F-Rated Energy property, grants to improve the house?

FlatFour

Hi,

I updated my other thread, both the Insulation Company and the grant company made a mistake, it's NOT PIV they wanted to fit, rather a simple extractor fan in the Kitchen, which is fine as we were looking at fitting something similar during the kitchen refurb in the future.

Really quite a bad communications when the companies involved don't understand what work is actually being done.

Insulation is done now.  They confirmed they don't insulate into the void (chap who did the survey was wrong there) as there's a chance of damp issues as it's here that's ventilated.  Hopefully the extra layers & newer material in the main loft space will be sufficient.

FlatFour

Bendy_House said:

So you're going for instant heaters - turned on as required? Surely that is the single most costly form of energy?

Hi, just wanted to address this point.  You would indeed think that this kind of heater would be more costly, but that simply isn't true for our specific use case.  The old Storage Heaters were not used for years due to the cost of running them and the significant day time rate hike they caused - the time when we use the most power.  So, the storage heaters were both ineffective and cost too much, utterly pointless in my view.

With storage heaters not being used, we simply used small portable convector heaters as needed.  This has proved massively cheaper on power over that time.  So, we installed what are effectively modern, wall-mounted panel heaters to be used as needed.  Despite some chilly weather lately, they've not been required.  If it's chilly, I pop a jumper on.

I fully suspect that we're much more comfortable at lower temperatures than most.  It's currently 13c in here and I feel perfectly warm and I'm not wearing particularly warm clothing, plus the window is open for fresh air.  For us, supplementary heating is very much just to take the edge off when particularly chilly.  Due to being well-ventilated, we don't suffer from damp issues, there's none of that dreaded mould built-up behind wardrobes and the like.

Basically, going this route for heating fits our specific use case perfectly.  I expect the heaters to be rarely used, only the one in the middle bedroom and downstairs landing seeing occasional use.  Running one of these heaters 100% for an hour would cost 21p at current rates, and they'd not run at 100% of course for temperatures we find comfortable.

Balance this with Storage heaters that would come on for seven hours over right costing far far more than this.  This would then lead to being excessively warm at about 4am (I remember that well) and the room also being stuffy due to requiring the windows to be close to avoid heat being lost.  The house would then be quite warm all morning - when no one is around - comfortable in the afternoon - when no one is around - and barely adequate in the evening when the house is full.  By mid-evening the heaters are cold.  Modern ones can boost of course, but that's not too effective.  So, that's a lot higher cost for wasted heat.  It just doesn't work for us.

We don't like the house being too warm, we love to keep windows open, so this works well for us.  Individual radiators turn on as needed, or via a timer is we desire and/or using a preset minimum temperature.  That said, the insulation improvement should prevent rapid heat loss when we do need some additional warmth.  I think we've made the right choice for us to compliment our open fire - which remains the main source of heating burning wood we obtain ourselves.  Might seem a bit backwards to many, but it works for us.

Bendy_House

Good news about the extractor!!! Jeepers!

I get what you are saying about the heating. Old storage heaters have very crude controls, so - yes - they'd often charge up more than they'd need to, and then give out all that heat during the day whether you'd want it to or not!

Modern ones are far more controllable, tho', and for your cold-blooded use, you'd set the charge to be minimal, so it'd only takes in enough to stop your house from freezing during the following day. Again, they are better insulated, so shouldn't lose all or most of its stored heat if you didn't want it to.

And the bottom line is, overnight energy can be very much less than daytime, and that's where the savings would come.

Your new panel heaters are not more efficient or anything like that than the storage heaters; leccy IN = heat OUT. So there are no savings to be had using these panel heaters, except that you will be turning them off more than the old storage heaters. And, obviously, if you turn a heater off, it'll cost less to run...

Your call, and I certainly wouldn't argue against what you are doing - it suits you. 13oC indoor temps wouldn't suit most folk, tho', and for 'proper' heating, storage heaters would almost certainly be FAR cheaper.

FlatFour

I know right.  Part of me thinks they may have back-pedalled a bit on this, changing their tune somewhat as they'd have been throwing away the lucrative grant money if they'd kept insisting on PIV, as I'd have cancelled things and done the insulation myself.

Yeah, perhaps "efficient" was the wrong word, more like efficient for us - I get that 1kw of power should equal 1kw of heat on a modern heating system.  Efficiency comes more from delivering that heat when needed.  I.e.  I don't think I can say "don't charge much overnight" then decide I actually need more heat later that day without paying normal rates for that boost.  The issue we had was the weighting on the day time electricity rate had a huge impact on cost.

Put it this way, with the Storage heaters not being used, our typical monthly bill over the year HALVED when switching from the Economy Seven tariff to a regular same-price-any-time tariff.  The extra daytime rate cost was really that severe.

I do get that modern storage heaters are a lot better, we did look into them, but in the end we settled on what works best for us.  I know we're perhaps a bit weird in regards to what we find comfortable, but it ultimately saves us money so it's not a bad thing.  The insulation is the (warm) icing on the cake in that any heat should stay in the house a bit longer.

Note: I love fresh air at night, so having to have the window closed leads to a stuffy nose and poor sleep.  I do have a heated mattress cover - wonderful things - to take the chill of the bed if needed.  Never leave it on while I sleep though, as I'd just get too hot.  These things don't draw much power at all, can't recall exactly what, but it's only on for an hour (takes a while to heat up because it's low power).

As an aside, a feature of the new heaters is that they can detect if a window is open (magic!) so won't just burn power trying to heat the room if the temperature does drop to the trigger level but I've left a window open for the fresh air.

Bendy_House

Sounds good