Buying a house with old storage heaters

katiekatiekate

Hello everyone, I'm looking for some advice and going round in circles..

We are looking to move from a 2 bed house with gas central heating and have found a 3 bed with 1980s storage heaters and some type of electric hot water system. 

My concern is with energy prices being the way they are that I can't fathom how much we'd end up paying in monthly bills. 
We would want to put in a heat source pump system but I'm worried that it might end up being warmer but with still exceptionally high bills every month (and of course the cost of installation a heat source pump).  The cavity wall was also need insulating because it's an old cottage.

Does anyone know how I can find out the running cost of the old system and if a heat source pump would reduce the bills or simply keep the place warmer at the same cost? 

We have a small child and baby on the way so need to be warm but would also be running a washing machine and dishwasher frequently. 

Any help or advice appreciated!!! 

Kim1965

Unless the property has been insulated to new build standards, why  do you think an air source heat pump with flow temps of 50 degrees at best, be warner than storage heaters? 

Robin9

Find thr make and model of the heaters and learn how to use them 1~ likewise the hot water.

Live with them for a year.

Whatevet you do running costs woll be high.

katiekatiekate

I don't really know if it would. I know it would also need the cavity walls doing before it would become efficient. 
I just have no idea how much the bills would be with old storage heaters until we could do the necessary work to the house to make the situation better (and how much cheaper it would be if we made the necessary changes). If we moved, spent a lot of money on cavity walls and heat pump and the bills were not really much cheaper it wouldn't be worth it.
I don't want to move and then can't afford to live there because of the cost of heating. 

katiekatiekate

Robin9 said:

Find thr make and model of the heaters and learn how to use them 1~ likewise the hot water.

Live with them for a year.

Whatevet you do running costs woll be high.

 It's hard to know what to expect is high. I can't estimate if it will be double, triple, or 10 times what we pay now. 
Good idea to get the make and model though! 

Phones4Chris

Does the property currently have an Economy 7 electricity meter? Does it have a gas supply?

katiekatiekate

Phones4Chris said:

Does the property currently have an Economy 7 electricity meter? Does it have a gas supply?

It is Economy 7 but I don't know how much electricity they use and so can't work out the monthly bill. There's no gas at the property. 

rp1974

If the property is currently occupied you could maybe ask,if they wouldn't mind saying how much roughly their monthly energy bills are.That might seem a little forward but as potentially one of the biggest decisions you make your house purchase is worth a little probing.
Worth noting though that maybe wont be including the recent price rises,or be exactly what you would spend granted but a ready reckoner at least.

Removing functional storage heaters to replace with new storeage heaters or worst of all electrical non storage heaters seems to be one of the biggest mistakes possible tbh,many posts on here telling of crippling bills following having done so.

Old storage heaters might not be objects of great beauty and desire but using E7 they are likely the least expensive method of conventional electrical heating at present,new fangled versions such as quantums may be prettier,slimmer have more functions etc,etc but are expensive to buy considering the slightly better efficiency of them.

Property may not have gas but worth exploring if it is an option,or simply not available at all.Fitting a full new gas heating systems not a simple or cheap option but as your thinking of heat pumpery involving radiators presumably then it might work if feasible as much of the required work will be very similar.

The time of relatively inexpensive gas prices have probably gone now and unlikely to return to those previous prices and maybe heading towards equivalent pricing to electricity over the next 5-10 years so worth thinking about.
Realistically though it's only my best guess using what knowledge and information that I've got though appears that if your going to go the gas heating route then now or in the near futures the timeframe to do so before the options unavailable to you.

QrizB

You're moving to a larger house (you say "old cottage" but you also say it has cavity walls, so I'm guessing 1920s?) and also changing from GCH to storage heaters.

Do you know your current annual energy use for both gas and electricity, in kWh?

If you run the new E7 system carefully, your day rate electricity use shouldn't be much higher (say 10%) than your current electricity use. Your night rate electricity use will be maybe 1/3 more than your current gas use.

Here's an example.

Current: 2000kWh/yr elec, 9000kWh/yr gas.

Future: 2200kWh/yr day elec, 12000kWh/yr night elec.

As for costs, using those examples and EDF's "East Midlands" rates:

Current SVT: £1500/yr

Future SVT: £2550/yr

This assumes you make good use of the cheaper night rate electricity. If you don't, and end up with a 7200/7000 split instead, the cost becomes £3650 instead.

EDF rates here:

https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r505_deemed_rate_card.pdf

Mstty

Hi Katie,

There are a few alarm bells as you have a young child and baby on the way. So it would go hand in hand you want a warm and toasty home this winter for them.

You may need to prioritise what is more important a warm and toasty home over a fancy heat pump which will probably need a lot of other work on the house to work efficiently. (Under floor pipes to the ground floor for example)

Cost wise you could go with what is there or seek some professional help (rather than here) from a heating and insulation engineer(s) which may result in gas is your best option if you can get it to the property.

Reed_Richards

Mstty said:

You may need to prioritise what is more important a warm and toasty home over a fancy heat pump which will probably need a lot of other work on the house to work efficiently.

I think @Mstty may be confusing efficiency with cost effectiveness.  You can heat a house at lower cost by making sure it is well-insulated whatever form of heating you use.  But you don't need a well-insulated house to have a heat pump although this is a common misconception.  You can increase efficiency of a heat pump by using underfloor heating throughout rather than radiators.  A mixture of UFH and radiators, as @Mstty has, may or may not give you better efficiency than radiators alone, depending on how it is configured.