Oil filled rad or convection heater

lb00

Hi, hope you don’t mind me jumping in! I just bought a new flat, which is a two-bedroom, with a lounge/kitchen, two bathrooms, and a hallway. There is an air con system which has a single indoor unit and is ducted in the ceiling, with vents in the two main bedrooms and the lounge.

I plan to rely on the air con for heating most of the time, but I’m a bit concerned it might be noisy at night. I’m wondering what the best option would be to keep the flat warm during the night.

At the moment, I have some plug-in De’Longhi oil-filled radiators—would those be sufficient? Or, since I’m currently renovating, would it make sense to install convection heaters in the bedrooms and lounge specifically for nighttime use?
Thank you!

Stubod

lb00 said:

Hi, hope you don’t mind me jumping in! I just bought a new flat, which is a two-bedroom, with a lounge/kitchen, two bathrooms, and a hallway. There is an air con system which has a single indoor unit and is ducted in the ceiling, with vents in the two main bedrooms and the lounge.

I plan to rely on the air con for heating most of the time, but I’m a bit concerned it might be noisy at night. I’m wondering what the best option would be to keep the flat warm during the night.

At the moment, I have some plug-in De’Longhi oil-filled radiators—would those be sufficient? Or, since I’m currently renovating, would it make sense to install convection heaters in the bedrooms and lounge specifically for nighttime use?
Thank you!

Direct electric heating is going to be expensive, if you don't have access to oil/gas you may be better of getting some modern night storage heaters and going onto economy 7, at least for your main "living rooms"??

lb00

Stubod said:

lb00 said:

Hi, hope you don’t mind me jumping in! I just bought a new flat, which is a two-bedroom, with a lounge/kitchen, two bathrooms, and a hallway. There is an air con system which has a single indoor unit and is ducted in the ceiling, with vents in the two main bedrooms and the lounge.

I plan to rely on the air con for heating most of the time, but I’m a bit concerned it might be noisy at night. I’m wondering what the best option would be to keep the flat warm during the night.

At the moment, I have some plug-in De’Longhi oil-filled radiators—would those be sufficient? Or, since I’m currently renovating, would it make sense to install convection heaters in the bedrooms and lounge specifically for nighttime use?
Thank you!

Direct electric heating is going to be expensive, if you don't have access to oil/gas you may be better of getting some modern night storage heaters and going onto economy 7, at least for your main "living rooms"??

I had considered this option, but I tested the A/C system and found it works quite well. From what I understand, it’s significantly more efficient than storage heaters, right? Also, I expect high energy consumption during the day, so I’m thinking Economy 7 might not be the best fit for my situation.

What I’m really looking for is the most effective heating option to keep the rooms warm overnight. My plan is to use the A/C until I go to bed, then set it to come back on with a timer in the morning. Any suggestions on what would work best for this setup?

Thanks!

matelodave

Have you got full control of your system or is it linked into a more centralised network within the building. In the end its like everything else, you have to try out different scenarios for yourself a lot will depend on how its configured, how its controlled and who runs it.

do you need heating overnight, if so at what temperature, can you control it on a room by room basis. What controls have you already got, has it got timers and thermostats.

Do you pay the electricity bill for the heating or do you pay the landlord for the heat that comes out of it, if so how is it measured and how much does it cost per kwh.

If you do leave it running all night, does it really make enough noise to disturb you a gentle continuous hum is far less obtrusive than something that gets switched on and off with a thermostat . TBH if you are cold in bed then an electric blanket is by far the cheapest way to keep warm rather than heating the whole room or even the whole flat. A fan heater for ten minutes will keep you warm whilst you get dressed

As has been said a thousand times, heating with leccy unless you use storage heaters or a heatpump is horrendously expensive although you may need to compare the cost of how much a centralised system is compared to running a normal heater.

bob2302

streppetto said:

Check out the Dimplex range in Argos. They’re currently selling the 

Dimplex 2.0kW Rapid Eco Oil Free Radiator

922/4698 at an amazing offer price of £66.66p.
Brilliant heater, quiet and unobtrusive. I use 80% of the time on the
minimum 600w setting.

