New CH system from scratch - help please

MRF

I'm a first time buyer who's just moved into my new 1 bed flat in Greater London (40m floor area, middle floor, double glazed, concrete floors, 2 external walls in lounge, 1 in bedroom). At the moment there is no central heating installed and I intended to install GCH so got a meter installed (there was a capped gas pipe so this was easy). There is an imersion heater and an electric shower for hot water.

Due to London labour rates and a difficult flu run an install of a condesing combi boiler plus 4 rads, and tidying up pipework would cost me 3.5k (I got 6 quotes and this was the cheapest) plus it would look a mess with the pipes above skirting or boxed in. Add in running costs and its a no go.

Given this, electric heating, with its ease of install is increasinly starting to make sense. I've never used it before and am struggling with the best way to spec it despite hours of research. My budget is about £1k max. Economy 10 and economy 7 are avaliable in my area and storage heaters were used in the past, so there are old plugs in the flat and I assume the necessary circuit is installed but there is no seperate meter or board (leccy coming tomo).

I'm a young prof so out first thing and back late, very rarely at home at the weekend so my initial thoughts are a panel heater in the bedroom on a timer, a towel rail in the bathroom on the timer and a storage heater in the lounge to provide background and evening heat. However, it would be a nightmare if the lounge was cold in late evening so any prospective solution must address this problem. So I have the following questions - please can someone help!

• AmI along the right lines, what would be best?
• Would the 'Dimplex Duo Heat' be a good option to provide heat on demand or through the evening, or would I be better going for another dual storage heater with convector or similar?
• Is there any difference between a panel heater and a water / oil filled heater in the bedroom?

MRF

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Given your circumstances it makes some sense to install Storage heating. Running costs will probably be on a par with gas when you consider you don't need expensive gas servicing/safety checks each year.

The 'home expert' guy in the Daily Telegraph wrote an article along those lines.

So as you ask are you 'along the right lines' - well maybe!!

Gas CH is in a different class for flexibility. The other consideration is that 92.786%* of first time buyers move on fairly quickly(*96.278% of statistics are made up on the spot!!)
Gas CH will undoubtedly enhance the value of your flat when it comes to sell and without it will be discounted off the selling price.
So if you can beg borrow or steal the extra for Gas CH I would go for it.

Assuming you are going with electrical heating:

The problem with all forms of storage heating is that they require planning ahead to optimise performance. No matter what is said in their favour, and the modern ones are much better, they leak heat during the day and run out of heat late at night.

A couple of other points:
Towel rails do not heat a bathroom - you must have some other form of(safe) heating.

Any form of electrical heater is 100% efficient, so for XX pence cost you get the same YY output of heat. An oil filled radiator takes longer to heat, but retains the heat longer than a panel heater.

The most important point to note is that any form of non storage electrical heating is the most expensive way to heat a building available.

MRF

Thanks for the reply, some interesting points I need to consider. I took a look at the telegraph article and it makes a lot of sense

Clearly a key consideration is the value to be added from installing GCH verses a flat with brand new electric hearing, but a live gas supply.

blue_monkey_2

Hi, I am looking to heat a 3 bedroom house - we already have the oil filled radiators (Glen) but have decidd this year to upgrade them, the thermostats are just knows that turn and they get smashed by the kids and we have a couple of broken panels so it is a bit iffy as whether I would want them on, but.... they are so efficient I can't tell you. last year we never, ever had them all on full heat as they keep the pace so warm and my elsctric bill is around average I guess for what you would expect for electric.

Anyhow, i found these and they might suit you better as you can time them 24/7 and they have a 2 year guarentee - they cost much more than the Glen but they look good and might be perfect for you. We need a good few so it looks like we will be buying a couple a month until the house is done, but here is the link:

http://www.inshopuk.com/products/Elnur_Electric_Designer_Radiators.htm

Not found anything cheaper yet that looks as nice as this but am looking around. We currently have the 1kw Glen ones in each bedroom, one in the kicthen and one at the bottom of the stairs - nothing in the lounge as we have never needed it, but the house is lovely and warm as I had young children it needed to be warm. I think we will go for these as they do look much better than the Glen ones. God knows what I'll dry my washing on now though!! HTH.

Cardew

blue_monkey wrote: »

Hi, I am looking to heat a 3 bedroom house - we already have the oil filled radiators (Glen) but have decidd this year to upgrade them, the thermostats are just knows that turn and they get smashed by the kids and we have a couple of broken panels so it is a bit iffy as whether I would want them on, but.... they are so efficient I can't tell you. last year we never, ever had them all on full heat as they keep the pace so warm and my elsctric bill is around average I guess for what you would expect for electric.

