Alternative to Ceiling Heating

[Speedy]

I currently have an electric ceiling heating system that was installed when my flat was built and wondered if anyone can offer suggestions on alternative heating systems.

I have a one bedroom flat in a block that was built in the mid 70s. The flat is joined onto the side of the first floor of the main block and has a driveway running underneath. Therefore three of the four sides of the flat are external walls, the floor is an external surface and there is a pitched roof housing a loft space. There is no gas supply installed in the block at all. The flat has double glazing (with air vents) and loft insulation.

The ceiling heating system is in my opinion utter rubbish. It is ridiculously expensive to run and is trying to defy the laws of physics. I know how the concept is *supposed* to work (the heat radiates down, heats up floor, walls and other objects which in turn reflect heat around the room) but unfortunately this is by no means an efficient way to heat a room. Bad points I have experienced are:

- Massive electric bills - sometimes =A3200 a month in winter.

- You end up feeling like you are under a sun bed when standing up, yet the lower half of the room is cold.

- The floors are concrete construction and are carpeted - they always feel cold.

- The ceiling plaster board expands and shrinks rapidly which causes cracks.

- Flat suffers from excess condensation probably made worse by the heating membrane in the ceiling forming a moisture barrier. Also because the fabric of the building never gets properly warmed.

- When the heating is switched off the heat in the room disappears almost instantly.

Don't think the current system can be improved so would like an alternative. The flat has Economy 7 but I am not interested in storage heaters due to their size and problems:

- Can't stop them producing heat when not required.

- Heat runs out by the evening and no more can be produced until the next day.

- Expensive to buy and install etc...

I was thinking of installing a couple of wall mounted convector heaters as I believe these will heat the air properly and produce a much better feeling of warmth that will also be retained better. As a positive side effect they might even dry the air more helping with the condensation problem.

Any thoughts or other suggestions bearing in mind I do not want to invest too much time and money in the property?

Advice much appreciated.

Speedy

[Dave Fawthrop]

|I currently have an electric ceiling heating system that was installed |when my flat was built and wondered if anyone can offer suggestions on |alternative heating systems.

I was on the fringes of developing a similar system commercially by Lucas. It failed miserably and eventually caused a fire, at which time it was IIRC abandoned.

[Roger Mills]

If you don't have access to gas, the only reasonable way to reduce fuel costs is to have a system which runs on off-peak electricity. You don't like storage heaters, for understandable reasons.

One option you *could* consider - but it wont be cheap - is a thermal store, plus radiators. The store is a large, very well insulated, tank of water which is heated over-night using off-peak electricity. The radiators are fed via a heat exchanger which draws heat from the thermal store. You'd have to do some detailed heat loss calculations to work out how much energy you'd need during the daytime, and thus to see whether it was feasible without having a thermal store wihich filled the whole flat.

[Owain]

If ceiling height permits, lay an inch or so of insulation below a floating wood floor, then carpet. Increase loft insulation. Look at wall insulation, whether internal or external.

True to some extent, but modern systems can be radiocontrolled by the electricity company to charge up what the elec. co. thinks will be an appropriate amount of heat considering the weather forecast.

This is partly a control issue; if you open the flap during the day you will lose all the heat by the evening.

Given you already have the metering and I presume an off-peak consumer unit in place one or two storage heaters would not be that expensive (and installation is DIYable). You are going to have to put in much the same wiring to individual radial circuits for space heaters regardless of whether they're storage or not.

Peak-rate electricity is very expensive, and the easiest way to cut that is usually to use off-peak electricity and store the heat. One or two storage heaters would provide a fairly steady background heat to the flat and should probably be considered for inclusion in the overall scheme.

Usually, a combination of storage heaters in the hall and living rooms, a radiant/convector combination heater in the lounge for cool evenings, and convector panel heaters in the bedrooms, provides a workable solution.

They can't "dry" the air, they warm the air which increases its moisture-retention capacity. When warm moist air meets cold wall you will still get condensation. If you do not have extractor fans in the kitchen and bathroom (preferably humidistat-controlled) then I would suggest you fit them to deal with the moisture at source.

A dehumidifier might also be worth considering.

Attend to ventilation generally.

If you don't like storage heaters it is possible to use a central heat store, heated by off-peak electricity, to act as an electric 'boiler' for a wet radiator system. However, the heat store can be bulky, and not a cheap system given you would need a new radiator installation.

Owain

[Phil Anthropist]

Have you thought of buying some oil filled radiators? These often have a built-in timer and thermostatic control, and could be connected to Economy

1. You could take them with you when you move or sell them on.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They were using their car electrics engineers? ;-)

[Roger Mills]

That's probably why they caught fire - 'cos they plugged 12v kit into the mains!

[Mary Fisher]

when my flat was built and wondered if anyone can offer suggestions on alternative heating systems.

flat is joined onto the side of the first floor of the main block and has a driveway running underneath. Therefore three of the four sides of the flat are external walls, the floor is an external surface and there is a pitched roof housing a loft space. There is no gas supply installed in the block at all. The flat has double glazing (with air vents) and loft insulation.

ridiculously expensive to run and is trying to defy the laws of physics. I know how the concept is *supposed* to work (the heat radiates down, heats up floor, walls and other objects which in turn reflect heat around the room) but unfortunately this is by no means an efficient way to heat a room. Bad points I have experienced are:

WHAT ???

the lower half of the room is cold.

