Electric storage heaters - how good are they nowadays?

[tinnews]

We live out in the sticks and our central heating (which we rarely turn on nowadays) runs on locally stored gas which is becoming steadily more expensive.

We have a large multi-fuel stove which we keep alight through the coldest weather and we have a good supply of wood for that.

We *were* thinking of adding a small solid fuel stove at the other end of the house in the breakfast room where we do spend quite a lot of our time but the costs are just silly - like £6000 for a fairly small installation (it does include some hot water with the space heating, but that's all).

So we are looking at alternatives, we are already on an Economy 7 tariff for electricity, thus storage heaters would seem to be something to explore. How good are they nowadays? I.e. are they really able to not output much heat unless the fan runs? What other pros and cons do they have? They're not particularly cheap (start at around £450 as far as I can see) so one wants to be sure they really do the job reasonably well. Also are there any particularly to be recommended (or the opposite) and is there anywhere I can get some sort of independent review and comparison?

[David WE Roberts]

I don't think you are comparing like for like. I would be interested to know where the £6,000 goes. You should be able to get a small (4-5Kw) multi fuel stove for under £500. Assuming you have a chimney then a liner should not cost more than £1,000. If so, the whole shooting match including refurbishing a hearth should come in around £2,000 - possibly less if you are lucky.

This would then be directly comparable with a storage heater or two.

You don't get the hot water side with a storage heater, obviously, so presumably you might be thinking of an overnight immersion heater to go with the storage heater(s)? If so, you can still do this with the multi-fuel stove.

The main issue will be the running costs, coupled with flexibility. If you have a reasonable budget supply of solid fuel then this could cost in against the electrcity over the years. However the low up front installation cost for the storage heater must be tempting.

Cheers

Dave R

[The Natural Philosopher]

should not be more than 3000 at te very worst.

they are as crap as they always were AFAIK.

[John Rumm]

Unless you are talking about the huge ducted fan assisted beasts that run off 3 phase, then as crap as ever IME.

Would a heat bank be a better "storage heater" for your application? Charge on E7 electric, but then use the heat when you want via the existing wet CH system?

(to improve further, perhaps the heating could be done via heatpump rather than directly from the E7)

[Dave Liquorice]

So quite a bit of building work of one form or another. =A36k is looking far more reasonable...

Stovax?

I hope you have a *big* room with as near as damn it 5kW of heat being thumped into it...

You might be better off looking at the Stockton 8 with a clip in boiler. 3.6 to the room but only 4.4 to water.

Our Stockton 11, with clip in boiler, is supposed to be 3kW to room and

7 to water. 3kW could well be too much for the 3.2 x 4.4 x 2.4m (33.75cu m) room it is in. Got to admit to not being convinced by these figures how come the 8HB has a total heat output of 13kW but the 8 only 8kW total? I guess the 8HB has a complete "wrap aound" boiler which can make fireing it tricker.

Remember if an integral boiler fails it's new stove time if a clip in fails it's "just" a new boiler or you can take it out, refit the baffles that you take out to fit the boiler, block the pipe holes and still use it as a stove.

Are you on a water meter?

[Andy Wade]

There are some better-insulated domestic storage heaters around now, allowing improved control of core heat release under time switch and thermostat control.

For example:

the end though, storage heaters are well-suited to well-insulated high thermal mass buildings, since these have a long thermal time constant. They are a poor match when the building has a short thermal time constant (poor insulation, lightweight construction).

[js.b1]

Ouch, surprising how much a bit bigger steel & silica costs :-)

Dimplex VFM24i (3.4kWhr) are =A3741 inc VAT at discountelectrical. Can have a remote timer or thermostat & have peak-rate boost element.

Elnur 2kW are =A3477 inc VAT on Ebay, Online elsewhere. Require a remote timer or thermostat, do not have peak-rate boost element. The Elnur usually have free delivery, so can avoid a =A330-40 pallet cost.

The latter are a good price point, although 2kW is not very big at all. With the "no cook overnight" you can risk oversizing, it just gives more of a reserve for a 2010-Dec. Physically they are 24cm deep, not small things.