Oil filled radiator only heating

F1nn

Can anyone tell me if turning down the (plug in at socket) oil filled type will save me money. We are pensioners, heat only one room when in it, have only economy seven which is useless and looking to save £?

doodling

Hi,

The cheapest form of electric heating (apart from heat pumps which have a high capital cost) is E7 storage heaters. Do you have these and if so, why are they useless?

It is difficult to answer your question without knowing what you are turning down but if it is a thermostat then turning it down will save money, albeit with you having a colder room.

Running an oil filled radiator on full price electricity is likely to be more expensive than E7 heating though so you'll need to do the maths to work out what is best.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

F1nn said:

Can anyone tell me if turning down the (plug in at socket) oil filled type will save me money.

Yes, turning down the thermostat on your oil-filled heater will save money. It will also make your room colder.

F1nn said:

We are pensioners, heat only one room when in it, have only economy seven which is useless and looking to save £?

Heating on Economy 7 (ideally, by using storage heaters) will be cheaper than heating during the daytime on higher-rate electricity.

Do you have storage heaters, and an immersion heater for hot water? Are these correctly connected to your E7 meter so they heat up on the seven hours of overnight cheap rate?

EssexHebridean

Hello Finn, welcome to the forums.

We’re on E7 too - the key thing is to maximise energy use overnight to get the best value from it, for us this means the storage heaters for all our heating - very occasionally we use either the “boost” function one of them has, or an additional heater if it’s turned particularly cold during the day without being forecast. Our hot water is through an immersion heater - heated overnight. We shower in the morning when we wake so that happens on the night rate too. We also choose to run washing machine and dishwasher overnight - although that needs consideration down to personal circumstances. If not fully overnight it may be possible to set them on a timer so they come on to make use of the final couple of hours of cheap rate though. 

Without storage heaters E7 is of far less value as the peak rate is more expensive than the standard capped price, so if you are on the tariff as a legacy but your heating system has been changed then it may be  better to get changed onto a single rate. 

macman

It takes the same amount of energy to warm the room from temp X to temp Y regardless of the thermostat setting: the lower it is, the longer it will take. So you are not saving anything unless you have a colder room temp.
Using any form of electric heater (oil filled rad, convector, fan heater) along with an E7 system with NSH's is incredibly expensive, because, unless you are nocturnal, you will be running those heaters on E7 peak rate. Set the NSH's correctly for input and output and use them at a third of the price.

QrizB

macman said:

Set the NSH's correctly for input and output and use them at a third of the price.

More like 2/3rds these days, sadly, but still a saving.