New storage heaters vs Sunflow

Ectophile

06Russ said:

It’s an old converted school with extremely large oddly shaped windows so the cost is not doable anytime in the near future unfortunately. Some windows are also listed so cannot be changed to double glazing.

Maybe a bit of creative DIY is needed.

When I lived in a cold draughty flat, I bought a load of semi-rigid plastic sheet, and rolls of self-adhesive magnetic strips.  The plastic was thin enough to cut with a large pair of scissors, and I used the magnetic strip to stick it to the window frames.

The magnetic strips allowed me to peel the secondary glazing off, to take it down for the summer.

06Russ

Yes I may need to look at it a bit more, the nature of the windows just make them incredibly difficult to work with. I may upgrade to the dimplex quantum storage heaters. A bigger outlay but will hopefully see returns over time. It’s one of those things where it’s hard to tell if I will without real world testing in actual conditions here.

EssexHebridean

The problem is, that at the moment whatever you use for heating will be both expensive and ineffective as so much of the heat will just be leaving the building. I work in a building that used to be a bank, and that too has large, high, and non-square windows that are single glazed. We find that as soon as the heating is turned off, the temperature drops very rapidly - particularly once the temperature drops to "proper" winter levels. I really do agree that you need to try to do whatever you can to tackle the insulation as a priority - otherwise you're probably going to find that even HHR heaters struggle. 

wittynamegoeshere

06Russ said:

It’s an old converted school with extremely large oddly shaped windows so the cost is not doable anytime in the near future unfortunately. Some windows are also listed so cannot be changed to double glazing.

You should look at talking to the council about the options.  The answer may be more complicated and constructive than just "no you can't".  You may be assuming that things are worse than they actually are.  You definitely can't get the average double glazing company to stick a white plastic rectangle in with a blanked off surround, but this doesn't mean that there are no options.

We were looking at buying a church once, which had a two storey height coloured/stained glass window.  We were looking at getting the whole thing taken out and built into the inside of a sealed double glazed unit (so triple glazed), removing some of the repeating edge panels to make space for the frame that it didn't originally have.  We went to the window specialist's workshop, they regularly deal with listed buildings and were actually making one for a nationally known cathedral while we were there.  The one we were looking at was a gothic arch shape, i.e. a curve with a pointed top.  If they can do this sort of thing in a cathedral then I'd hope you can get a sensible compromise for an old school.  We didn't buy the place in the end so never tested the theory, but it appeared that there was hope of being able to make an old building fit for modern standards of living if done sensitively.

Listed building people can be obstructive sometimes (often), but the council also have building control people who specify minimum insulation standards.  See if you can play them off against each other, in effect lock them both in a room until they come up with a compromise.

It may be that the best route is to apply for planning permission, building control or listed building consent, this pretty much forces them into coming up with a way forward, it will get a much more constructive response than just phoning them up or even just assuming that the answer will be no without ever asking.  It also means that you can appeal if the answer is no.

BUFF

May I suggest that you look at https://www.omegabuild.com/shop/shop.php?category=secondary-glazing ? They offer several DIY options (I used SmartFrame https://www.omegabuild.com/shop/shop.php?category=secondary-glazing-fittings-smartframe-upvc-secondary-glazing-strip) &  made to measure https://www.omegabuild.com/shop/shop.php?category=made-to-measure-secondary-glazing incl. bespoke

wittynamegoeshere

It appears my previous post offended someone for some reason so was removed in its entirety.  So I'll repost, hopefully without the bits that caused upset...

I agree, storage heaters are going to be pretty useless with single glazing. Stop throwing all the heat into the sky, then think about the best heating options. The difference in running cost between storage vs instant heating is probably much less than the difference in heating cost between single and double glazing.

I don't know why anyone would conclude I must be loaded, that's an unjustifiable thing to state.  £10 a day for a house's entire power needs is almost nothing these days, while the outside temperature is currently in single digits. The average spend is £2500 a year, which is £6.85 per day, but this is averaged through the year. We can spend about £3 a day in the summer, so £10 a day is probably lower than average.

That 28 units mentioned above would cost pretty much exactly £10 a day at full rate, so your spending would not be off the scale if you used this amount of energy during the day instead of at night. Of course you'll be paying a lot less than this at present, but if you're getting little heat when you actually want it then it's a false economy.

There's no sense in using half price electricity if you're losing more than half of it, if so it's costing more than full price. It's difficult to judge, and there are a multitude of factors involved in how much heat gets stored and how much leaks, in reality it's probably going to involve guesswork and judgement. You could definitely get the same level of heat you're currently enduring for fewer units of power if you used instant rather than storage heaters. The choice is whether you want more units for less each, but wasting some using storage heaters, or fewer units for more each and not wasting any using instant heaters. This is difficult to judge, but definitely don't assume that storage heaters will cost less. They're also less flexible and you'll pay more for all other daytime use of anything that uses electricity.

In contrast to the allegation above, I'm actually suggesting paying less for heating equipment, while one other poster is telling anyone who mentions them to spend £100s or £1000s on what's essentially a designer branded box of bricks. Storage heaters can be good for some - especially if well insulated, retired, working from home or just not working at all, but they definitely don't suit everyone. The key is the time delay between when you store the heat and want to use it. You're losing that heat for no benefit if it's leaking out while you're at work all day.

Disagreement is not offensive, discussion often involves differing points of view and the whole point of discussion is to compare and contrast opinions.  Apologies to the original poster that your thread has gone off on a bit of a bickering side-track, but this is all very relevant to the subject.  Some get needlessly passionate about their opinions.

Storage heaters are rarely fitted these days, and are almost non-existent in newbuilds, most people don't want them for whatever reason.  Some find them useful, but this doesn't mean that they're a good solution for everyone or that everyone else is wrong about them.