How best to heat a house with electric only?

[Patrick]

I've inherited a small cottage. Don't want to sell it, can't live in it yet. Intention is to let it for a while. There is no heating other than an open fire which is prone to filling the place with smoke. Letting agents say it must have some form of heating. There is no mains gas and no space to keep either a fuel tank or gas cylinders. Woodburner/solid fuel not deemed acceptable for letting. I'm guessing either night storage heaters (if they still exist) or wall mounted electric heaters. Any thoughts or advice please. Pat

[harryagain]

Sounds like you're down to storage heaters. Why not check what the neigbours do?

[Tim Watts]

On Saturday 14 December 2013 00:58 Patrick wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Economy 7 and similar night tarriffs most certainly still exist. So I would go for the storage heaters personally.

[Nick Odell]

Regardless of whether or not you plan to use the open fire (and remember, your new tenants may decide to use it anyway, if only for the effect, in addition to any other heating you supply) I would check out the reasons why it fills the place with smoke PDQ. It might just be something like an old bird nest which only affects the fire or it could be something structural.

Then, if there's an open fire, there must be somewhere on-site to store the fuel for it, no? Could that site not be made suitable for a gas or oil tank?

Nick

[Chris Hogg]

Remember also that an open fire needs a current of air coming into the room where the fire is located, to carry the smoke away up the chimney. If air doesn't come into the room in sufficient quantities, the smoke has no reason to go up the chimney and will fill the room. Modern double-glazed and draft-proofed buildings don't have the natural ingress of drafts around windows and doors that fulfilled this requirement in older buildings. Assuming the chimney isn't obstructed by a birds nest or an accumulation of soot, make sure that either the trickle-vents over the windows are open, and/or you have a open through-wall ventilator somewhere into the room, and/or you open a top window, and/or you have the door open to the rest of the house.

We have a large open fire in our sitting room, burning only logs, and if we don't do these things and we seal up the room, the fire smokes. Unfortunately the incoming air is usually cold, which rather counters the heating effect of the fire. But we have it principally for cosmetic/aesthetic purposes (SWMBO always wanted an open fire), and we do also have conventional central heating.

[Capitol]

Heat pump air sourced.

[Brian Gaff]

Night storage heaters do exist, I have them here. The main drawback tothese is the problem of what happens if your house suddenly gets cold later in the day, and you either have to use expensive peak time power, or use a fil in heater. In the case of mine they are the cheapest ones and do not have a boost in the day feature. I thus tend to use an oil filled electric radiator and a fan heater sparingly to counter this effect. Brian

[fred]

In article , Patrick writes

Lowest capital cost will be slim, wall mounted convectors. You wont be living there so you wont be paying the bills and the tenants can choose whether to freeze or pay. Make sure their names get put on the leccy bill straight away so they can't leave you with a big debt.

I've found older properties aren't well suited to storage heaters, their losses and particularly their draughts mean that the charge is dissipated during the day leaving nothing for the evening

[Matty F]

I look after a newly built airtight mountain hut that had a smoke problem, but no longer. I suggested that a window be opened on the windward side, an d I fitted a chimney cowl that looks like a flying saucer with a gap around the edge. When there's a gust of wind, that sucks air out of the chimney.

[John Rumm]

Only other option that springs to mind would be a large heat bank. Heated on either cheap rate electric, or by an air source heat pump. Then it can drive normal rads on demand.

[tim......]

but not in bedrooms

tim

[dennis]

Solar would work quite well on a large heat store.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Capitol writes

I was just going to say that!

However, this inheritance does not sound like a well insulated property and there may be close neighbours (noise issues).

[John Rumm]

Yup, and you can aggregate the output of a wood burner into the mix as well if you want.

[meow2222]

NT

[Patrick]

Most use solid fuel and a very few use oil. Pat.

[Patrick]

Why? Too warm?

[Patrick]

A condition of the house insurance is that all chimneys be swept annually and certs of such to be provided. This is kept up to date. I think the smoke problem is in the design of the building & fireplace. Storage for anything is on the other side of a lane. Only about 5m away but laying a fuel pipe under a public road could be horrendous in terms of both beaurocracy & expense. Pat

[Patrick]

Interesting. Thanks Fred. Pat.

[Adrian]

Sounds about right.

About 15 years ago, I was living in a rented cottage built 1580. HYOOOOOOGE fireplace in the living room, other than that just two storage heaters. They were, quite frankly, useless.

OK, I was working and commuting longish hours, and often not getting back until later evening - but in the end, I just turned the sodding things off. The fact you needed to send them a letter to ask nicely for them to do anything, combined with the fact that they'd already gone cold when you actually wanted the heat output, meant that they were just a complete and utter waste of electricity.

Dead trees, otoh, did a grand job.