Heating in an electric only flat?

applepicker

What's the best heating for an electric only flat? I need to put some heaters in bedroom, lounge and bathroom. I have two old storage heaters but they haven't been used for a year and have fluff and paint when I look through vents. don't want to turn them on when I am not in flat as worry it is fire risk. Are delongi convection heaters (wall mounted) \nd oil heaters a good option? What for bathroom? Best to get an electrician around?

Ebe_Scrooge

In terms of cost, all electric heaters cost the same to run. Oil filled rads will take longer to warm up, but will continue to give out heat for a while after they're turned off. Convector or fan heaters give instant ( near enough ) heat, and stop giving out heat as soon as they're turned off. There's no difference in the running costs ( well, the fan in a fan heater will use a miniscule amount of energy if you want to be pedantic, but compared to the heating element it's so small as to be negligible ).


The one key thing to consider is Economy 7 or whatever it's called these days. Basically a cheaper tariff for overnight use, which you can make use of with storage heaters.


If the storage heaters haven't been used for a while then you should be OK to just clean out the fluff and whatnot and start using them. However, it's probably a wise precaution to get them checked out by an electrician, just to be on the safe side.

thozza

You seem to have posted the same question twice in this forum, you might get more response in the main energy forum where electric & gas are discussed,

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13

this forum is for LPG, oil, solid fuel and other non-mains heating.

As for alternatives, there are a number of threads on this topic, try searching 'storage alternative' which brings up:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5365866
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5366569
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3930517

amongst others.

HappyMJ

applepicker wrote: »

What's the best heating for an electric only flat? I need to put some heaters in bedroom, lounge and bathroom. I have two old storage heaters but they haven't been used for a year and have fluff and paint when I look through vents. don't want to turn them on when I am not in flat as worry it is fire risk. Are delongi convection heaters (wall mounted) \nd oil heaters a good option? What for bathroom? Best to get an electrician around?

For the bathroom a wall mounted radiant heater would be a good choice. You could install a fan heater. If you do not know the regulations about fitting electrical appliances into a wet room then you should get an electrician around to install it. The heater will be operated by a pulling on a string and not a switch that you could potentially touch with wet hands.

macman

Rip out the NSH's and E7 and you can expect to pay about 3 times as much per kWh for your heating, and you will also lose your cheap rate hot water from your immersion heater, assuming one is fitted. Unless you work nights, the NSH's will typically be on only between midnight and 7am.

matelodave

As pointed out above all heaters will use the same amount of energy (kwh) to heat the space to the same temperature. However they won't all cost the same to do it nor will they cost the same to buy.

E7 which is what storage heaters use and presumably so does your hot water will cost about 2.5-3 times less per kwh than electricity used between 07:00 and midnight and so storage heaters cost a lot less to run.

Other types of heater, infra red, fan, oil filled, convector will all cost the same to run but will use expensive daytime electricity.

However be aware that a £20 heater will cost the same to run as a £1000 heater of the same wattage.

There is no magic way of filling or controlling a heater that will save you energy so don't be persuaded by flash salesmen, glossy brochures or inflated promises from companies like Fischer or Rointe.

The law requires that only qualified electricians are allowed to fit electrical appliances in bathrooms. For the amount of time that you are in a bathroom then a wall mounted fan heater will do the trick.

applepicker

I just bought the flat, should I have received an electrical certificate from previous owner?


Do I need to get one done every year, the place is a complete mess- junction boxes under the sink etc . I think get an electrician around look at storage heaters and fit a fused connection unit (so I was told) in bathroom then go and buy a wall mounted fan heater.


It is just a case of deciding what kind of other heating goes in flat- convection or oil radiator or both possibly.

Ebe_Scrooge

applepicker wrote: »

I just bought the flat, should I have received an electrical certificate from previous owner? No.


Do I need to get one done every year No , the place is a complete mess- junction boxes under the sink etc . I think get an electrician around look at storage heaters and fit a fused connection unit (so I was told) in bathroom then go and buy a wall mounted fan heater. If you're worried about the electrics then getting a sparky in to do a proper assessment is a sensible idea. But it will only need doing the once ( it's different if you're a landlord and renting your property out to paying tenants ). For the bathroom, I'd be tempted to get an electrician to fit the FCU and the heater - water and electricity are not happy bedfellows.


It is just a case of deciding what kind of other heating goes in flat- convection or oil radiator or both possibly. Pretty much yes. Decide what works best for you and buy the heaters accordingly.

My thoughts above. The only thing I would add - electric heating pulls a fair amount of current, so when you get the electrician round to check the wiring, ask for his advice as to whether it'll cope with a whole bunch of heaters being plugged into it.

Ectophile

applepicker wrote: »

I just bought the flat, should I have received an electrical certificate from previous owner?

No. It's your flat, so the electrics are your problem now.

Do I need to get one done every year, the place is a complete mess- junction boxes under the sink etc . I think get an electrician around look at storage heaters and fit a fused connection unit (so I was told) in bathroom then go and buy a wall mounted fan heater.

Ideally, you should get an inspection done every 10 years. But nobody ever does. If you don't like the look of the electrics, get a qualified electrician in.

It is just a case of deciding what kind of other heating goes in flat- convection or oil radiator or both possibly.

How about new storage heaters?

poppasmurf_bewdley

I live in a very rural cottage which has LPG central heating/water heating.

When I first moved into the house, five years ago, I used the central heating. The cost was very high - about £400 per quarter.

After a couple of years, i decided to use just a fan heater in the living room. I'm fortunate that my bedroom is a mezzanine type over my lounge so the heat from the lounge also heats the bedroom. I also used a fan heater on the wall of the bathroom.

This reduced my quarter's bill down to £140 because I've got the MSE energy club EON tariff which costs about 10p per unit. My gas bill for water only has reduced to just under £40 per quarter.

This winter, I took the plunge and installed a wood burner (cost just under £2k all in) as being in the country I can access a lot of free wood, so my winter bill so far has been less than £200.

Just heating the room you are using has certainly worked for me.

HappyMJ

K_Lou1985 wrote: »

Electric wet central heating and hot water from an infrared thermal store is your best option - much cheaper to run than infrared panels and storage heaters ~£580 per year for all heating and hot water

I disagree...but looking at your previous postings on the subject it looks like you're trying to sell something.

E7 electricity costs are around 5p/kWh.

Even on the best standard tariff you wouldn't get electricity for much less than 10p/kWh. How is that cheaper than using storage heaters and an immersion element heating water at night?

How do you estimate £580 per year? What size property? What's the EPC rating of that property?

I can heat my property for much less than that even using fan heaters. £580 at 10p/kWh on a standard rate supply would purchase 16kWh per day. If we were to assume 4kWh was for hot water for one and the energy used in summer for heating was instead used in winter then you would only get 24kWh of heating per day in winter which would power a 6kW electric boiler for 4 hours.

If E7 was used instead that would get 48kWh of heating stored in a few storage heaters. A Dimplex XLS18 (medium heater) would take 17.85kWh, a large XLS24 would take 23.8kWh and a small XLS12 would take 11.9kWh to total 53.55kWh of electricity used. As a little heat would be left from the previous day so 48kWh would be enough to top them all up each night.

Twice as much heat for the same price...