That sounds like some heating systems in some shops! I walk out as soon as I feel it.

heating membrane in the ceiling forming a moisture barrier. Also because the fabric of the building never gets properly warmed.

Who designs these systems?

I've never heard of ceiling heating but underfloor heating is, I believe, the Work of the Devil. I understand that it's expensive to run (a son had it as the sole heating in his housing association flat and had to move to a council flat because of the expense) and I can't stand on a floor where there's underfloor heating. It 'draws' my feet and I'm exhausted inside half an hour. The Romans have a lot to answer for!

Don't the designers ever come off the drawing board to test their inventions?

I'm sorry, this isn't a sufficient - or any kind of - answer to your post but it gets it off my chest. Until next time something similar comes up.

Mary

[Derek Geldard]

Could well have been they had foreseen the end of their market as a supplier to the car manufacturers as an OEM.

*Thank God*

But *Too late*.

DG

[Ed Sirett]

My first home had the remains of this form of heating which is worst case in every aspect that you can imagine. It was some sort of modernist aberration in the 1970s.

There is no one answer to what heating is the best. It will of course depend on a large number of factors. Heat one area v. heat whole home. Capital cost v. running cost. v. Maintenance. Efficiency v. convenience v. practicality (Probably the cheapest method of keeping warm is not to get out of bed !).

I take issue about the under floor heating. If you are comparing electric underfloor heating v. gas central heating. You would probably be right - although a little less energy might be used on the electric heating - it will cost many times more overall than the gas heating.

The received wisdom for under floor heating is that it takes about 1/3 less energy input to achieve the same comfort level as a radiator system (whilst ceiling heating probably takes 3 times more!).

Probably the cheapest heating to run if you only want one room heated and have main gas available is an outset radiant gas fire.

Probably the cheapest (running) central heating is gas fired condensing boiler powered under floor heating system . Only practical for new build though.

[Pete C]

Hi,

You could look into an air source heat pump/air conditioner.

A couple of sites to look at:

The Hitachi ones on the latter site are supposed to be quite good.

cheers, Pete.

[Tim S]

Agreed - but my last flat had it too - built around '86.

Total crap system. Took 3-4 hours to do anything from cold, cost a fortune to run. The real horror of it all appeared when I had the ceiling in the kitchen down for repair - the "panels" were basically car-demister construction on plastc film which was nailed to the battens used to fix the PB to.

The connectors comprised a little plastic block with two "nails" that punched through the film and made contact (sort of) with the foil.

Needless to say, one of the panels had failed due to poor contact - looked like a fire waiting to happen - good job it was sandwiched between PB and glass wool - and they worry about Part P!

Cheers

Tim

[Mary Fisher]

No - but a log fire in the middle of the floor in every room in a modern house would be among the worst.

And the preference of those wanting to be warm. I get very tired when standing on a warm floor. Some are influenced by fashion :-(

That would keep down the food bills too.

Our son's flat's heating wasn't even controlled by him. Everyone in the block had the same heating - even when they were unoccupied.

That's how we work, we only heat the dining and sitting rooms when we're in them, there are no radiators in those rooms. What's the point in heating rooms you're not using? Yes ALL the rooms were heated in son's flat. We have central heating in the rest of the house, controlled by a thermostat and radiator valves, it's rarely on. It works for us but I admit that we have an unusual lifestyle. For a start we rarely sit down in the evening. We also wear warm clothes indoors when it's cold. Just like we did as children and coal was scarce.

Oh, for new build we'd consider something much more radical!

But to go back to the ceiling heating - I've just never heard of it in a domestic situation and would like to hear the experiences of those who have had it.

Mary

[Rod]

"Mary Fisher" wrote in news:4467504c$0$904$ [e-mail]:

And from further up your post, I quote:

"No - but a log fire in the middle of the floor in every room in a modern house would be among the worst."

But not as bad as ceiling heating!

Expensive to run. Slow to warm up the room. Fast cool down when switched off. Uncomfortable having a hot head and still freezing round the feet. Thermostatic control doesn't feel like it is keeping the temperature steady. Does little to keep the building dry (except the ceiling itself). Makes the room feel very dry. Makes the ceiling go creak-creak-creak as it heats up. And again as it cools down.

Honestly, it is hard to decide which I detest more - electric underfloor (on overnight only hence baking in morning and freezing thereafter) or electric ceiling. I suppose at least the underfloor can run on E7.

[Mary Fisher]

With buildings erected in the last two hundred years there might be enough lack of smoke outlets to be a problem ..

OK, ceiling heating wins hands down in the worst stakes!

Mary

[meow2222]

Insulate, insulate, insulate. On outside walls/roof/floor only.

Solar hot air:

mirrors: heat pump.

NT

[Chris Bacon]

Underfloor heating is vile even if it's on all the time. It was one of these "fabulous new ideas" in the 1960's and '70s.

[Tony Bryer]

1960's electric underfloor with heating cables, using the screed as a heat store, is a completely different animal to modern underfloor done properly.

[Speedy]

Thank you for all the very helpful comments. I'm also glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks ceiling heating is a bad idea!

I may actually get a quote for installing gas into the building as how ever much it costs I'm sure the money saved on bills and the value that will be added to the property are well worth it.

If that is not possible I will probably try convector heaters after improving the loft insulation.

[meow2222]

more comfortable but no cheaper

NT