Cheapest way to run immersion heater

EssexHebridean

snowqueen555 said:

I've been reading storage heaters aren't very efficient, especially the older ones you find in some flats. I find myself in a situation where I may be buying a ground floor flat with no gas.

Older ones do tend to be less effective - because they don't retain the heat as well, they tend to leave you with a property that is extremely warm in the early part of the day and chilly later on. Newer HHR (high Heat Retention) models are a dramatic improvement though. 

With all storage heaters, the best advice about getting the most from them is to really learn about them - how they function, what all the controls do, and then  make sure they are properly set up for your needs. With the older type make sure you keep a regular check on what the weather will do a few days ahead and adjust as needed. With newer HHR ones like Dimplex Quantum, trust them to do their thing once you have the basic settings sorted. 

QrizB

snowqueen555 said:

I've been reading storage heaters aren't very efficient, especially the older ones you find in some flats. I find myself in a situation where I may be buying a ground floor flat with no gas.

If you're buying a flat with no gas, you'll be able to take the condition of the storage heaters into account when deciding how much to offer for the property.

Replacing an old box-of-bricks heater with a modern HHR one might cost £1000. So, if the flat has four ancient storage heaters, hold back £4k from your offer so you can replace them.

snowqueen555 said:

A lot of people seem to have no problems having the immersion on a few hours each day,

A hot water tank with an immersion heater is essentially a storage heater for hot water.

snowqueen555 said:

... and for heaters I will most likely try the newer infrared ones to heat certain sections of the flat/room/workspace

That's unlikely to be cost effective in the context of actually living in a flat.

matt_drummer

QrizB said:

Replacing an old box-of-bricks heater with a modern HHR one might cost £1000. So, if the flat has four ancient storage heaters, hold back £4k from your offer so you can replace them.

What if the flat has been priced with that in mind already?

I never understand why something has to be worth less than the asking price if the vendor has already taken the `faults' into account when setting the asking price?

You set an asking price taking into consideration what is wrong with what you are selling and then you have to reduce again for the faults that you have already taken account of, seems a bit mad to me.

QrizB

matt_drummer said:

QrizB said:

Replacing an old box-of-bricks heater with a modern HHR one might cost £1000. So, if the flat has four ancient storage heaters, hold back £4k from your offer so you can replace them.

What if the flat has been priced with that in mind already?

If the flat is described as "in need of updating" or whatever and is priced accordingly, then yes I'd agree that it's priced in.

If it says "recently decorated" then it probably isn't.

OP will know the market price for flats in their desired area, and can make that judgment for themselves.

Gerry1

snowqueen555 said:

I've been reading storage heaters aren't very efficient, especially the older ones you find in some flats. I find myself in a situation where I may be buying a ground floor flat with no gas.
A lot of people seem to have no problems having the immersion on a few hours each day, and for heaters I will most likely try the newer infrared ones to heat certain sections of the flat/room/workspace, rather than try and heat the whole place with those convection ones.

Don't even think of buying infra red electric heaters, or any form of plug-in electric heating.  They will use daytime electricity which costs about four times as much as gas.  However clever and sophisticated they may seem, on any given day you'll need a certain amount of kWh each day to remain comfortable, and those kWh will be much more expensive than a system that uses a tariff with cheaper overnight rates such as Economy 7 or Octopus Snug.

Swipe

My boxes of bricks work just fine and have no intention of replacing them with Quantums while they are still working.

Gerry1

matt_drummer said:

QrizB said:

Replacing an old box-of-bricks heater with a modern HHR one might cost £1000. So, if the flat has four ancient storage heaters, hold back £4k from your offer so you can replace them.

What if the flat has been priced with that in mind already?

I never understand why something has to be worth less than the asking price if the vendor has already taken the `faults' into account when setting the asking price?

You set an asking price taking into consideration what is wrong with what you are selling and then you have to reduce again for the faults that you have already taken account of, seems a bit mad to me.

If the vendor has had simple box of bricks NSHs from the start, they may not realise that modern High Heat Retention NSHs are much more attractive because they're much cheaper to control and run.  Simple NSHs were once cost effective to install and run, but times have changed.  If they've no knowledge or experience of HHR NSHs they may not be aware of the problem and may not have reduced the asking price accordingly.