Which electric heaters are the best?

fletcher75

matelodave said:

Make sure you hot water tank is well insulated, even a foam sprayed one will benefit from an extra insulation jacket and even insulate the pipework at the top of the tank to reduce heat loss
Ensure that your hot water is only heated during the off peak period and avoid using the booster element because that uses peak rate leccy - dont waste hot water. With a bit of effort you should be able to make the tankful last a whole day.

See if you could use the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher etc overnight during the off peak period to make the most of cheaper leccy and avoid using supplementary heating as it will use peak rate leccy. Change your light bulbs to LEDs to save 90% of your lighting bill (especially if you've got halogen spots). Turn stuff off when it's not being used and ideally don't leave stuff on standby unless really necessary (like the SKY box)

I just checked the immersion heater and it is foam sprayed so will see about getting it insulated more...which trader does this?! I also saw that it comes on to heat water from 2.15am-7.15am. Is this too much? We are only 2 adults so wondering if heating it for less te would be better? I've tried until 5.15am. We always out dishwasher etc on timers for the night so happy with that.
Thanks for your help! We are new home owners so this is all a learning curve.
Regarding tariffs, we want to ensure our energy is renewable so at the moment we are with Octopus and happy so far..all other quotes were in the same region but as I said, these estimates are based on the previous owners' usage.

fletcher75

We currently pay 16.42p/kw in the day and 9.44p/kw at night.
As we are at home just now, I think this month won't be a true reflection of our usage either.

Talldave

Symbio's prices would be at the 12.920 p/kWh & 8.785 p/kWh level for E7. They're incompetent but cheap. Depending on what percentage you use at night there are probably other suppliers with lower night rates.

cranford

Just costing up the non heating electricity it could cost you over £630 a year. The average house uses 3,000 units a year which will equate on average to £500 or more. I have an immersion water heater that uses 1300 units a year so even if you use 1500 units a year on E7 it could cost £130 a year to run.
I dont know how much storage heaters cost to run but  a single 2000 watt electric radiator  on for 7 hrs a day 5 days a week  and 15 hrs  a day for 2 weekend days would cost you £20 a week and that only heating one room.
If you are on DD if you don't want to get a shock now is the time to build up a credit going into the winter.
If winter months cost you £160 then that would work out to £50 (non heating) plus about £70 for heating, ie £120 a month spread over a year but only your usage can confirm this and keeping monthly meter readings is a very good idea.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Fletch, a 'brick is a brick', NSH come between 9 and 16 Brickers, more bricks = more stored cheaper heat. A brick will hold 1.48 kWH. Radiated is good human heat, coveted warms seagulls feet. An open (no balloon insert) will immediately lose 30% of any money you put in.

Foam (partL building standards of early 80's) is 2.5 more efficient and keeping water heat in than usual lagging. Simple and cheap solution is more cheap stored heat and less leaking of heat. An extra small additional 9 Bricker in living area or swap a 2.8 for a new 3.4 will improve stored cheap energy and comfort.

You 1st need to:
- get an online account NOW
- put 8 weekly meter readings in
- know the exact name of your tariff
- know your MPAN number
- comparison sites for best tariff

I have never used boost/damper in 40+ years of NS, keep the damper flap closed and they give out good radiated heat, use the boost/flap and they warm your ceilings and seagulls with bad convected heat.

I use 60% of all kW at cheap night tariff and 40% of all kW at expensive day rate. I use an annual total of 8500kW per annum. I'm happy at 21C is with 365 days of hot angry water. These are the things you need to know and control yourself.

A brick is a brick, each brick will hold 1.48kWh of cheap heat and depending on insulation will release it over the next 17 hours. NSH tin comes in 4 varieties up to a 16 bricker 16 x 1.48kW = 23.8kWh of stored heat
- equivalent to a 1.4kW heater permanently supply of 'cheap electrical background heat' 24 not 17 hours per day.

If its out of heat by say 5 8 10pm then its because you have under-specified the tin storage needs and need more bricks or you have the damper/boost open in which case it is not good-radiative but bad-convective.

All NS heater users need an expensive to run 'on demand' electric heat occasionally.

Placement of a NSH should where aesthetically possible should be direct-line to your self, the benefit of radiated direct heat is much the same as [felt] IR heat. Keeping the living area at say 19°C is from my point of view medically unsafe and socially unreasonable, (2018-19 GOV recommends 18-19°C it was raised to 21°C in 2019)!it's your house, you decide.
Best of luck !

Gerry1

The XT18 seems to have three 850W elements, so 2.55kW in total.  It's easy to check whether they are all working.

Wait until the meter changes over to the night rate, switch off all the heaters and everything else, then watch the red light on the meter for a couple of minutes and make sure it never flashes.

Switch on a heater, turn its input control to maximum and count the number of flashes per minute.  If the LED is marked '1000 Imp/kWh', there should about 42 or 43 flashes (impulses) per minute, corresponding to 2550 flashes per hour or 2.55kW.  If you count only 28 or 14 flashes then you have one or two faulty elements.

A similar check can be carried out with a rotating disk meter, which will state how many revolutions correspond to a kWh.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Changing the 2.5 for a 3.4 manual/auto will give +/- 30% instant improvement in cheap storage. Its essential it DOES NOT have a fan element or extra front facing 3kW 13a expensive day rate panel heater in it. You have the luxury of 26 weeks of virtually zero domestic room heating costs coming up - use them wisely on the basics first. No manual for yours on the Dimplex site.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Basics:

A chimney without an effective restrictor where outside air does vent into the room would lose 8kWh per 24 hours of heat .......... for those who can not for whatever reason have double glazing ponder the following :

Heat Loss Reduction Values are ish !

- secondary glazing + insulated shutters 77%
- secondary glazing + heavy curtains 66%
- stand alone insulated shutters 60%
- double-glazing 55%
- honeycomb blinds 36%
- modern insulated roller blinds 22%

I prefer bog standard manual heaters. My needs, my control, my bills. Many millions of us are off-gas, and with a 50 year personal history of E7 NSH I've learned to control them. Starting next month they will appear on eBay free - just collect them and take them away will be offered. Start with basics tariff / regular reads, online account, control domestic heat loss, sufficient initial overnight storage of the cheap heat, will give you the 70% night use figure I mentioned and the best tariff for your needs.

doningtonphil

fletcher75 said:

We currently pay 16.42p/kw in the day and 9.44p/kw at night.
As we are at home just now, I think this month won't be a true reflection of our usage either.

Hello.  We are on electric only (no gas in the village).  Our immersion heater is set to come on from 05:00 to 08:30.  The immersion heater has a thermostat on it so once the water reaches 70 degrees it turns off, and then swithces on and off to maintain that temperature.  So varying the time the immersion heater has power to is shouldn't be required (unless it is not on long enough to get the water up to temp).
Regarding tariff, we are on Octopus Agile tariff.  It needs a smart meter but their tariff is in 30 mins increments.  Our recent bill shows our average rate being 7.25p/kWh (which includes electric cooking and the immersion coming on in the afternoon.  Bill from 20th Feb - 22nd April (basically 2 months) was £137.62 for 1642.1kWh (9852 for the year whoa!)
Another bonus is being told that from time to time they are paying you to use electricity  (has been up to 4p/kWh).
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