electric heating.

[philpjuk100]

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.

My previous employer installed storage heaters in my workshop against my advice but they worked very well,if the day turned out warm keeping the shutters closed they gave out little heat but in cold weather (including last winter) they kept the workshop at 20c(the temp required for the equipment I work on) I leave work at 3pm and with the midday boost never had the temp drop even with very large single glazed windows.The boss never told me what the power cost and I would not fit them to my house but they do have their uses.phil.

 

[Feltwell]

In that context, where you are not going to require any evening heat, I can see that they would work.

My objection to them for domestic use was they seemed great at keeping an empty house warm all day whilst you are at work, but by the time you come home they are stone cold.

Relatives of mine had an electric warm air heating system in a 1970's house they owned, fitted by the builders - there were underfloor ducts running around the ground floor with floor vents beneath each window, the upstairs just relied on the downstairs heat rising. Everyone always suffered from dry throats in that house, and it wasn't cheap to run. Little wonder that system never caught on.

 

[k99mn]

just seen your post on electric heaters, i had the same problem 17c cottage very cold, last year i used a 'glen' oil filled rad (as well as storage heaters),very economical good heat output but expensive to buy,i have just discovered that 'CEF' in ipswich are agents for an oil filled plug in heating system by a company called'rointe' it is available in several different sizes and the blurb is good, they are at schrivener drive ipswich, i have decided on bottled lpg now though 4 years of being very cold with my old storage heaters are enough-by the way these are available for sale along with some dimplex panel heaters.

 

[MdB]

My objection to them for domestic use was they seemed great at keeping an empty house warm all day whilst you are at work, but by the time you come home they are stone cold.

This happens if you are running on economy 7. If you run on Economy 10, you get three hours in the afternoon and 2 hours in the evening (as well as 5 hours overnight) which helps a lot to give you heat when you need it.

Eon at the moment charge the same for E10 as they do E7 though you will have to fight hard to find a sales droid that will set this up for you.

 

[robgil]

i found this on rointe heaters,

http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general-electrical-forum/14392-rointe-natural-heat.html

interesting stuff , according to this guy my crappy 19.99 convector will cost the same to run as a 300 quid rointe so long as its got an electronic thermostat.

 

[Flyfisher]

I can't see how there can be much scope for different efficiencies between different makes/types of electrical heaters. Turning electricity into heat is pretty much 100% efficient anyway. Oil-filled and storage heaters can delay/extend the release of the heat, which might affect their usefulness, but I don't believe this would affect their basic efficiency.

The heat store thing I mentioned is really just another form of storage heater but with more control over when the heat can be released. But MdB's point about E10 instead of E7 could make heat storage less important, for electrical heating anyway.

 

[skier-hughes]

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

That's what we have.

900l heatstore, with 200l domestic hot water within it.
Our solar panels heat it during the day, our rayburn sends it a little and our wood burner with back boiler boosts it up at night now, or during the day as well in depths winter. This means with a timer we can now wake up to central heating It's brilliant and the cost is time in cutting down and storing all those logs, but now I'm well into my 3 year rotation system I ahve a wondeful supply of large very dry logs.... a big fire can take big logs, less chopping, less feeding and slower burning!!

 

[Flyfisher]

That's exactly the sort of thing I've been thinking about, but I've had little luck in finding any local plumbers who can convince me they know enough about such things for me to trust them to install it all. I may have to pester you for some more details in due course, if that's OK?

 

[skier-hughes]

no problem.