Help! EPC electric heaters?

System

Landladysutton wrote: »

Do you think it!!!8217;s ok to buy new storage heaters? The old ones no longer work so I need a replacement. What I want to avoid obviously is spending money on new storage heaters and then having to replace them in a year or two because economy 7 has been phased out!

You may be confusing Economy 7 with Economy 10: the latter is a legacy tariff that is being phased out. Don't confuse the tariffs on offer with the rollout of smart meters. New tariffs will undoubtedly emerge based on Time of Use. Octopus Energy has a tariff at the moment that actually pays consumers to use energy at certain times of the day.

A number of countries are well ahead of us when it comes to ToU tariffs (for example, Canada). Looking at their present Winter Tariff (as of May 18):

Peak is from 7am until 11am, and 5pm to 7pm at 13.2 cents/per kWh

Mid Peak is 11am to 5pm at 9.4cents/kWhs

Off Peak is 7pm to 7am at 6.5 cents/kWh

Weekends and Public Holidays are all at Off Peak prices. My guess is that this is the type of model that we will see rolled out in the UK. I think storage heaters will remain a good bet for some years to come.

molerat

Landladysutton wrote: »

Do you think it!!!8217;s ok to buy new storage heaters? The old ones no longer work so I need a replacement. What I want to avoid obviously is spending money on new storage heaters and then having to replace them in a year or two because economy 7 has been phased out!

Have you had someone look at the old heaters ? They are simply a pile of bricks in a box with an electric element and a thermostat, there is not a lot that can go wrong with them and they are fairly cheap to repair. For your own property you can get slightly more efficient prettier ones but for a rented property I would look at getting the old ones fixed unless they are completely trashed.

ian103

Id agree with Molerat, the older units are basic so a repair maybe the way to go. The new ones (unless you can find old stock) are 'smart' heaters with a night charge and a balance heater that works in the day. Personnally storage heaters arent a good solution for us or we'd replace them.

pooch

ian103 wrote: »

Id agree with Molerat, the older units are basic so a repair maybe the way to go. The new ones (unless you can find old stock) are 'smart' heaters with a night charge and a balance heater that works in the day. Personnally storage heaters arent a good solution for us or we'd replace them.

Dimpex, to name just one, still sell storage heaters for use only on low rate electricity.
(Although their Quantum range do indeed have the possibilty of using peak rate electicity too)

Other storage heater manufacturers are available.