Electric Storage Heating

jwashington

Thanks for reading my thread, I hope someone can help me! We currently live in a two bed house which is supplied by gas. Our gas and electric bill pcm is £31 (direct debit)
We are moving to a 2 bed house in Jan which is only supplied with electric storage heating. After never having come across this type of heating system before, I am completely overhwhelmed with the information I have read on the internet about electric storage heaters, and overall the costs of running electric storage heating, high costs might I add.
Ive come across conflicting information, some say its very expensive (more than £80+ a month) others say theirs costs around £30 a month.
Ive been quoted by soutern electric to expect to pay around £60-£65 a month, although they dont actually supply to the area that i'm moving too. They told me it is run on Economy 7. One other thing I might add, is that we have an aquarium, which has to be supplied 24/7 with electric (oxygen, heat etc) and i would hate to have to get rid of my tank, because I cant afford my electricity bill. Ive got some questions .....

A - How much approx should my bill be per pcm? with and without my tank?
B - Is it best to pay by direct debit, a set amount each month?
C - What can I do to reduce my electricity useage? ie using washing machine, at night.
D- Who is the cheapest and best Supplier? (we live in West Sussex)
E- How Do I actually use Electric storage heaters?, ive heard about an input and output button? and whens the cheapest time of day to make the most out of my elecricity? do you get heating constantly? Can you ever turn it off?


Any information would be much appreciated. Thank-you

by the way, i'm not very technical so i dont want to know about however many kw per hour etc lol.

Bexm

Hello

I can't answer all your questions, but I have recently moved to a house with a storage heater... I am not sure as yet how much it is going to cost as not had our winter bill (and absolutely dreading it), but our storage heater we just leave it on all the time, and when our meter switchs over to E7 at about midnightish the storage heater comes on.. it stores the heat all night with cheap rate electricity and then turns off in the morning and then will release the heat through out the day.

There's an input (which is how much electric it uses to heat up) and the out put (how much heat it releases)

I have to say our heater is pretty useless as it keeps the house toasty when we're not there in the day time, but in evenings its gone cold!

It is best to use all electrical things over night when on E7 like washers etc as this is when your electric will be cheap, we are with Atlantic, which seemed the cheapest when we moved in.

Hope this helps a bit.
Bex

jwashington

thanks Bex you have helped alot. Hope your winter bill isnt too pricey!

Me and my baby are at home throughout the day so sounds like we will get the benefits of the heating during the day atleast. Can you have it on it the night if you need too?

thanks

Jodie

Cardew

In principle storage heaters are a big pile of bricks that are heated during the night using cheap rate electricity.(a 7 hour period betwen midnight and 8am usually)

They gradually release this heat during the day at a rate you determine. However I am afraid that with you being at home all day with a baby it is very likely that these heaters will 'run out' of heat sometime during the day. You can top them up with daytime electricity - but that is very expensive as you pay extra for daytime electricity when on an Economy 7 tariff.

Normally Direct Debit is the cheapest method to pay and you can spread your payments over a year.

Obviously use whatever electricity you can at cheap rate - immersion heater, washing machine etc.

Nobody can say how much storage heating will cost as there are so many factors that none of us know, but it will be a lot more than gas I suspect.

To find the cheapest supplier enter your postcode on a comparison website and enter, say 7,000kWk for daytime electricity and 7,000kWh for Economy 7. That will give you an indication of who is cheapest and that company will probably be the cheapest for using more or less electricity.

Graham1

For the OP, if you tell us the number of storage heaters of each size in the house, we could probably give a better estimate of the annual Kwh consumption. I doubt if the aquarium will add more than a few percent to the total (unless it has to be kept very warm).