C in the lounge and anything above freezing in the bedrooms was acceptable. Such installations are under-sized by modern standards leading to the stored heat being inadequate and high running costs as peak rate electricity is used to top up the heat.

macman

NSH's will be a third of the cost of any other form of electric heating, so by far the best option in the absence of mains gas.

Erebid

Thank you for sharing, everyone. Unfortunately, the lettings agency got back to us today and the landlord's decided to go with someone else, but I'll keep what you've said in mind as I continue to look at other places

macman

Avoid like the plague any all-electric property with a single rate tariff, such as wall convectors or an electric boiler powered wet CH system. Nice and cheap for the LL to install and maintain, but will cost a fortune to run.