Anyhow, i found these and they might suit you better as you can time them 24/7 and they have a 2 year guarentee - they cost much more than the Glen but they look good and might be perfect for you. We need a good few so it looks like we will be buying a couple a month until the house is done, but here is the link:

http://www.inshopuk.com/products/Elnur_Electric_Designer_Radiators.htm

Not found anything cheaper yet that looks as nice as this but am looking around. We currently have the 1kw Glen ones in each bedroom, one in the kicthen and one at the bottom of the stairs - nothing in the lounge as we have never needed it, but the house is lovely and warm as I had young children it needed to be warm. I think we will go for these as they do look much better than the Glen ones. God knows what I'll dry my washing on now though!! HTH.

These, like any form of electrical heating that runs on daytime tariff, is the most expensive form of heating to run you can buy.

They will cost 3 to 4 times more than storage heating.

It can't be said often enough that any form of electrical heater on a daytime tariff produces exactly the same amount of heat for the money. So it doesn't matter if it is oil filled radiator, convector heater, panel heater, the most expensive hyped system on the market or your grandmother's old 1 bar electric fire.

blue_monkey_2

Well, for us, it is what we use as we can't afford to have CH heating system put in. But, if the OP is not going to be there in the day then this does not matter. if I was out all day it would not be on and it is timer controlled so they could have it to come on for a few hours in the evening or whatever. But I am here all day (I aso get half of my electric bill go through the business as I work from home so it is not all bad), if I was here then the CH would be on all day as well.

We also have the other thing that this house is not ours but my mums, so we could put it in tomorrow, if something happened to her the day after the rest of the family would have us out on our ear so they could flog the house for their inheritance (as they call it) and we would be 5k 'out of pocket' and not have anywhere to live - they sure would not give it back to us but would put this 'investment' in their own pockets. Families - don;t you just love them!! So, we have this to think about as well and this is why the Oil Filled rads suit us.

However, I also found this: http://www.heatprofile.co.uk/NewFiles/home.html

Not sure if it is any good, just going to ask this on another thread. Just a thought for now. If business goes well this Xmas and we can afford it then it is something we will look into. Just thoughts for now. New rads for this year are a must for us though.

blue_monkey_2

Or.....

http://www.discountedheating.co.uk/shop/acatalog/copy_of_Heatec_Tekne_Electric_Radiator.html

:eek: How Much????????

blue_monkey_2

I also found this:

http://www.dealec.co.uk/acatalog/All_About_Credanet_Electric_Central_Heating.html

Don't know if this helps or what prices are, just posting the links as and when i find them.

MRF

These, like any form of electrical heating that runs on daytime tariff, is the most expensive form of heating to run you can buy.

They will cost 3 to 4 times more than storage heating.

It can't be said often enough that any form of electrical heater on a daytime tariff produces exactly the same amount of heat for the money. So it doesn't matter if it is oil filled radiator, convector heater, panel heater, the most expensive hyped system on the market or your grandmother's old 1 bar electric fire.



I'm sure there is a lot of truth in this if you are in all day every day, and need the property heated up for this whole time. However, I think the most efficient form of electric heating depends on your lifestyle. I have been doing a lot of research into this for me would it not be better to have 'peak' electric heating as I only need a short time in the morning and late evening, much like a lot of office workers. I'm sure there are sums to be done that will prove me wrong or right.... would be goos to see.

Cardew, on this subject this research is interesting, it appears to show the gap between economy 7 and 'peak' electric is closing, it just depends how much electric you use at night

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/money-saving-tips/household-bills/2007/09/27/is-economy-seven-a-con.aspx?site=UKFool

Cardew

MRF wrote: »

Cardew, on this subject this research is interesting, it appears to show the gap between economy 7 and 'peak' electric is closing, it just depends how much electric you use at night

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/money-saving-tips/household-bills/2007/09/27/is-economy-seven-a-con.aspx?site=UKFool

The problem with all of our calculations on this subject is that what holds true in October 2007 might have completely changed by October 2008.

To give an extreme example. In 1966 'Which'(I think) produced a CH supplement that concluded that Oil CH was the best option; ahead of gas, electric and solid fuel. My father after much deliberation took their advice and installed oil CH and the installation was completed the day the first Middle East war started. Within weeks the price of oil increased 6 fold.

Clearly the crucial factor when contemplating E7 is the percentage of electricity you use at night; the overall consumption and of course the tariff.

I had E7 in my current house(albeit with gas CH) and I discontinued the tariff and reverted to 'normal' as I couldn't make it 'pay'. At that time with BG in the Midlands the 'break even' point was 30% on my consumption of approx 6,000kWh pa.

On my current tariff if I were to switch to E7 the break even point is 35%.

The average household uses 3,300kWh of electricity and 20,500kWh of gas.

A total of 23,800kWh. Given electric heating is more efficient than gas it is reasonable to assume that an all electric household would use 20,000kWh.

Many can achieve 70%+ on E7 but I would think 60% is more representative.

On my tariff using 60% as a figure the savings on E7 would be £390pa