At work all day – should I bother with economy 7?

lstar337

OMG, Op has now run off to buy something that would be totally unsuitable for their situation. I will not discuss the heaters in #4 above as I have had enough of the legal threats, but please please do look into this properly.

Op, if you do come back, and you really want to move away from E7 night storage (not recommended by me), then panel heaters should not be costing you £500 either. If you really must have panel heaters, then you can get them as low as £30 each with no difference in heat output. If your concerns are about looks, then shop around and pay a bit more, but £250 is a lot for a single heater.

If you want more advice on getting the most from a storage heater, I and others on here can help you with that too.

lstar337

All excellent points made by Cardew above. Please take on board what is being said, it could literally save you hundreds to thousands of pounds.

System

I have e7 and with good storage heaters you will be warm all day and night and never need to top up with additional heaters that use peak rate electric.

Stick with e7

rorym

Hi all, thanks all for your advice!

I’ve looked into those Fischer heaters and err yeah... that’s a silly and expensive idea in my opinion.

I think I’ll stick with my storage heaters to see how good they are in the winter. They are Dimplex XL5n ones which I believe are pretty old but I’ll see what they’re like. They’re not very sexy but I can deal with that.

Stupid question... but one of them was wired into the wall rather than having a 3-pin plug (the bedroom one was plugged in). Should I stick a plug on it and a socket on the wall so I can turn it on and off (I don’t think there is a switch - just the two dials)? Or is would this be controlled by a timed night circuit anyway? How do I check? Excuse my ignorance!

Robisere

rorym,
I apologise for giving you what I thought was useful information, which may have led you astray. For the information of my critics here: a friend has had Fischer heaters installed for 2 years and did not have any of the problems outlined by others. I always prefer recommendations from people whom I know and trust.

My experience of Economy 7 and Night Storage heating is exactly as I portrayed it in my original post. There were 14 bungalows with the same E7/NSH problems as myself. (The other 9 were a lot newer andalready had GCH) All the 14 were paying a very high price for electricity only. After gas CH was fitted to our properties, every one of us had warmer homes for longer periods and we all paid approximately 2/3rds less for our energy. That is my experience and the experience of 13 more residences. Real experience from actual households.

As for 'efficiency' - our old E7/NSH heaters were obviously not 100% efficient, otherwise we would not have been paying so much for heating that gave out exactly when we needed it. Perhaps my definition of efficiency differs from that of others?