electric heating.

[robgil]

just bought two 2000 watt oil filled rads from screw fix which are less than useless and are being picked up by courier tuesday , two rads with dysfunctional thermostats :evil: .
we had a cheap convection heater last winter which worked well but made me all blocked up and lethargic when left on at night.
so , oh gurus of the no central heating clan , what do you do for warmth?
i have a superser for the bathroom but at 4.2 kw its a tad overpowered and buying another three , one for each room might be excessive.

 

[Penners]

Are none of our fireplaces useable?

If they're not, then how about buying a cheap or second-hand woodburner. You could flue it temporarily with a flexible liner up a chimney or, at a push, out of a window.

I bought a Screwfix oil-filled electric radiator last year, for my workshop. It was endless trouble until I discovered an "anti-topple" device inside the business end. It consisted of a hanging bob-weight that was supposed to cut the power if the radiator fell over or was significantly out-of-vertical. However, it decided to take the law into its own hands and cut the power regardless of the verticality of the radiator.

I wired that device out of circuit and it's fine now. I just don't use it if the grandchildren are around.

 

[robgil]

both fireplaces are downstairs and to get them working would be quite a task , the inglenook need completely rebuilding on one side and the other needs repointing then lined. The latter is doable and i hope to have it done for Christmas but for now we are still living upstairs.
The screw fix heaters are abysmal , the ones i have have the same bobbin thing you described but even the slightest little shake or nudge sets it off. I can lightly shake the heater and watch the on/off switches flicker on and off. The problem is the thermostats , they go up to 7 however the heater will cut out at 4 and wont get any hotter. I have had on on in my daughters box bedroom for almost 3 hours and its still really cold in there. I would expect a 2000 watt heater turned on full power to keep it really sweaty in there but the thermometer is reading 14. :shock:
they say you get what you pay for but in fairness i did pay for two heaters and almost got two heaters , if only they actually heated up.
this is them on offer,


http://www.screwfix.com/prods/22311/Heating-Cooling/Electric-Heating/2000W-Portable-Oil-Filled-Convector-Heater;jsessionid=DZ32YEKPCPFRWCSTHZOSFFQ?ts=37922

 

[philpjuk100]

I see that the customer satisfaction ratings for these heaters are mainly five stars,somthing to consider when buying from screwfix. phil.

 

[Penners]

Yes, that's the one I have, Rob. Mine works fine now that I wired the topple-switch out of circuit.

 

[robgil]

im not going to mess with it Penners , i think the heaters might have a thermal cut off that knocks the heater off if the unit itself gets too hot so perhaps they are just under powered for this room as it knocks it off when the thermostat is up full and the cut off point for that is only half way, although i would expect a 2k heater to heat a box room without any problems.

 

[adamr]

just bought two 2000 watt oil filled rads from screw fix which are less than useless and are being picked up by courier tuesday , two rads with dysfunctional thermostats

I bought a small oil-filled heater and sent it back because the thermostat was useless. Then I picked up a 2kW one on freecycle, but the thermostat on that was duff too. My conclusion in the end was that the thermostat sensor is just too close to the hot unit. So I bought one of these to use with it instead and it's all working a treat now . Might be worth a try?

Adam

 

[JoceAndChris]

We bought a couple of those rads Rob, the same as yours I think - they were fine so I think you've been unlucky. Ours had a built in timer though.

We used them a lot in our first winter here, but the electricity bill for that winter was £1000 so be careful! The following winter we just put the Rayburn on more.

I think Penners' idea of the wood burning stove is brilliant - I really, really want to do that in our unheated kitchen as we have as much wood here for free as we could ever burn. (the only problem is it would mean smashing up some of those nice, Georgian brick arches - but it gets more tempting with every winter)

(Masses of wood lying about the fields here if you have a chainsaw, a trailer, and the inclination to come and get it - plus I have a load of trees I want rid of, if anyone would like to come and chop them down and take them away - there really is a surplus. Very time-consuming to log though, plus not for the faint hearted with the chainsaw work)

 

[Feltwell]

So I bought one of these to use with it instead and it's all working a treat now .

