Advice needed on heating system

sztriki

Morning all, first post of a long-time lurker.
I currently live in a flatshare with shared ownership and my flatmate has the option to buy my share out so we're on the lookout for a new place at the moment with my girlfriend. There is a flat that came up recently, already have a viewing booked for early September. It's a one bedroom flat in a block/house built in the late 80s, ticks a lot of boxes, close to where we are now (we love the area), very good price, but no gas at all and can't install it as per the lease. A few friends straight up told me to run away but I'd like to explore all options before doing that so I've been researching on electric heating for a couple of weeks, read a lot of threads here too. With all the different tariffs and heating systems (of course every company presents its products as the holy grail) I'm a bit confused as to what would be an ideal heating system for a well insulated, double glazed 40-42 m2 flat that would work well without killing my budget. I can budget in a new system to a reasonable amount as the property is priced lower than our deposit.
Basically the options I have in mind:
1.) Individual radiators in each room, probably oil-filled on standard tariff
2.) Modern storage heaters with E7 tariff
3.) Electric boiler with central heating, maybe combined with E10 and programmed to off-peak times. If I understand well this would work much like a gas CH, with proper wet radiators, but the boiler would be electric

I would stay away from convection heaters, my experience is that either gas or electric, as they have no mass to them they heat up the air and after switching them off it's cold again in 5 mins. Also skeptical about storage heaters, as we both work 9-5 it seems to me that those would be really warm either when we're asleep or away and would probably run out by the evening. Also it would mean running loads of electric appliances in the evening Another thing to take into consideration is that as opposed to heating, hot water would be needed all year long.
So far the CH boiler with E10 looks the most appealing, although the tariff itself is not 100% clear (hardly any comparisons available to see the actual kWh/p rates) and not sure who supplies that in the area.
Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks in advance for any reply!

Rubidium

sztriki wrote: »

So far the CH boiler with E10 looks the most appealing, although the tariff itself is not 100% clear (hardly any comparisons available to see the actual kWh/p rates) and not sure who supplies that in the area.
Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks in advance for any reply!

Personally I would keep looking for somewhere with gas, no matter how good you think the price is.

Electric heating will cost between 3 and 4 time more than gas!

Your preferred option of an electric boiler is by far the most expensive option to run and there is not much competition for E10 tariffs, so you will never get the cheapest deals available to others.

Cardew

In general I agree with the post above, but having no gas is not a 'show stopper' in a small flat. Millions of flats don't have gas.

E10 is a very poor option if you are working during the day. It also severely limits the choice of tariffs. In any case if you haven't got a an E10 meter you might have trouble getting on fitted.

You haven't mentioned the present heating/hot water arrangements??

An Electric Boiler with radiators is the very worst of all options - both for initial cost and running cost.

Personally I would get some cheap panel heaters, with looks that suit your taste/pocket. These can be programmed with a timer either remotely or on the heater itself. A 3kW fan heater from Argos costing £10 or so can be used for a short while until the panel heaters get up to heat.

Provision of Hot water depends on the present arrangements - are they not adequate?

sztriki

Thanks for the replies!
I have not seen the flat yet, got the viewing booked for the 3rd of September (open day). From what I could gather from asking neighbours living there most of them use hot water tank and E7. I haven't seen any heaters on any internal photos so my 2 cents is that this flat was let out and whoever lived there used portable heaters. I only brought up the hot water issue because that is needed everyday regardless of the weather so flat standard rate might prove to be costy even if it would work for my heating patterns because there's a tank of water to be warmed up every day and maybe the combi would be a good solution for that but based on the reactions to that and the E10 it wasn't such a good idea.
Since the flat is at a good price I expect it to go a couple of days after the open day viewing so what I'm trying to do now is get an "any case scenario" and decide on whether to go for the place or not right after the view based on the options and obviously how the viewing would go.

Cardew

For a

'well insulated, double glazed 40-42 m2 flat'

the savings, for a working couple, in using E7 instead of single rate electricity will not be high.

sztriki

Cardew wrote: »

For a the savings, for a working couple, in using E7 instead of single rate electricity will not be high.

Yep, my thoughts too, especially that my girlfriend is part time atm (hoping she's gonna get promoted for full soon-is), so she'd be home for two extra days. Another thing that makes me iffy about E7 is that it's something that was planned to make life easier but actually if you want it to work you need to build a lot of things around it. At least that's my impression.