Storage Heaters

talbot103

Need to replace 20 year old storage heaters with something more up to date and cheaper.We have no gas in our appartment which faces South so is very sunny we are on economy 7 at present with Bulb energy.Do we go for modern storage heaters straightforward electric heaters or what. We are both retired so installation costs are a big factor.

Reed_Richards

If you are heating with just storage heaters then you might reduce your heating cost by about 1/4 (i.e. to 3/4 of what it is now) by replacing your old ones with new.  But it will cost you a minimum of £400 per heater, possibly a lot more.

So lets say you spend £1000 per year on heating.  That might go down to £750 but if you replace 4 storage heater that might, optimistically, cost £2000 in which case it would take you 8 years to recoup the cost of the new heaters before you made any actual savings.

My point is that modern storage heaters are expensive and do not bring huge energy savings.  

rp1974

Op are your current storage heaters fully operational?,If not then having them checked over and repaired would appear to be a sensible option.
You could replace them with new storage heaters,new money for old rope essentially,but why would you?.
Non storage heaters are expensive to run,cheap to install,although there'd be little point in doing so if you cant afford to use your heating when your cold.

macman

Why on earth would you consider replacing E7 NHS's with convectors or other electric heaters on single rate?
You will increase your heating costs by about 350% overnight. Nothing will be cheaper than E7 with NSH's and an immersion heater, except mains gas, which is not an option for you. By all means fit modern NSH's, but these require a peak rate connection as well to power the boost facility, so it's not a straightforward swap.
Why do so many people think that NSH's are expensive? it's baffling.

Robin9

@talbot103  You say "cheaper" (to run).  That usually means use less and/or make sure you're not paying more than you should.



Have you used the comparison sites recently ?

Who is your present supplier (EDIT just reread you're with Bulb)  and what is your tariff.?  What is your actual annual consumption - in kWh not £ ?

shinytop

macman said:

Why on earth would you consider replacing E7 NHS's with convectors or other electric heaters on single rate?
You will increase your heating costs by about 350% overnight.

How on earth do you work that out?  My daytime rate is c. 1.5 times my E7 rate (11.6/7.6).  I know rates vary geographically and are going up but is there a 3.5 factor anywhere?   

And (this is from experience of running old storage heaters) a lot of NSH heat is wasted because the house is too hot early in the day and you end up having to top it up at night.  

Gerry1

You're wasting money if you're with Bulb, they're certainly not the cheapest.

matelodave

As Gerry says, Bulb are by no means the cheapest, so you could save some money there. Spending out on shiney new storage heaters is unlikely to save you all that much money, especially if they are going to cost you the best part of £2k+ to replace them.


New heaters might be a bit more controllable but they still use the same amount of leccy to provide the same amount of heat so spending a lot of money to replace them may only save you 10-15% (something you wont know until you've lashed out a couple of grand). IMO you are better off keeping the ones you've got and finding a better tariff than Bulb.

 Likewise changing them for "ordinary" heaters mean you'll be using peak rate leccy to provide your heating - a big consideration if you are retired and at home most of the time. So rather than benefitting from off-peak leccy to provide your heating, hotwater and any other stuff that you can use during off-peak times (washing machine, dishwasherm dryer etc) you'll probably increase your costs quite significantly.

Reed_Richards

matelodave said:

New heaters might be a bit more controllable but they still use the same amount of leccy to provide the same amount of heat so spending a lot of money to replace them may only save you 10-15% (something you wont know until you've lashed out a couple of grand). IMO you are better off keeping the ones you've got and finding a better tariff than Bulb.

The problem with storage heaters is that they allow some heat to leak away all the time that they are charged.  That can make the room warmer than you need it in the night and the morning then cooler than you want it to be in the evening.  So you may find that you have to supplement the storage heater with some direct heating; indeed some storage heaters have this option built-in.  The best you can hope for with newer storage heaters is that they don't leak heat so fast, you don't need to charge them quite so much in the night or use so much extra heating in the evening.  So they save you money - but it will never be a huge saving as a percentage of your total spend. 

matelodave

Reed_Richards said:

matelodave said:

New heaters might be a bit more controllable but they still use the same amount of leccy to provide the same amount of heat so spending a lot of money to replace them may only save you 10-15% (something you wont know until you've lashed out a couple of grand). IMO you are better off keeping the ones you've got and finding a better tariff than Bulb.

The problem with storage heaters is that they allow some heat to leak away all the time that they are charged.  That can make the room warmer than you need it in the night and the morning then cooler than you want it to be in the evening.  So you may find that you have to supplement the storage heater with some direct heating; indeed some storage heaters have this option built-in.  The best you can hope for with newer storage heaters is that they don't leak heat so fast, you don't need to charge them quite so much in the night or use so much extra heating in the evening.  So they save you money - but it will never be a huge saving as a percentage of your total spend. 

Lets say they "might" save you money based on intuition but whether they do or not depends on how you use them. As the OP reckons they are retired and possibly needing heating all day then super duper HHR storage heaters may not work out as economical for them, as they might for someone who wants to retain as much  heat as possible for use in the evening rather than spread out during the day. 

IMO you'd need to be pretty confident of saving a lot of money if you are going to spend several thousand pounds up front unless you are forced into it by the existing system not functioning.

Its similar advice to spending say £1500 replacing a gas boiler to try and save £150 a year on your bills - it'll take ten years before you break even. However if the boiler is irrepairable then you've got no choice.

It's just my opinion you understand but it needs to be thought through to decide what you are trying to acheive.

Swipe

Gerry1 said:

You're wasting money if you're with Bulb, they're certainly not the cheapest.

Especially since their latest price hike came into force on Monday this week. The OP should get on the comparison sites and switch away immediately.