All electric household heating

Kirstym2019

I wondered if anyone could help or provide any guidance with the below.

We have an all electric household with no access to gas and no ability to have lpg tank or similar due to listed building. We currently have a Heatrae Sadia electronic boiler. Our house is 2 beds and our heating bill is peaking at over £300 per month. The Heatrae Sadia is an all electric wet radiator system so heats hot water at peak rates to heat the wet radiators. The whole thing is very inefficient and we have no real control on a room by room basis.

I have been looking into the German radiators. Neighbours had Fischer do an install but they’re hideously expensive and reviews are poor. I’ve found another company who could install 3 rads for £150” so not too bad.

My biggest question/concern being will they be cheaper to run than the current system?!

Current system is a 9kw boiler so I think this means it uses 9kw per hour to heat the water that heats the rads. The total kw of the 3 new German rads is less than this so I assume this means it’ll be a cheaper system to use but I could really do with someone who understands it better telling me if I am right or totally off with this.

I don’t want to rip all the rads out and then be in the same position with extortionate heating bills

I appreciate it’s never going to be economical with all electric heating but surely there’s a better option than the Heatrae Sadia electromax

Thank you!

Kirstym2019

Sorry that should read £1500 for the German rads - approx £500 per rad

PeterGr

Is your hot water generation combined with the HS 'boiler'? What is the tariff that you are using / when are the off-peak times ? Do you have a programmer and trv's on the radiators?


Spending money on new heaters which would run at peak rate isn't going to reduce running costs. Your 9kW boiler will not run constantly at this rate. If you also require the HS system to give you hot water then setting up to run effectively making use of off-peak periods should be your focus.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.


It is absolutely essential that you understand that ALL electrical heating is 100% efficient. So the amount of heat you get from 1kWh(1 unit) is EXACTLY the same regardless of the type of heater. That applies to a £10 fan heater from Argos to a £2000 heater filled with snake oil!


That also applies to your Sadia boiler. An hour's running without the thermostat cutting in and turning the heater off, will use 9kWh and produce the same amount of heat as any other electrical heater using 9kWh.



There is absolutely no need to spend £500 on a heater. This, for example, from Aldi will produce the same heat as any other heater.


https://www.aldi.co.uk/convector-heater-with-remote/p/010266252109900?utm_source=Aldi&utm_medium=Email&u tm_content=Header&utm_campaign=NFSBwinter25012019& sap-outbound-id=6A1176F5A52BC70F0126C12BB66313527944A080

mmmmikey

Hi - the German rads may save you a little bit because they are more controllable, but you'll still be paying the same amount for each unit of electricity so it will only save you a little bit (if anything at all). The fact that they're lower power is a bit of a red herring because you'll just need to run them longer to heat the house up the same amount.



For a whole house heating system night storage heaters can be a much more cost effective solution. In my case I pretty well halved my heating costs by going from Fischer Future Heaters to storage heaters, although this is partly because I don't use much other electrcity and a more realistic typical saving might be of the order of 30% to 40%. To keep the cost down, I bought recondtioned storage heaters off eBay, and the cost of 6 of them with installation was about £1500. Again, it might cost you more because I already had the wiring in place and just needed the heaters to be connected in. Because the storage heaters are so simple and reliable I had no qualms about buying used - mine were only a year old and I'd expect a lifespan of 3 years.


In terms of what they're like in use, I find the house every bit as warm and comfortable througout the whole day with the storage heaters as with the Fischer Future Heaters.



My suggestion would be that you get a local electrician in to talk you through the options - my expectation is that you could save quite a bit without spending a fortune.

mmmmikey

...should read lifespan of 30 years

Kirstym2019

Thanks for this. Interesting to know you’ve gone from the German rads back to night storage heaters. The issue for us would be we don’t have the wiring for the night storage heaters in place so I think it would be a big job to do but certainly something I can look into. Having been brought up in a house with night storage heaters, I just remember my parents whinging about them but I guess with all these things, they’re probably very different now to how they were 20 years ago!

Kirstym2019

Thanks for this. Yup I understand what you’re saying, but I am wondering/hoping that having greater control on a room by room basis may enable me to spend less money. So instead of firing up a 9kw peak rate electric boiler, I could fire up a 2.5kw to heat the lounge for a couple of hours and then the bedrooms an hour before bed. Also as I understand it, they work in a similar way to storage heaters in that the bricks enable them to continue emitting heat even when they aren’t drawing power so in theory using less electric
I’ve done lots of research into all the different solutions but I am just trying to get working examples of the different solutions to see if they actually make a difference in real life scenarios. All these manufacturers make bold claims and I am sceptical as to whether they’re true

Kirstym2019

The hot water heats in the same boiler. Separate system within it. We switched from e7 to single rate as it’s actually cheaper than having e7. The only benefit to e7 was hot water heating over night but that only draws 3kw so wasn’t saving us anything and we were then using a more expensive rate during the day on e7 for the heating so it cost more. So we’re on a single rate as the heating is what is costing a fortune and the times we need to heat the house don’t coincide with the e7 off peak rates. Summer months our bills are v reasonable when we’re just using it for water - approx £70 pm

mmmmikey

Kirstym2019 wrote: »

Also as I understand it, they work in a similar way to storage heaters in that the bricks enable them to continue emitting heat even when they aren’t drawing power so in theory using less electric

.....sadly this is what the marketing and slick sales pitch that your neighbours probably got leaves you to believe. But it is a complete distortion of the truth, no doubt cleverly presented so they're not actually lying.



It is true that for the Fischer heaters the heat that you put in heats a clay core that then releases the heat slowly, even after the heater is turned off. But all this is doing is delaying things - you still have to pay (standard rate) to put the heat in them in the first place.



Think of it like having a water meter and filling a bath. Whether you fill the bath directly from the tap, or fill a bucket first and then empty the bucket in the bath, you're still using and paying for exactly the same amount of water. The only reason to fill the bucket first and then empty in the bath would be if you could pay less for the water by filling the bucket at a different time.


The same applies to the Fischer heaters, thinking of them being the bucket and the room you're heating being the bath. There's no cost advantage whatsoever to putting the heat into the heaters in advance. The reason they have the "magic clay" is not really to do with cost saving.

Kirstym2019

Thanks for this. It does make sense. And useful to hear from someone who’s used a similar set up that I am looking at. I’ll have a look into storage heaters and the practicality of installation without ripping the walls apart. I’ve found it so difficult to get any ‘real’ feedback on all electric heating systems. They’re rare and unpopular and every sparky who’s ever looked at my boiler has pulled a face and said I bet that costs a fortune! But not been able to come up with a better solution other telling me to get gas installed which isn’t possible ��