More flexible electric heaters

MalthouseMark

GDB2222 said:

I checked the E7 tariff that I pay:

It's 27.9p peak and 11.6p off-peak.

It might be worth doing your figures again using those rates, just for comparison purposes.

It just looks even worse! 

MalthouseMark

Alnat1 said:

Another suggestion to ponder, would you be happy to run your washer and dishwasher overnight on an E7 tariff? That could save some money but some are wary of doing this or it would be too noisy in their house.

Sadly... the kitchen is above our bedroom. It's noisy enough with the fridge and freezer going let alone a washing machine doing the spin cycle at midnight!

MalthouseMark

wrf12345 said:

There are all in one air to air heat-pumps that look like extra large radiators and go for £700-800 on eBay, they do need two large holes drilled in an external wall, not sure if your listed status would allow that. COP is around three and allied with half price electric on Octopus Cosy they would be cheap enough to run, and being air to air provide heat only when you want it (they have in-built timers).  They are internal, all that is seen from the outside is two six inch diameter grills.

Given what we've gone through with listed consent since we've been here I know that would be a "nope" from planning.

GDB2222

MalthouseMark said:

GDB2222 said:

I checked the E7 tariff that I pay:

It's 27.9p peak and 11.6p off-peak.

It might be worth doing your figures again using those rates, just for comparison purposes.

It just looks even worse! 

It looks worse because you have swapped the usage figures round!

” 9,167 kWh x 0.56 = 5176.228 kWh at 6.008p/kWh = £310.99 on heating per year
9,167 kWh x0.44 = 3,990.770 kWh at 34.875p/kWh = £1,391.78 for everything else”

Try again.

And your figures don’t show any saving from heating your hot water at off peak rates.

Also, it doesn’t look like the installation cost will be anything like £7k. It’s just the difference between replacing your existing heaters with night storage vs non-storage, which is at most a few hundred per heater. 

If the saving in energy cost  is £500 a year and the extra installation cost is £2000, then the pay back would be 4 years, which seems pretty reasonable to me. 

If you just don’t want storage heaters and the complications of e7 that’s your prerogative, of course,  and this thread has rather deviated away from your original question. 

RedFraggle

In case a visual helps.... We have Quantum 125sin the living area and use instant heat in the bedrooms (one panel in my home office run at 20 for 9 hours a day, oil filled rad in bedroom that runs 24/7) 
The Quantums don't always charge fully depending on what's been used. 
These are a couple of screenshots from the octopus app of use.
We are in a 25 year old purpose built flat but it will give you and idea of night usage Vs day on an E7 tariff. 

danrv

Scot_39 said:

Modern flats I have seen dont actually rely on split circuits - they rely on device timers - say on the immersion heater - and often only the immersion heater per se - to block peak hour use - and use normal daytime panels for heating - at peak rate. 

Yes. A property I rented for a while used exactly this system. 
It seemed to be a dwelling that was added as an extension to an existing building.  Fairly modern and for rental purposes so a dedicated circuit for storage heating not installed. 

Given the OP's listed building constraints, it looks as though HHR storage heating for main living areas would be best.
I considered fitting three Quantums and adding the WiFi hub to simplify control. They can work in bedrooms as they retain heat better than older ones.
As mentioned though, electric radiators are OK for low occupancy rooms. Turn them on or off as needed or put them on 24hr timer mode to suit. 

A good electrician can advise on suitability of existing wiring and meter arrangement for storage heaters. 
This doesn't necessarily cover the subject of outlay, payback duration/viability or property insulation but it appears to be the only option here.

EssexHebridean

Having lived with a Quantum, I have to say I would still advocate for them not being suitable in bedrooms unless you are comfortable sleeping in a fairly warm room. Although they do retain the heat well, there is still some heat leakage - indeed we used to work on the basis that the one in our hallway didn't need to be set to discharge any heat on all but the coldest of mornings, as the gentle background heat it emitted while charging was fine for less chilly conditions. 

danrv

EssexHebridean said:

Having lived with a Quantum, I have to say I would still advocate for them not being suitable in bedrooms unless you are comfortable sleeping in a fairly warm room. 

Yes.An example of unsuitability would be warm days and chilly evening/nights. Maybe, with the storage section turned off, the boost element could be used instead.

tamste

Not sure about some of the scenarios listed here, so will try and give you a brief synopsis of my storage heater system to see if it helps?

I live in a large (5 bed) 1980's bungalow with no gas, and most of my heating is via storage heaters with water  immersion heater. Use ~15000 kW per year, which at this time of year is around 110 kW per day, but this will reduce significantly once the heating goes off for the summer.

