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Hey,
Does anyone use electric radiators or storage heaters?
We've only ever used the old storage heaters, and we're moving into a house with an external studio that had no heating, so we need to pop in some electric heaters.
It's very well insulated, and has power just no gas or oil.
Two double rooms that need heating.
What does everyone use?
Cheers!
Ricks
No, but I install them.
They are expensive now - £600+, they need both an off-peak feed, for the cheap electric overnight, and a normal supply, to power the timer and fans. So add in 2 (or more?) new cables from your consumer unit.
You'll definitely need to be on a cheap overnight tariff, so it may need a meter change (free usually) if you havent already got 'economy 7' or similar.
For 2 heaters, thats getting up to £1500 fitted.
If you plan to stay there for a long time, an Air Source Heat Pump may be more economical, and I believe there are some Government grants available to subsidise their fitment.
Ground source heat pumps are far better, but more expensive. Gone are the days of digging gardens up to lay 100's of metres of pipes, they bore down now, so disruption in the garden is minimal. They are more expensive to install over air source, but running costs are a lot lower.
Air Source is good, but it isnt as cheap as gas central heating. Ground source is getting as good as gas.
I'll bow to Alans knowledge and experience but I heat a 4 bed holiday house with electric (no gas in the village).
We just have a number of electric rads that I control with wireless sockets and a raspberry pi that reads a number of heat sensors around the house.
Works pretty well - I'd def wouldn't be fitting night storage heaters.
ASHP has crossed my mind but probs not worth it for our use.
We have PV which supplies 90% of the hot water and spare generation goes into a dedicated heater that helps the house stay damp free even when we're not there for a couple of months.
If it's just the external studio to heat (I'm assuming small, one room size), ground or air source is overkill.
Work on air tightness first. Draughts influence comfort temperature more than anything else.
Depending on the room size and furniture you probably want to look at either oil filled radiators or infrared panels.
If it’s just the external studio to heat (I’m assuming small, one room size),
Well, it's a double-garage downstairs, a bathroom/shower/toilet and two double bed-rooms upstairs that we're using as a studio space.
ASHP or GSHP sounds like a brilliant idea.
We'll be going with Octopus, so it'll be Economy 7 for sure.
Domestic RHI grant is not being renewed past April 2021 so if you'll need to be quick if you want air source or ground source or there will be no free money
If you go for either you'll probably want triple glazing and external/internal cladding. Draughty properties aren't as efficient and the capacity isn't there to turn up the thermostat. I'm not convinced with air source in the UK climate anyway. Most efficient would probably be solar thermal panels feeding into a cylinder with an electric boiler as backup/top-up and a stand alone electric shower.
Depends how often the rooms and shower will be used. If sporadically, I'd suggest electric shower and oil filled radiators.
The rooms are gonna be used pretty much 9-5 every day. So needs to be an option that'll work during the day.
Get the gas line extended then and put in a boiler and conventional wet system unless you want to do the insulation and glazing and have capital to move quickly. RHI repays over 20 years.
If you get lots of sunlight I would just put panel heaters in, I got the screwfix 1kw ones, c 100 quid each. I put them in 2 flats that have no gas, but are both south facing and mid block so have warmth coming from all sides.
Tenants seem happy and flats don't smell of damp. Just 1 small panel heater in each room, lounge has the bigger 1.5kw in.
I was sceptical at first as they are cheap, but they 've lasted years now.
Heat pumps don't want a Economy 7 tariff.
You want proper advice if you are thinking of investing like this, this isn't the place.
I guess you're not in Scotland, Home Energy Scotland would be a good place to start of you were. I don't know if there is an English/Welsh equivalent.
Don’t get old fashioned storage heaters as they leak heat too easily when you don’t want it and then don’t have enough stored for when you do. The modern quantum ones from dimplex are better sealed and let the heat out via a fan controlled by a computer which senses how much to charge up overnight, they are programmable and can run off an app. I saved about 20% on my bills and had heat when I wanted after fitting them.
Domestic RHI grant is not being renewed past April 2021
It's 2022.
RHI repays over 20 years.
... and 7 years.
We’ll be going with Octopus, so it’ll be Economy 7 for sure.
If you go down some sort of time of day tariff, then also look into Octopus Agile. I'm fairly certain there'll be some sort of add-on tool for heaters to track and use the cheapest half hour slots. ie using a timer that can be controlled by IFTTT app (IFTTT can be linked to Agile tariff) or there may well be a manufacturer who has specifically designed their heaters to work with Octopus Agile. There are certainly plugs, adapter and plug sockets that have been designed around Agile.
Like this https://octopus.energy/blog/tepeo/ or there may be others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9J_O3CQ0Go&t=2s