ecomonical heaters

[zed]

Hi,

I dont have (and can't afford) central heating, i have electric heaters but my bills are astromonical, can anyone advise the most ecomonical plug in heaters or give me a clue what to look for?

[Grunff]

All electric heaters are 100% efficient - they have no choice in the matter, it's simple physics that dictates it.

A fan heater will heat up the air more quickly than a convection heater, so the room will /feel/ warmer more quickly, but unless you leave it on for the same amount of time as a convection heater the room will cool down quickly too.

Electric heating is horribly expensive - you really, *really* can't afford central heating? Do you own the place?

[Ian Stirling]

If there is no other option but to use plug-in heaters, might a two-part air conditioner be an option?

THE FIGURES ON THE AUCTION ARE CORRECT!

In order to break even from the 220 quid paid for the unit, assuming electricity is 10p/Kwh, then you need to save 2200Kwh or so. At maximum output it saves about 2.3Kw, or in other words, running 8 hours a day, 3 months.

This assumes that at the moment you use 3Kw of electrical heat.

If you can get on economy 7, or some similar scheme, then heating during those periods can actually be competitive with gas.

[dennis]

You want a heat pump.. Air conditioning in reverse. You get more heat out than electricity put in. They aren't cheap.

[Owain]

They all cost the same to run.

Your choices are basically:

1. Wear more clothes.
2. Insulate the place.
3. Use Economy 7 tariff and night storage heaters.

If you own the property and have gas, putting in central heating is almost certain to more than pay for itself in terms of added value to the property. Even if you need to pay to have gas installed from the street, it is likely to be worth doing.

If you have no fixed central heating system you might be able to get a grant from somewhere to help with the cost of installation (also insulation).

Owain

[Andrew Gabriel]

Well, the electricity as it arrived at your house was already less than 40% efficient. Electric heaters aren't normally going to significantly reduce this, but neither are they going to get it back up to 100% -- 60% was already lost up the power station chimneys, cooling towers, and in the transmission equipment.

[Ian Stirling]

Which is pretty irrelevant. In nearly all cases, you can't connect to the cooling towers, and get that heat back.

[Grunff]

C'mon, you know exactly what I meant. The OP was asking about efficiency from a "how much I spend" point of view. My reply addressed that.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

None of that makes a scrap of difference to the efficiency of the heater itself.

[meow2222]

no surprise there

forget plug in heaters, theres no such thing as an economical one.

- insulation insulation insulation. cavity walls and loft are cheap to do, solid walls cost more. Grants are available for the first 2.

- gas and oil cost much less than electric to run, but whether theyre an option for you I dont know.

- some types of solar space heating have >50% per annum payback, and would thus be excellent projects if you're statying put for 2 years or more:

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 08 May 2006 20:16:03 +0100 someone who may be Owain wrote this:-

Or all three, in that order.

Subsidised insulation is available to everyone, with subsidies up to

100% for those who are not well off. There are also grants for installing central heating for those who are not well off.

[Guy King]

The message from David Hansen contains these words:

And using the website to ask them to come and do a quote is a complete waste of time. Nothing ever happens.

[David Hansen]

On 08 May 2006 19:31:03 GMT someone who may be Ian Stirling wrote this:-

However, hot water from power stations can be pumped a considerable distance from power stations to provide heating. Stupidly those involved usually failed to do so in the 1960s and 70s when building power stations.

[Ian Stirling]

One of the few cases where communism - or some system with strong central planning can have big benefits.

But, to be fair in the 1960/70s - what could the electriciy board have done? Their remit stops at the plant gates. And installation of a district heating system is a horribly large job - who's gonna pay for it?

[<me9]

You don't necessarily /get/ hot water from a power station. The lower the waste heat temperature the more efficient the power station is. Stations strive to get this temperature down, to reduce costs.

Because the remit of the CEGB was to generate /electricity/ at minimum cost, not utilise fuel as efficiently as possible. By raising the temperature of the waste heat a few degrees, enough to make it a usalable product, the electricity production would be less efficient, although it may increase overall efficiency of fuel use. Politically at the time it was the way to go, economies of scale were paramount. CHP projects need to be smaller to enable efficient use of waste heat, and a market needs to be created for such a comodity. Politicians need to address the issue, there's probably not many votes in it.

[David Hansen]

On 09 May 2006 12:38:03 GMT someone who may be Ian Stirling wrote this:-

It was worse than that. The CEGB (and the two boards in Scotland and one board in Northern Ireland) were supposed to produce electricity as cheaply as possible, with no value placed on the heat thrown up the cooling towers.

Of course they ignored the cost argument when told to build expensive nuclear power stations by central government.

[Brian Sharrock]

You're ignoring the 'fact' that any heat 'thrown up the cooling towers' was wasted from the transformation of heat energy into electrical energy .The cooling towers are to reduce the final level of the steam condensate. [Dimly remembered Carnot(?) graphs form Heat, Light and Sound syllabus]. 'Throwing heat up the colling towers' makes electricity more expensive. IMHO, quite a lot of value was placed on the efficiency of coal-electricty conversion, hence the presence of the towers.

A completely irrelevant statement. Of course 'they' could have built nuclear power stations in the centre of every conurbation and provided central-heating to all the houses.

[John Cartmell]

It's a long time ago but I have done these specific calculations in the past. There is a clear difference between cheapest electricity and cheapest energy (electricity + hot water). From the 50s (I think) the UK Electricity Boards were charged with producing the cheapest electricity and so the heat went to waste. Producing cheapest energy would have produced less electricity per ton of coal - and to be of use the power stations would have to be smaller and located nearer homes/factories/offices.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 09 May 2006 14:52:34 +0100 someone who may be John Cartmell wrote this:-

Precisely.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 09 May 2006 13:15:06 GMT someone who may be "Brian Sharrock" wrote this:-

Why?

Even comparing large power stations without district heating, nuclear is more expensive. That is why the Tories took nuclear out of their electricity privatisation.