On E7 with 5x Elnur HHR's (living areas) 5x Elnur SSH's (bedrooms) and two bathrooms with panel heaters. My energy split Dec, Jan & Feb is ~80% on E7.

All the heaters are on their own supply to the fuse board, and I control the charging time using the heaters as I have them set up on a single 24hr supply, which switches to E7 overnight, then back again. The smart meter IHD lets me know when the E7 kicks in and I have programmed to that so that the heaters and water use the E7 rate. Confirmed E7 timings with my electricity supplier which agree with the IHD

Be careful if you have a 3-phase supply as if you are using the two inputs (E7 and 24hr) rather than a single 24hr supply, both connections need to be on the same phase. This is why when I changed the old storage heaters out recently, I went to 24hr supply on all as I would have needed significant rewiring to make the 24hr supply match the same supply phase as the E7.

MalthouseMark

GDB2222 said:
It looks worse because you have swapped the usage figures round!

” 9,167 kWh x 0.56 = 5176.228 kWh at 6.008p/kWh = £310.99 on heating per year
9,167 kWh x0.44 = 3,990.770 kWh at 34.875p/kWh = £1,391.78 for everything else”

Try again.

And your figures don’t show any saving from heating your hot water at off peak rates.

Also, it doesn’t look like the installation cost will be anything like £7k. It’s just the difference between replacing your existing heaters with night storage vs non-storage, which is at most a few hundred per heater. 

If the saving in energy cost  is £500 a year and the extra installation cost is £2000, then the pay back would be 4 years, which seems pretty reasonable to me. 

If you just don’t want storage heaters and the complications of e7 that’s your prerogative, of course,  and this thread has rather deviated away from your original question. 

You're right that my figures were probably confused - I have dyscalculia so my first set were done with a calculator probably whilst sitting in bed. I've saved the spreadsheet now and here's a re-work. Either way it's a long recoup period.

Yes the installation might not be £7k. I was going off the £1000 per room original statement for consistency. I'd disagree that it's a few hundred per heater though, having seen the prices online and compared them to what I've got.

"If you just don’t want storage heaters and the complications of e7 that’s your prerogative, of course,  and this thread has rather deviated away from your original question."

This thread deviated instantly from my original question which I tried to say wasn't about saving lots of money but was for comfort and convenience. I don't see the point of heating my lounge from 20:00-21:00 if I've gone to bed at 20:30 (which isn't early if you rise at 05:00). Similarly if want to go to bed at 20:30 then turning the heating on in there at 20:15 to take the chill off is not unreasonable. It's not a question of "saving" money as much as "wasting heating". It feels odd to go to bed with three heaters blasting out in the lounge and yet the bathroom towel rail is cold when you're getting ready for bed.

I often feel like the heaters are on in the wrong part of the house and it is frustrating. That's not saving money as much as wanting to not completely waste it heating the wrong part of the house because of hour-long blocks on the timer.

Similarly if I want 19C one day but another day it is pretty chilly and I want to bump it up to 21C that's hard on my existing system with its "ECO" and "Comfort" zones which are pretty fixed.

When we had a house with a boiler and radiators I'd have just tweaked up the thermostat for the day and instantly made the house warmer - or tweaked the thermostat on an individual radiator if I wanted warmth, say, in my office.

Our existing heating (the Rointe) allows hour blocks. That seems insane to me. It's also a pain to adjust simply short of bunging it on manual and remembering to put it back on auto later.

I came on here looking for more flexible options and everyone piled on telling me Dimplex Quantums and E7 will save me money.

I did try to reply that this wasn't about saving as much as comfort.

The original comment was £1000 per room, hence the £7k assumed cost.

That's a huge expense. It's not like it's the only thing I've got to pay for in this life so it has to be balanced against other outlays. I'd love to have solar panels too but that's not happening either. I don't have that sort of money.

I don't mind a small expense of upgrading a radiator or two in key rooms. That's what I came on to ask about. The answer has effectively been "you need to upgrade everything and swap to E7 to save money" and I've simply been pointing out that that is quite an expensive option and would take years to recover from.

I'm not against Dimplex Quantum - far from it. One of my neighbours has told me that this is what they have and they are very happy with them. I can go and look at them properly, in the flesh, to see how flexible they are. As it happens I've got an electrician coming in tomorrow to fix something so will ask about E7 in the building and what can/can't be done for our building. It might allow us to switch some rather than all and recoup some of the expense.

Each time I've come back with a reply it's more of an observation that they may appear to save money but the cost of installation alone is huge and so the saving isn't the b-all and end-all of it.

I'm interested in Quantums and E7. I'll be looking to see if my particular home with its particular wiring might allow certain devices to be swapped. But I'll be thinking very carefully about how much it costs up front.