Storage heaters are costing a fortune

[Keitai]

Live in a one bedroom flat (electric only). with two storage heaters. Seem to be paying £100 a month in the winter and think this is too much. Any suggestions for better type of heating? 1980s storage heaters

Have looked at this site-

 

[EFLImpudence]

Is the £100 your total electricity bill or just for the heaters?

Are the heaters working as they should and only at the appropriate times or has something gone wrong with the system.



Can't say if new storsge heaters will be better or not from one sentence.

 

[stem]

Electric heaters are all the same when it comes to efficiency. They are all 100% efficient (more or less) so you get 1kW of heat from them for every 1kW of electricity you pay for. (Unless you consider a heat pump which the makers claim can be up to 300% efficient, and so you get 3kW of heat for 1kW of electricity, but that's another story)

Regardless of who makes it, a 2kW heater will cost twice as much to run as a 1kW heater but give out twice as much heat. The main problem is that electricity can cost 3 times as much as gas and twice as much as oil. So it is expensive.

Having said that storage heaters are designed to work in conjunction with an off peak tariff (eg Economy 7. Economy 10) the idea being that they are heated up when the cheaper off peak rate is available, usually during the night, and then release the heat slowly during the day. So my first suggestion would be to make sure you are on the best tariff and that the heaters are set up to make the best use of it. Some storage heaters have an additional heater that uses normal peak rate daytime electricity, if you have this avoid using it if you can.

Modern storage heaters have better controls which may save some energy, but you will only really find them a benefit if you are finding your home is too warm now and the temperature can't be controlled properly and so you are wasting heat. If your home is comfortable as you have it now, you will still need the same amount of electricity to get it to this level.

The best way to save on heating bills is to insulate...insulate....insulate....

 

[JohnD]

Seem to be paying

What you are paying need have no particular correlation with what you are using.

Look at your actual (not estimated) electricity meter readings for the winter period.

Divide the usage by the number of days between the two readings.

How many kWh are you actually using per day (1) cheap rate (2) peak rate?

Have a look at your thermometer. What temperature is your flat?

Are you at home all day, or out all day?

 

[JohnW2]

... Having said that storage heaters are designed to work in conjunction with an off peak tariff (eg Economy 7. Economy 10) ....

Indeed. In fact, if one is stuck with electric heating and also (for some reason) 'stuck' with a standard single -tariff supply (i.e. not E7/E10 etc), then it really makes no sense to use storage heaters - far better to just use real-time electric heating when one needs it. Still very expensive, but a bit less so than when one is 'wasting' some energy/heat (hence money) which is released during times of the day (i.e. night) when one needs little/no heating.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Is the £100 your total electricity bill or just for the heaters?

Good question. That's about the same as I pay with E7 without having storage heaters (only off-peak water heating).

Are the heaters working as they should and only at the appropriate times or has something gone wrong with the system.

Indeed. If the OP has some sort of dual-tariff, then he should check that they really are using (or primarily using) off-peak electricity (i.e. that the switching times are correct).

Can't say if new storsge heaters will be better or not from one sentence.

Modern ones may well be 'better' in that they retain heat better, hence do not waste heat/energy by 'releasing' it at times of day when it's not really needed - but, as has been said, whether old or new they are essentially 100% efficient - in as much as the amount of heat output for a given amount of electricity usage (hence cost) will be the same for any heater, the potential difference being how much of the heat is released 'when it's needed' (rather than when it's not needed).

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

Efficiency can be improved by using heat pumps, or limiting when the rooms are heated, there is a trade off with the low cost of off peak to low energy use with as required. There are hot water heat stores which lose less when heat not required but they take up room.

The efficiency of an electric heater is how much is lost when the room is unused. So a room used for one hour and a heater which needs to be on for 7 hours is 1/7 = 14% efficient, likely it does not need a full 7 hours to reheat, so better than 14%, so a fan heater which needs to switch on 10 minutes before room is up to temperature, is 86% efficiency if room used for an hour, room used for 3 hours and 95% efficiency using same fan heater. This assumes you need full output all of the time which is clearly not correct, but this is just to show where the efficiency figures come from. As already stated what goes in must come out with electric nothing goes up the flue.

So much is down to building insulation and life style. This house turn off heating at 10 pm and house only drops 3 degrees by time it switches on again in morning, in the caravan 1/2 hour and it's cold, so timed heating in caravan really saves money, in the house leaving on 24/7 would not affect the bill that much.

