Query regarding heating a home office

Elisheba

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could help?  I work from home 2 - 4 days a week, and have a spare bedroom I use as an office.  I currently heat it using my gas central heating - so the boiler is on, and the radiator in the office is on as well as another radiator downstairs that just won't turn off for some reason.  I keep the thermostat at 18 degrees, although I'm not sure how useful the thermostat actually is. The radiator in the office barely seems to to touch the cold (it doesn't need bled) - I guess its just a poorly insulated room, but as I rent there isn't a huge amount I can do about it.

I was wondering about buying a little wood stove effect heater for the room, but I'm worried about the costs of running an electric heater. I would have more control over it and be able to turn it off when I was too warm as it would be in the same room as me, but I've heard they use huge amounts of electricity.    Does anyone have any idea how expensive they are to run, and whether I would just be better sticking to my rubbish gas radiator?

Thanks,
E

tk47

Elisheba said:

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could help?  I work from home 2 - 4 days a week, and have a spare bedroom I use as an office.  I currently heat it using my gas central heating - so the boiler is on, and the radiator in the office is on as well as another radiator downstairs that just won't turn off for some reason.  I keep the thermostat at 18 degrees, although I'm not sure how useful the thermostat actually is. The radiator in the office barely seems to to touch the cold (it doesn't need bled) - I guess its just a poorly insulated room, but as I rent there isn't a huge amount I can do about it.

I was wondering about buying a little wood stove effect heater for the room, but I'm worried about the costs of running an electric heater. I would have more control over it and be able to turn it off when I was too warm as it would be in the same room as me, but I've heard they use huge amounts of electricity.    Does anyone have any idea how expensive they are to run, and whether I would just be better sticking to my rubbish gas radiator?

Thanks,
E

Electric costs 5 times if not more than gas, so you are right to worry about using an electric heater (unless you are able to utilise low cost electricity available at times on some tariffs)

If you are preapred to work in a cold house, despite the office being warm, (e.g. for making a brew, taking comfort breaks etc) then why not turn off the heating in those rooms.
There are some great gadgets now available to allow heat zones within a property, if you want to go automatic.

Elisheba

Oh yeah, the heating is off in every other room except the office, and the radiator that won't turn off.  Sounds like I'll just have to wrap up warm then! Thanks for the info.

spadoosh

Its about 30p an hour using a small electric heater. Depends on heater size nd how much you pay for leccy but 30p isnt going to be a million miles away. 

Have you got thermostatic valves on your radiators? If you do you should be able to play around with them so that you can get enough heat in your office without overly heating the rest of the house or it cutting off too soon. 

Where is your thermostat in the house?
Try turning thermostatic valve in other parts of house to its lowest setting and then the one in the office to the highest. 

Gerry1

No need to waste money on electric heating at four or five times the cost of gas.  Turn the thermostat up a bit, fit a TRV to the downstairs radiators, including the one you can't turn off, and you'll be as warm as toast. 

MWT

Since you are renting, ask the landlord to fix the radiator that you can't turn off, that may at least help a bit and shouldn't cost you anything.

st999

Is the radiator that won't turn off in the room where the thermostat is?
If it is it shouldn't be turned off.

merchcon55

I work from home, only use one room for work and have a Dimplex fan heater for that room only - I only ever use it on the lower setting, which is 1.5 KW per hour. However, the heater never runs full blast all the time. There is a thermostat set about midway, as and when the heater needs to turn on, it does so. Our central heating goes off at 9AM and comes back on at 6PM - so the Dimplex heater is on for a 9 hour period. IF it were on for all 9 hours, that would be 9 x 1.5KW = 13.5 KW.  From my own experience, on average, my Dimplex heater uses 6KW per day - so on average, the heater is on for 4 of the 9 hours. At 12p per KW, thats 72p per day. That's not a great deal to work in comfort - and it's a simple solution.

Elisheba

st999 said:

Is the radiator that won't turn off in the room where the thermostat is?
If it is it shouldn't be turned off.

Yeah st999, it is.  I won't bother speaking to my estate agent then.

merchcon55 said:

I work from home, only use one room for work and have a Dimplex fan heater for that room only - I only ever use it on the lower setting, which is 1.5 KW per hour. However, the heater never runs full blast all the time. There is a thermostat set about midway, as and when the heater needs to turn on, it does so. Our central heating goes off at 9AM and comes back on at 6PM - so the Dimplex heater is on for a 9 hour period. IF it were on for all 9 hours, that would be 9 x 1.5KW = 13.5 KW.  From my own experience, on average, my Dimplex heater uses 6KW per day - so on average, the heater is on for 4 of the 9 hours. At 12p per KW, thats 72p per day. That's not a great deal to work in comfort - and it's a simple solution.

That is so useful to know, merchcon55.  Thanks very much!

Gerry1 said:

No need to waste money on electric heating at four or five times the cost of gas.  Turn the thermostat up a bit, fit a TRV to the downstairs radiators, including the one you can't turn off, and you'll be as warm as toast. 

Thanks, Gerry1.  I'm afraid fitting TRV's are far beyond my DIY skills, and I probably shouldn't touch the heating system anyway - it being a rented property and all. All the radiators have normal dials, and tehy are all turned off.

I'm getting a Smart Meter fitted next week, so I will see how much gas I am using with heating my office during the day an compare that to the quotes mentioned for an electric heater.  Obviously any money saved by an electric heater initially would be offset by the cost of buying the actual heater, but as I'm now working from home four days a week if there is a saving to be made, then it would pay for itself before too long.

staggered

I used an oil-filled electric radiator to heat my office.  It didn't cost much (about £25 for a 2KW radiator from Screwfix) and didn't cost a massive amount in electricity, because it would stop heating once it reached the required temperature.  If you work in a very small room it might be worth investigating?  To be honest, once I moved to a bigger room it didn't do much to increase the temperature at all and I found using the central heating was a lot more effective.

Elisheba

Thanks staggered. The main problem is that the radiator in the office doesn't seem to do a very good job of heating it.  Its not a big room, but has a big set of double glazed windows which are pretty old so probably not very good.  The radiator feels boiling hot, has some sort of foil behind it and doesn't need bled, but it can be on for 6 or 7 hours before the room feels comfortable enough to take off the blankets and extra layers I am wrapping myself in!