B&Q sell a similar beastie, supplied by some dubious organisation :wink:

Our heating packed up completely at work last year, on a morning when it was minus 6 outside. You would have thought that the amount of hot air generated by the staff moaning would have got the office warm (what? You're cold? Work harder and you won't feel it :twisted: ).

The Finance department counted their beans as fast as they could and were still moaning, so I popped out to the local Homebase and bought a load of their cheap convector heaters just to tide us over until the boiler was fixed. Similar to this:-

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/39438...g/Vent-Axia-2kW-Thermostatic-Convector-Heater

They worked fine, many are still in use in the colder parts of our building.

 

[robgil]

i cant live with convector's , they play havoc with my sinus's and i wake up feeling more tired than i did going to bed in the first place.

 

[masochists-r-us]

Logburner(s) here too. We managed to get throught one winter with 3 x 2kw convector heaters and whilst they're effective they cost us around £1500 in electricity that year.

 

[MdB]

Heat pump here - currently £0.70 per day though this will go up when it gets properly cold. £500 last year though there are some insulation improvements to be made so this should come down. Yearly service took 10 mins and £0.00 as I did it myself.

 

[robgil]

has anyone ever considered electric rads as their primary source of heating?

 

[MdB]

Our neighbours have a electrically heated wet radiator system. It is rather expensive to run I believe.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I (now) understand that electricity iss the most expensive from of heating - largely due to the inefficiency of it (lots of loss between fuel source and your socket).

Which is why I regret installing electric UFH on the basis that the DIY installation was easier and much cheaper than wet UFH. Sadly we can't aford to turn it on...

 

[robgil]

i was thinking more long term , gas and oil are not getting any cheaper and with all these new power stations on the cards electricity may one day be the fuel of choice, or perhaps the fuel of no choice.
i did read that electricity works out cheaper because of its cheap installation costs and zero maintenance costs , although i find this hard to believe. I guess in a super efficient house it might prove affordable but in my old tea bag it would probably cost a small fortune.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

i was thinking more long term , gas and oil are not getting any cheaper and with all these new power stations on the cards electricity may one day be the fuel of choice, or perhaps the fuel of no choice.
i did read that electricity works out cheaper because of its cheap installation costs and zero maintenance costs , although i find this hard to believe. I guess in a super efficient house it might prove affordable but in my old tea bag it would probably cost a small fortune.

Ummm - I think they make most of your electricity by burning...um... coal, gas and oil! Ok so some comes from uranium and a little bit from puffs of wind... but most of it is still dug or sucked up from the ground.

 

[Feltwell]

Whatever happens I wouldn't get storage heaters. The choice of tightfisted landlords everywhere as they are so cheap to install, you wake up in the morning to a nice warm house, that stays nice and warm during the morning and early afternoon - and by the time you come home from work, the house is freezing and so are you, right until you go to bed.

They really are awful.

 

[MdB]

Our wet underfloor (entire ground floor) was something like £900 for everything to connect to the heat pump and took about a day to install which wasn't too difficult. We are very pleased with it and would fit it again if we ever needed to (lets hope not).

 

[Flyfisher]

Our neighbours have a electrically heated wet radiator system. It is rather expensive to run I believe.

I was reading recently about heatstores - basically very large hot water tanks, as far as I can tell, that can store enough heat to run a standard radiator-based CH system all day and night. They can be heated by pretty much any means and the claim was that they were very efficient with biomass burners (including wood burners) because you can run the burner at full whack, which apparently is the most efficient method. Of course, you don't want all the heat at once, hence the heat store, which will release it as you need it.

Anyway, my actual point in this context wis that, on the analysis I read, I recall that off-peak electricity was one of the cheapest forms of heating.

Trouble is, I can't find the reference anywhere. :x