How best to heat a house with electric only?

This one. Seems the easiest in the short term with the least investment. Storage heaters will be loathed by anyone renting the place. As much heat as you like whilst you're out at work and f*ck all when you want it.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+
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Good for retired people then.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Gawd are we getting so thick as a nation that managing a real fire too difficult or "unsafe"?

What sort of electricty supply does it have, ie is Economy 7 already installed? Storage heaters are a PITA but if there is no other option... Modern ones have better insulation and controls so may actually still have useful heat in them come evening. Beware of ones that have convector/fan heaters that work on peak rate electricty.

If the place is insulated to modern new build standards, you could probably get away with small convector heaters used on demand on standard electricity, rather than storing cheap rate electricity in a few hundred weight of hot rocks.

bank.

A heat store is a possibilty but to store enough heat to keep even a smaIl cottage warm for 24hrs it's going to be quite large. I did some rough figures when thinking about the thermal store here, IIRC to be parctical it was somewhere between 1000 and 1500l heated to 90 C.

Our 300 l thermal store, that when fully hot top to bottom is at about 70 C, is not really much more than a buffer between the solar thermal, stove and oil boiler. With out a heat source the heating would cool it right down in 30 mins to an hour. At a guess, I've yet to try that experiment. B-)

You'd need a *huge* (think large field sized) thermal collector to gather enough heat during the short grey days of winter to provide space heating. Then in the summer you'd have so much heat you have to be putting blinds over the collectors...

"Woodburner/solid fuel not deemed acceptable for letting."

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

And if there isn't space for a oil tank, where are you going to put the evaporator for the air source heat pump?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

On its own no, but as additional heat its a plus for anyone that fancies saving a few quid or being green.

Plugin heaters really arent acceptable for letting either, even if mounted on the wall. The rent friendly options are gas, oil, E7 electric, anything else will cut your income heavily. I'd insulate the place well, then E7 begins to become workable.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

E7 is heating the storeage heaters for up to seven hours from sometime just after midnight. So they are fully hot in the early morning, if the insulation isn't very good that is when the room is warmest. Come just before midnight when you are going to be the room is the coolest. As I said PITA but I can't see much option.

Have a good look around at modern storeage heaters. The main reason old ones are crap is lack of insulation so they keep the place toasty for the morning from 0700, warmish 'till late afternoon, then run out of heat in the evening. A modern one ought to be well insulated and sealed up during the day, with a thermostat to stop the place getting too cool and, with a time switch to properly start letting heat out at a sensible time they would be much better and use less lecky. These ones tend to be at the pricier end of the market though.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Logs around here are very similar in cost to oil as far as energy output is concerned, of course if you have source of suitable free wood...

What would be the primary heat source for this thermal store given that there is no mains gas, space for a fuel tank (oil or gas) and solid fuel is not deemed accepatble? E7? So what advantage does a massive wet thermal store have over storeage heaters?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

It stays hot all day until you need it in the evening, unlike your normal storage heater.

Reply to
John Rumm

We stayed in a holiday cottage a couple of years ago that had what seemed like new storage heaters in (it had all been refurbed a couple of years before).

They did work reasonably well compared to old one I was familiar with. They seemed pretty well insulated and had a timer, so they could be set to let the heat out at a useful time.

Not a brilliant solution, and there was still a need for some top up heating - but it was that - a top up, and I assume it was probably a fair bit cheaper than relying on just peak rate leccy

Reply to
chris French

I suspect it is more a case of not considered acceptable by potential renters as the sole heating source

Reply to
chris French

Tenants don't want the aggro of sourcing the fuel at the best price, in the correct quantity for their period of tenure - especially when the latter is at the whim of the LL

tim

Reply to
tim......

Storage heaters are just a crude thermal store. They tend to lack the capacity to last 24 hrs so will need spot heating some of the time.

A proper thermal store will need a lot of water and a lot of insulation so the heat isn't wasted when the weather changes. Maybe a couple of tonne of water surrounded by half a metre of PIR foam would be good if somewhat difficult to accommodate.

I think an air source heat pump would be the best bet for spot heating if electricity is the fuel source. I have a 5kW (output, ~1600W input) heat pump sitting in a box waiting for me to installed next week.

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They only cost £550 (use loyalty5 to get 5% off) so three or four of those scattered about will heat almost anything.

Use PV and a controller to put what would be exported into the store. Sorry I know the group doesn't like FIT grabbers but this is cost effective and the current FIT payments are only just above what people pay for peak rate unit now. It would also allow the air conditioner to run for "free" in the summer.

Reply to
dennis

Insulation, control, less waste and you don't need to fiddle with it to cope with the weather forecast.

Reply to
dennis

Free wood is available most places. The time & bother of getting it isnt always worthwhile of course

NT

Reply to
meow2222

A council owned silver birch blew down just a couple of hundred yards up the road from me. I'm "helping" to clear it up. ;-) excellent burning, even with minimal drying.

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

the ones by NOBO are very good. They can be programmed with a temperature profile during the day and they are silent (i.e. no "tic tic tic").

Robert

Reply to
RobertL

Did they charge 20% or 5% VAT?

Reply to
The Other Mike

under the HMRC rules (notice 708/6):

- supply only is standard rate - 20%

- supply and install is reduced rate - 5%

Reply to
BruceB

I don't think single room aircon qualifies for 5% vat.

Reply to
dennis

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