Best electric heater for old, draughty house with high ceilings

friendsrgreat

I recently moved to a rented, one-bed flat in Nottingham (one of the coldest cities, apparently). There is no gas, only electricity. I was told by the landlord that the previous tenant was paying £60/month just to heat the living room and double bedroom. This was from using the recently intalled, temperature-controlled, Dimplex fan heaters. The flat is the downstairs rooms of a converted, 100-year-old semi (lounge, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, porch off the door). It has high ceilings and huge, double glazed windows (except for one which is protected by the porch). Energy efficiency rating D. The wind howls down the side of the house.

What would be the cheapest heaters to run for this kind of space? I've looked at halogen heaters, but they would only heat me, and none of the room.

What's the best type of portable heater that is energy efficient, while ensuring that the house remains in good repair and doesn't get damaged by damp? I will be buying the heaters myself, so cost of the heater is very important. I know panel heaters are great, but they're too expensive and would need to be installed by my landlord.

QrizB

All electric heaters are 100% efficient, whether a £20 fan heater or a £1500 panel heater filled with unicorn hair. You can change how the heat is delivered - a jet of hot air from a fan heater, a plume of hot air from a convector heater, a warm glow from a radiant heater - but the cost of a kilowatt-hour of heat will be the same from each.

The only way to do better than that is with a heat pump. A portable one will be noisy and might cost £300 but should save 1/2 to 2/3rds from your energy bill. A window unit would be better but are rare as hen's teeth in the UK. A permanently-installed one would be best but it's not really appropriate for a rented flat.

friendsrgreat

QrizB said:

All electric heaters are 100% efficient, whether a £20 fan heater or a £1500 panel heater filled with unicorn hair. You can change how the heat is delivered - a jet of hot air from a fan heater, a plume of hot air from a convector heater, a warm glow from a radiant heater - but the cost of a kilowatt-hour of heat will be the same from each.

The only way to do better than that is with a heat pump. A portable one will be noisy and might cost £300 but should save 1/2 to 2/3rds from your energy bill. A window unit would be better but are rare as hen's teeth in the UK. A permanently-installed one would be best but it's not really appropriate for a rented flat.

From what I have read online, heaters that heat the surrounding air are inefficient for old, draughty properties with high ceilings, because the air is escaping as fast as it's being heated. Radiant heat, like that given off by halogen heaters, is better because it heats the person or surroundings, not the air. Unfortunately, halogen heaters won't heat the house.

QrizB

You asked:

What's the best type of portable heater that is energy efficient, while ensuring that the house remains in good repair and doesn't get damaged by damp?

A radiant heater might be good at heating you but won't heat the property any better than the other types and won't do much against damp.

If your flat has properly-fitting double-glazed windows, a well-fitting door, and no open flues I'm not sure why you think air will be escaping as it's being heated. Your landlord will have provided an Energy Performance Certificate (it's a legal requirement), what does it say?

Gerry1

Being all electric and having high ceilings means that heating will always be seriously expensive whatever you do.

Sadly, the only effective answer is to move to a more conventional property with gas.

matelodave

You could explore summat like this - its a reversible airconditioner which can heat as well as cool 

https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/ecosilent12hpw/electriq-ecosilent12hpw-air-conditioner#!#specs

the specification in the handbook suggests that it can produce around 3.3kw of heat from an input of 1.23kw which implies that its got a COP of around 2.7 which, if true, means that if you pay 15p/kwh then the effective cost of 1kwh of heat will be around 5.5p.

It doesn't specify the input or output temperatures for that COP but it would be reasonable to assume that as the room warms up, the unit has less work to do to maintain the temperature so it could be relatively cheap to run compare with a fan heater, convector or oil filled radiator. It's also cheaper to run than a storage heater and much more controllable

Not cheap to buy though but i1 does have the advantage of being an air conditioner to provide cooling in the summer and it's portable so you can take it with you when you move.

QrizB

^^ That's one of the portable heat pumps I Googled when writing my reply   You can get similar models for a bit less but that one claims to be low-noise which is a bonus.

Reed_Richards

friendsrgreat said:

I've looked at halogen heaters, but they would only heat me, and none of the room.

Fan heaters heat the air in the room first and this then transfers its heat to the solid objects in the room.  Halogen heaters emit a lot of infra-red which heats nearby objects by direct radiation and these objects then transfer their heat to the air in the room.  In either case if you are near the heater you will feel warmer when it is on.  In either case if the heater is thermostatically controlled then after a while the heater will cycle on and off to maintain the room temperature and either heater will consume the same amount of electricity to do this.    

Novice_investor101

As well as whichever heater you choose look at getting a dehumidifier too. If the flat is prone to damp or high humidity then this will really help it to feel warmer & more comfortable. Might be worth seeing how warm the flat gets. Compressor dehumidifiers dont work very well in temps below about 14c. Dessicant dehumidifiers work well in lower temps but are more expensive to buy & run. 

Personally, i prefer convector heaters. Warm the room up fairly quickly & aren’t noisy. 

theoretica

Also check out draft stopping, it can be an easy and cheap way to make a big difference.

QrizB

Novice_investor101 said:

As well as whichever heater you choose look at getting a dehumidifier too. ... Compressor dehumidifiers dont work very well in temps below about 14c.

Compressor dehumidifiers are heat pumps, too, and put out more heat than they use. The effective COP is pretty low but it all counts.

(For anyone who doubts this, turning 1kg / 1 litre of water into vapour at 21C takes 0.68kWh (by the calculator here). Condensing the same amount of water will release the energy again. An Argos "10 litre" dehumidifier draws 240 watts, 5.76kWh per day. If it also removes 4 litres of water a day, that's 2.72kWh of added heat and a COP of around 1.47.)