My sister is moving into a new flat next month and she's noticed there are electric storage heaters in the rooms. Upon hearing this one of her friends who "knows everything" remarked, "OMG they are really expensive to run. We had them in our last house and they were costing about £50 a week. Also the heat from them doesn't last long enough".
I'd like to know, are they that expensive to run, and what would be a cheaper alternative?
The cheaper alternative is hypothetical as it's a private rented flats she's moving into; so she can't change the heating system.
Expensive - yup can be. Best if run only from cheap rate electricity. However if you need to top them up at normal rates during the day, then that gets expensive. The problem of them running out of heat is common - you basically need to limit the heat output earlier in the day to have reserves left for later. The heater also needs to be appropriately sized for room and its level of insulation. Alas they are often not.
As for cheaper, well if you are stuck with electric only, then the options are a bit limited. Most electric heaters will give out 1kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity you put into them.
The exceptions to the rule are heat pump systems (some aircon units can also run in "reverse" as a heat pump). These in effect use energy to move heat from one place to another. So you may be able to put in 1kWh to have it pump 2kWh of heat from outside into the flat. Nett result being you get 3kWh of effective heating for every 1kWh you put in (at the expense of making "outside" a bit colder!).
Another option is long wavelength IR radiant heaters. These "project" radiant heat at things, but don't directly warm the air. Hence they can make a room feel much more comfortable, even though the air temperature is lower. Not heating the mass of air reduces the actual energy required to remain comfortable.
No, but you could augment it with portable heatpump aircon units or IR heaters etc.
Serious question. Which would be cheaper? Topping the storage heater up at day rate or using separate fan/panel/IR/oil filled electric heaters and only allowing the storage heaters to use the night rate?
Think laterally. Cheapest running is to bridge the meter.......
More seriously, IR is probably cheapest way to improve comfort, but probably not applicable to rented flat as you need them mounted high up. Fan heaters are most controllable and give quick comfort. Don't be conned by fancy expensive ceramic fan heaters being described as super efficient. Cheap and nasty ones are just as good.
Using the separate heater probably - in the sense that it will give more instant heat. The storage heater will have a long lead time on heat output, and you will be offsetting cheap rate heating "charge" with peak rate electricity.
Most storage heaters don't have an option to "top up at day rate" as they are connected to a seperate, time switched, consumer unit. They only have power available during the off peak period.
Having said that some do have a normal, unswitched, supply some times for a fan to draw heat out of the store quickly or sometimes as a 1 or 2kW convector heater. But this is seperate from the heating element for the store.
Even if you could energise the store heaters with them being encased in blocks of concrete it would take a while before there was much heat output increase from the unit.
Better to have a thermostat controlled fan heater if the noise isn't a problem or a thermostat controlled convector of some sort, oil filled would be my preference.
More modern ones may have an easy control but older ones don't. Ours have a little recessed cog wheel thingy. It's supposed to be a "set and forget" but of course a sudden cold snap means they run out of heat by mid-evening. The reverse is also true, suddenly gets warm and you roast...
Most people here probably know better than I do. I have storage heaters. I have lived with them for the last 15 years. They are not more expensive as far as I can see than other heat sources despite what is said. I checked my bills against my mothers ( she has coal and logs - neither of us have gas) and mine are cheaper. I paid £1197 last year for all my heating and other needs. I am on E7. I do supplement it. I use an electric convector heater which I have found to be warmer than a fan heater during the day or to top up ( in my case mostly at night). to be honest. It also shuts itself off when the room temperature is reached.
They work OK IME if you set the controls correctly, and turn down the outlet knob when you're not using the room.
Some suppliers have a tariff that allows daytime top-up at a reduced rate, or a seperately metered lower rate for fixed daytime convectors.
until they get gunked up and the plastic casing melts, ceramic elements are much less trouble than wire ones IME.
Oil-filled radiators are the best type of portable electric heating, as the element is totally enclosed so much less fire risk (unless you get an oil leak... but I'e never known that to happen).
Do you know how well its insulated? If there is several inches of insulation they may be OK but still not as cheap as gas. The only electric heating that can get anywhere near the cost of gas is one with a heat pump.
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