How safe are oil filled radiators when left in an unoccupied house?

[Rob Horton]

I have a house that is unoccupied. The existing heating is an oil burning fire in the lounge with a big plastic oil tank in the garden. This has been turned off for about 6 months. I now think that I should have a little bit of heating in the the house to prevent frost/ice damage of the pipes. It's an insurance requirement.

Don't like the idea of lighting the the oil burner (very old probably installed in the early 70's) since I only visit the house once a week.

Have been considering using a number of oil filled radiators on a timer to provide a bit of background heat. Hopefully stop the internal temperature from dropping below 10 Deg C.

Should I feel confident about leaving them unattended for a week?

[Tim W]

Rob Horton wibbled on Wednesday 16 December 2009 16:15

Yes. We used these at the last place I worked. Quite safe, providing the heater is in good shape (ie you didn't find it on a skip and haven't checked it).

[dom]

If you're confident of the household wiring, then there shouldn't be any issues (apart from your electricity bill).

Remember though, heating is a heavy electrical load (particularly multiple electric rads!). If the wiring is questionable, I might be concerned.

If possible, spread them over the different circuits for the sockets. Or possibly spread the load further with timers to avoid them all drawing a heavy current at the same time.

On a good installation in good condition that is unnecessary and overcautious of course, but if the house has a 1970's oil stove - the wiring may be a lot older.

[NT]

yes, very. Nothing on them gets hot enough to burn anything.

NT

[Onetap]

Turn off the mains water supply, drain the pipes; job jobbed. Also better when the pikies break in and steal the pipes.

[Onetap]

PS That assumes the main stop c*ck works. It probably doesn't.

It will probably start to leak after you use it. There might be a shiney new one on the water meter the water suppliers have been installing.

[Roger Mills]

There's nothing intrinsically unsafe about this type of heater, so they should be ok.

However, any form of heating which uses on-peak electricity is going to be expensive to run. If this is a long term requirement, you might be better off getting an off-peak supply put in, and then installing some storage heaters[1].

[1] Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't give storage heaters house-room, but they might just fit the bill in this particular case.

[Dave Osborne]

You might want to consider using tubular heaters for frost protection.

e.g.

that they are comparatively cheap to buy and low power to operate.

Put them on a frost stat, e.g.

that the setting is fixed at 4 deg C. The purpose here is only to provide the minimal amount of heat required to stop the pipes freezing, not in any way to bring the room up to habitable temperature.

[Phil L]

I'd follow 'onetap's recomendation to drain the system, it would take ten minutes and empty pipes don't burst.

Also, why only a week? - surely they are going to be on for the remainder of the winter? - this is going to cost a fortune in leccy bills!

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes, of all the electric heaters they are probably the safest. Do the obvious things like standing them away from furniture/curtains etc and get ones with a thermostat that will go down to at least 10C preferably lower. You can also get ones with time switches built in if the fixed wiring/load is a problem.

Not sure tubular heaters would be up to keeping a house above freezeing in a prolonged hard freeze, at least with an electric oil filled radiator you have a up to 3kW of input available.

Have one with a thermostat and it's only going to use the energy it needs to to maintain the set temp, it's not going to be gobbling 3kW

24/7...

[dennis]

They cost exactly the same to operate as any other electric heater. They are all 100% efficient. You just need more of them to provide the same output as a 1kW heater.

[ransley]

Im in the US, here you winterize a vacant house where it gets cold. You drain everything and add antifreeze to traps. Pipes are usualy run near or at exterior walls, there is no way where I am I could protect what is near an exterior wall which will be the coldest part of the house. Insurance? here an unheated vacant house can be denied claim, break a few radiators, pipes, the boiler and forget about that new car you saved for. Draining a house and winterizing isnt hard, but here I can go to -20f, i dont know what your lows are. I say heat it only when you live there you are making a high risk sisuation heating with electric, especialy on old wiring

[Martin Bonner]

We're having a reallly cold snap right now. CNN think it will get down as low as +20F tomorrow night here in Cambridge.

[Appin]

The message from Rob Horton contains these words:

We face this problem with a caravan site toilet block with vulnerable taps and various other things which make it exceedingly difficult to do anything but keep the temperature above freezing.

Tried all sorts of things, but the answer has proved to be

things are simple, reliable and last for years and years. And they ensure that the warm air is well circulated through the space in question.

[Owain]

Circulating warm air would be beneficial but I wouldn't recommend a domestic fan heater for continuous use - that look more suitable

Owain

[ARWadsworth]

Is there any water in the loft space?

A couple of electric heaters in the house may save any water freezing in the house but will not save pipes from freezing in a loft.

Adam

[geoff]

Really cold ?

REALLY COLD ?

ffs

and ...

We haven't had heating at work for two days

we're 'ard, we are

[geoff]

In message , geoff writes

Hey, just looked outside 10cm snow, and it's settling

Woopie

[Tim W]

geoff wibbled on Thursday 17 December 2009 22:46

Send some down here - we've 1/2 inch!

[geoff]

In message , Tim W writes

I'll email you some tomorrow