electric boiler- central heating

[jay]

the flat i've bought has no gas but i want central heating- i hate storage heaters. I've read about electric boilers and i want to know how difficult or expensive it is to install in a small 2 bed flat. My boyfriend is an engineer but has never installed electric before- he's installed gch for a number of friends. We're on economy 7 but he's already installed an electric shower so we don't have to worry about hot water in the bath. I don't use a dishwasher and the washing machine

is plumbed to cold water- so the boiler is primarily for heating. I'm also thinking of scrapping the economy 7 heating because I don't think it's economical for us. Has anybody installed this heating system before?

[John Rumm]

If you have space you could install a massive heatbank that you heat from E7 and then use that to drive the CH on demand as reqired. If you must heat electric then heatpump aircon can work out quite cost effective.

[jay]

[Doctor Drivel]

Look at for info reasons:

Use ahead bank cylinder, It provides high pressure mains showers, so the tiddly electric can be thrown out and real showers put in. The heating is also taken off the cylinder to radiators. Immersions heat it. The bigger the better when using Economy 7, as it will store more cheap heat overnight, although run out at sometime during the day (depending on usage). As you are in a flat I doubt one large enough will be feasible to store all heat paid for by Economy 7. Also it can be heated by a boiler very easily if gas comes along.

[fred]

In article , jay writes

Watch out for future increases in the price of the of off-peak units. My dad installed under-floor electric heating in the concrete floors of his house many years ago and at the time the off-peak units on a 2 period off-peak tariff were about a third of the cost of peak. Thirty years later the peak rates were 5% more than regular 'standard' units and the off-peak were at a derisory 10-15% discount. That sort of thing has left me with a healthy cynicism for deals from electricity providers.

Be aware that you'll need an awfully big thermal store to smooth out those peak rate gaps in winter and presumably a big hot water store too (or is that incorporated). Oh, and take the brochures with a pinch of salt ;-).

Not too negative I hope?

[jay]

I'm considering the economy 10 option where you can get chep heat 3 times in a day. The flat is pretty well insulated and the rooms aren't too big so shouldn't take long to heat up at all. What about if i opted to heat water when i want it rather than storing it. If i have the heating on for one hour in mornings and 3 hours in the evening- would it make sense to have an immersion boiler where the water is stored?

[John Rumm]

The idea of some kind of heat bank or thermal store is really to smooth out delivery of the energy througout the day even if you can only add it (cheaply) at limited times. If you can store enough then you have a very flexible heating system that can be used to run conventional rads, and to provide mains pressure hot water on demand when you need it.

You can then opt for whichever is the most cost effective electric deal without having to worry too much about when you get the cheap periods.

Heat banks/thermal stores are also good places to aggregate heat from other sources if they are available (solar etc).