Electric heaters

mrsyardbroom

I'm looking into using an electric heater in my living room instead of the multifuel stove. In the winter it costs me about £18 a week to run the solid fuel stove. That's taking into account the cost of the fuel, sweeping the chimney and buying lighting wood. I've been looking at modern electric heaters such as Fischer and Novorad but none of them give any prices. I know Fischer won't give you a price unless they can send a sales man out to your house. I only want to find out how much a heater costs and whether it would cost me less than £18 a week to run. Has anyone on here bought this type of heater.

Cardew

You have posted on the thread deaing with Fischer heaters. If you look further back you will see several posts where people have been quoted, or bought!, over £1,000 for a single heater.


Bear in mind that all electrical heaters produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat, for the same running cost. It doesn't matter is they are 'modern' or a 70 year old 1/2/3 bar fire like Granny used; they are all 100% efficient. So a £10 fan heater or £30 oil filled radiator from Argos will produce as much heat, for the same cost, as any other electrical heater.


Nobody will be able to tell you how much an electrical heater will cost to heat your room as there are too many unknown factors. I suggest you buy a very cheap heater from Argos and use it for, say, a week and see how much extra electricity it uses. You can also buy a cheap plug in monitor that will show exactly the costs.

J_B

Google is your friend ...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=GTDTW5a6JOiRlwTx_qDwBw&q=Fischer+heaters+mse+forum&oq=Fischer+heaters+mse+forum

mrsyardbroom

Cardew wrote: »

You have posted on the thread deaing with Fischer heaters. If you look further back you will see several posts where people have been quoted, or bought!, over £1,000 for a single heater.


Bear in mind that all electrical heaters produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat, for the same running cost. It doesn't matter is they are 'modern' or a 70 year old 1/2/3 bar fire like Granny used; they are all 100% efficient. So a £10 fan heater or £30 oil filled radiator from Argos will produce as much heat, for the same cost, as any other electrical heater.


Nobody will be able to tell you how much an electrical heater will cost to heat your room as there are too many unknown factors. I suggest you buy a very cheap heater from Argos and use it for, say, a week and see how much extra electricity it uses. You can also buy a cheap plug in monitor that will show exactly the costs.

I meant to start a new thread. The heater I was looking at has a thermostat and a sensor and it turns itself down when you go out of the room and back up again when you are in the room. The problem with cheap heaters is they're either running all the time or switched off. I realise you can only get the same amount of energy out of a heater that you put in (first law of thermodynamics) but I thought the modern heaters were much more efficient in the way they deliver the energy. They are able to keep the room a more even temperature.

J_B

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

The heater I was looking at has a thermostat and a sensor and it turns itself down when you go out of the room and back up again when you are in the room. The problem with cheap heaters is they're either running all the time or switched off. I realise you can only get the same amount of energy out of a heater that you put in (first law of thermodynamics) but I thought the modern heaters were much more efficient in the way they deliver the energy. They are able to keep the room a more even temperature.

I don't quite follow your logic, sorry - 'cheap' heaters can have thermostats and timers, and I'm sure they could be connected to a 'smart plug' or a sensor ... but with a sensor, they aren't going to keep the room at an even temperature if you aren't in there.

coffeehound

I think it's plausible that accurate electronic thermostats can offer a modest saving over the crude old click-stats due to avoiding overshoot of the target temperature. It won't be much of a saving, and it will take time to break-even against the typically higher initial purchase cost of the electronic control heater.

In terms of comfort though, the electronic-controlled heaters do give a noticeably more even room temperature.

mrsyardbroom

I think it's very plausible. If I use an electric fire that can heat my room to a higher temperature than I need then I tend to just fall asleep for a couple of hours with the fire on a high heat setting. As I'm asleep I can't get up to turn it down.
A fire with a thermostat will keep switching off when the room is warm enough and so it must save a bit of electricity.

I have decided not to go for electric heating though as it doesn't keep the house warm enough. I've had to let my multifuel stove go out while I'm sorting out the chimney and I realise I wouldn't be warm enough just with one electirc fire heating the house. I will be going for the much more expensive option of having the chimney lined and installing a new multifuel stove.

jk0

How about storage heaters? Are you on E7 tariff?