One bed flat using masses of electricity

seven-day-weekend

My son has a top floor '60s flat with a flat roof with no insulation, the same as you.  The only way to stop the mould was to insulate the ceiling and outside walls with celotex.  He did change his heating too, and his new heaters are much more controllable than the storage heaters, but probably not cheaper.  His bill is cheaper because of the insulation.

In other words, it's more a matter of insulation than the type of heater you use that will make the difference.

stewie_griffin

If you're struggling with condensation and dampness then you might want to consider a dehumidifier and run it for a few hours each day. It's not an ideal solution but will work out cheaper than having for heating on more than you need to. You can pick up a decent dehumidifier for about £100 from Screwfix and the like.

Greenbanana81

Thanks for all of the replies, all very useful, even the slightly depressing ones about coming away from the storage heaters! We are the owners of the flat, so no moving just yet. Our condensation is now controllable (although we still get a little bit in our bedroom north facing corner) and we haven't had mould in more than a year now since we regularly use a dehumidifier in the winter when it's damp and we had a ventilator installed which gently circulates air around the flat. It's simply that the flat takes a lot of heating to get warm. Seven-day- weekend, I agree the flat roof is a massive problem with losing heat energy. The one thing we haven't done yet as well is the insulation both inside and out. How did you son get to insulate the outside wall? Did he not have to get his management company or freeholder to do it? could you let me know what the ball park cost was? I'm seriously considering finding some decent storage heaters as well for E7. Anyone know which ones are the best?

Gerry1

Greenbanana81 said:

I'm seriously considering finding some decent storage heaters as well for E7. Anyone know which ones are the best?

Is it absolutely impossible to get gas?  That would be by far the best solution, even if you have to top up the mortgage.  Much lower bills, adds value to the property, easier to sell.

Otherwise it's storage heaters on the cheapest E7 tariff, or possibly a heat pump but they seem to be weird and wonderful.

If you're out all day then it's Dimplex Quantum or similar because they're well insulated and programmable, so you don't waste money heating the property all night and when you're not there.  If you're there all day then others are fine, but make sure they're big enough not to go cold by the evening.

Quantum needs a 24h supply to work the fan.  If you don't want to rewire, you can use a 24h supply on its own and programme it to shadow your E7 times.  But make absolutely sure you know when your meter switches over (watch it doing so, don't just believe what you're told), and beware of E7 tariffs that have two hours at day rate in the middle of the night.

Petriix

Insulate the inside of all the external walls and ceilings with as much Cellotex/Kingspan as you can fit. Then fit an air to air source heat pump if allowed under your leasehold.

Leon_W

I know it's different, but we made great inroads into our damp mouldy cottage by insulating interior walls with Celotex PL4000 insulated plasterboard. It's easy enough to "dot and dab" (basically stick it) to interior walls. In this case it's only 40mm thick so didn't notice the walls closing in !

As others have said. If you've enough ceiling height get as much insulation up there as you can as I feel this is where most of your heat is going.

We also run a desiccant dehumidifier upstairs throughout the day in the winter.  The dryer air makes it feel warmer and the thing with a desiccant dehumidifier (as opposed to compressor) is it releases about 400w in heat so it's a win win. We now rarely have to turn the heating on upstairs as just the dehumidifier is enough !

If you've got a compressor dehumidifier it might be worth buying a desiccant for the extra heat output. Compared here....  https://www.meaco.com/blog/when-to-buy-a-desiccant-dehumidifier-and-when-to-buy-a-compressor-dehumidifier/

Best of luck.