The big problem with storage heaters or under floor heating is to work out what the next day or even next 12 hours weather will be like, unless using a well insulated heat store like the water ones, heat is being delivered into the home even when not required.

So cure is experiment, as you can't really work it out, so an energy meter and fan heater and only heat rooms as and when required and then work out how much it uses, then you can do calculations allowing for cheaper day rate using fan heater and cheaper night rate using storage heater. Retired as I am so in the house all day storage heaters would likely be best for me, but if at work during the day likely a more instant type.

In some flats gas is banned, after Ronan Point, but while house hunting found a lot using bottled gas and standard central heating boiler, also of course oil and massive LPG tanks. Then you have to consider if you have the room for a boiler and storage for fuel.

 

[JohnW2]

The efficiency of an electric heater is how much is lost when the room is unused.

WEll, there are all sorts of different 'efficiencies' one could define, and that is one of them.

So cure is experiment, as you can't really work it out, so an energy meter and fan heater and only heat rooms as and when required and then work out how much it uses, then you can do calculations allowing for cheaper day rate using fan heater and cheaper night rate using storage heater.

Indeed, but, if one has a dual tariff supply, "cheaper day rate using fan heater" (if I understand you correctly) is only going to be applicable when very brief periods of daytime heating are required, since day-time electricity traditionally** costs 2-3 times more than night-time electricity.

[** I say. traditionally, since as I reported a while back, the day/night cost ratio of my E7 suddenly reduced markedly last year - so I'm not sure where it's heading!]

Kind Regards, John

 

[phatboy]

That is very expensive for a small flat, but it's more likely due to poor insulation letting all of your expensive heat disappear through the walls / windows / ceiling. Look for issues there also.

I expect you are heating your water electrically too, so the costs are not purely from the space storage heaters.

 

[ericmark]

As said so much depends on building and life style.

I got some electronic TRV heads with the idea of turning down heating in rooms when they are not used, in real terms a failure as the rooms take so long to cool down, yet in my other house, we have a Myson fan assisted radiator, and within 15 minutes of the fan stopping one feels cold, soon warms up again once the heating kicks in, but house does not seem to retain the heat anywhere near as well, yet energy rating about the same.

And the caravan turn off heating this time of year and it soon becomes cold, but with heating on it still cycles, and only set to 500W, so not using a lot of power, it's just the caravan heats up and cools down quickly.

It is possible just due to wrong time set on the clock, or some other setting, but we have no idea of energy rating of the flat, how big it is or anything else, so if some one can measure power used, one with the off peak and two with a simple fan heater then you should know if something wrong or if normal and if anything can be done, but we don't know if flat used all day or just morning and evening.

 

[JohnW2]

I expect you are heating your water electrically too, so the costs are not purely from the space storage heaters.

Indeed, although (assuming the OP has dual tariff) that may not represent a particularly high proportion of the total.

My E7 hot water heating (almost exclusively at cheap rate) averages at about £13 per month. However, if I had a single-rate tariff it would probably be nearer to £30 per month.

Kind Regards, John

 

[HawkEye244]

Interesting replies, I can't really add very much other than to say that the EPC assessors do not seem to rate electric panel heaters/ convectors as being energy efficient , even with thermostatic controls you can't get close to 4 or 5 star rating with them. Storage heaters are valued much higher but for the reasons explained above they are not always suitable. In my case they were not suitable and yet the assessor was still happy to dish out generic and inappropriate advice, as they don't take into account the occupational use of the property, just what they see.

£100 a month is a lot to be paying, it doesn't sound correct. Are you sure you are not paying to heat another part of the building ?

 

[JohnW2]

£100 a month is a lot to be paying, it doesn't sound correct. ....

Several people have said or implied that, but we are really not sure what that £100 represents.

If it is literally just for the storage heaters, then I probably agree with you. However, it could be the total electricity cost (and don't forget it is an "all-electric" flat). As I understand it, £100 per month is in the ballpark of the average UK dual-fuel (electricity+gas) energy cost - which presumably means that the average for an "all electric" home would be appreciably greater than that.

We need the OP to clarify what the £100 actually represents.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Keitai]

Got dual tariffs. 70% of the electricity is used at night with the cheap rate. That's why I concluded it was the storage heaters costing money and that's yearly figure. They're turned off in the summer . So in the winter they're probably using 80% of my electricity. What are oil heaters like?

 

[EFLImpudence]

Tell us how many units you used - rate 1 and rate 2 - over what period on a winter bill.