Purchasing a new home with electric heaters

mmmmikey

lohr500 said:

mmmmikey said:

I think this post has got a bit lost here. Before doing anything with the heating, I'd suggest you see how you get on with the log burner first. If you use the log burner you may find you only need a minimal amount of heat from the Fischer heaters to keep the house warm and it's not enough to justify the cost of replacement.  Or you may find there's really only one or two spots in the house that get cold and you can choose replacement electric heaters (probably HHR storage heaters or air-to-air heat pumps). That's one of the advantages of electric heating - it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Also, if you have a smart meter and choose an appropriate tariff, you can set the heaters accordingly which is a good way of reducing the cost. A strategy of getting most of your heat from the logburner, switching to Octopus Agile and just using the Fischer heaters to stop the temperature falling too low overnight might work perfectly well for you. A lot depends on your lifestyle, how many people live with you, how much you are home, etc.

There's no doubt about it, if you use the Fischer heaters to replicate what you'd do with central heating your costs are likely to be eye-wateringly expensive. So I wouldn't disagree with the general comments about direct electric heating here.

But neither would I rush to replacing them. If you've never had a log burner before, you're in for a pleasant and welcoming surprise. There's nothing like coming inside on a cold day and sitting in front of a real fire with a steaming hot cup of tea ( if you want the complete experience, you'll need a whistling kettle too )

Personally, I think it is important the OP needs to do as much as possible to establish the likely running costs of the existing heaters and the cost to replace with some other form of heating BEFORE buying the house.

It's too late to discover after purchase that it is prohibitively expensive to keep it warm.  

It would be helpful to get some idea of the size of the property, number of rooms/ lifestyle etc, but it is still a guessing game based on estimates. Keeping a single small room comfortably warm in the depths of winter using a single direct electric heater or the log burner, is one thing. Keeping an old multi roomed high ceiling property warm throughout is a completely different challenge and expense.

Buying blind and then applying trial and error to find a cost effective heating solution wouldn't be a gamble that I would be prepared to take.

 

I agree with all of that, I'd certainly do the research before buying the house so I knew what options were available to me and approximate costs if I found that I needed to upgrade/improve the heating arrangements. My point is just that it isn't a given that this will be needed (but I'd still budget for it just in case). I just wouldn't actually spend the money until I'd lived in the house for a bit.