The claim that they use 10% less electricity is deeply dubious. They probably used some bogus very short test that depended on it's low thermal mass.

Scot_39

streppetto said:

Check out the Dimplex range in Argos. They’re currently selling the 

Dimplex 2.0kW Rapid Eco Oil Free Radiator

922/4698 at an amazing offer price of £66.66p.
Brilliant heater, quiet and unobtrusive. I use 80% of the time on the
minimum 600w setting.

Interesting - my old Delonghi - oil filled you can defintely hear the elements and I guess even the fins - expanding / contracting - that kind of snap / ping noise - certainly maybe enough to avoid use in a bedroom for a light sleeper.

Did you have an old type - and find the new ones notably quieter ?

Because even GCH pipes at 60-70 expand contract and make noise as they do so in my past experiences.

And the fins on the eco model are supposed to get hotter even faster than the oil filled.

Scot_39

bob2302 said:

streppetto said:

Check out the Dimplex range in Argos. They’re currently selling the 

Dimplex 2.0kW Rapid Eco Oil Free Radiator

922/4698 at an amazing offer price of £66.66p.
Brilliant heater, quiet and unobtrusive. I use 80% of the time on the
minimum 600w setting.

The claim that they use 10% less electricity is deeply dubious. They probably used some bogus very short test that depended on it's low thermal mass.

https://www.dimplex.co.uk/en-gb/ecr-oil-free-column-radiator#400000305

9% claimed (*)

* Based on a 2kW ECR heating a room from 10oC to 22oC, maintaining 22oC for 5 hours and then switched off versus 2kW Oil-filled column radiator

Scant on details - but it does say 5 hrs.  So maybe a typical out all day person - for an evening's heat.

matelodave

If a room needs a certain amount of heat to either get up to a temperature or to maintain it then it really doesn't matter how clever, magic or otherwordly fillings they claim it has, it will still only push out 1kwh for 1 kwh in.

A clever temperature control using PID algorithms might reduce overshoot and control the temp to the set point better than the crude on/off switching of a basic bi-metal device but its hard to see how that would equate to a saving of 9%

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

Plug-in electric room heating is a bad idea except for a few specific instances.

I agree with Gerry1

I've just bought (it arrived today) an oil-filled heater for my youngest's bedroom. They spend pretty much all their time in there when working on school assignments and, thanks to some cheap ZigBee temperature sensors I purchased from AliExpress, I can see that their room is usually a degree or two cooler than the rest of the house. I suspect the radiator is a little undersized.

An oil-filled rad is a quick and easy fix for the winter months. Not necessarily the cheapest, but affordable for me.

Stubod said:

lb00 said:

Hi, hope you don’t mind me jumping in! I just bought a new flat, which is a two-bedroom, with a lounge/kitchen, two bathrooms, and a hallway. There is an air con system which has a single indoor unit and is ducted in the ceiling, with vents in the two main bedrooms and the lounge.

Direct electric heating is going to be expensive

But it isn't direct electric heating, it's an air conditioning unit - an air-to-air heat pump.
It's potentially the most cost-effective form of electric heating, and (at current prices) could be even cheaper to operate than mains gas.

lb00

@matelodave @QrizB

Thanks for your replies. The air con is independent, I have my own external unit on the balcony. I can not control the temperature in every room but just one temperature for the whole house. I think I'll keep it on most of the day, just at night my mum might be sleeping in the living room when she visits so she could be hearing the noise of the outdoor unit right outside on the balcony, hence the need for an alternative form of heating for the night.

I think what I'll do is ask the electrician to leave some socket in the wall ready to fit something like a convection heater, so that if I feel the air con is too noisy during the night I can still install it easily. What do you think?