Electric heating.

[Victor]

Good morning guys,

I have a house to rewire and the current storage heaters to change. The client wants to steer away from storage heaters as the property is going to be a holiday rental and the heating my be required at short notice rather than heat up over night..

I have found some heaters that she likes the look of but I am wondering if rather than running the circuits for all five heaters from the main consumer unit, should I put them in a seperate unit? Also would you think contactors are needed?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Kind regards
Victor

 

[Richard Burns]

If you already have storage heaters then you will also already have radial circuits going out to points in the room where you would place a heater, simply use those circuits for the new heaters. Change the existing NSH CU over to 24hr supply.
Use heaters with timer controls so that they are not left on all the time.
If you are planning comprehensive electric heating then the heaters should be on their own circuits, apart from cable loading issues it means that the heating will not trip out because of an unrelated fault.

 

[Victor]

Thank you Richard.

I am changing everything electrical in the house, the wiring in some places must date back to the 50's and there have been add on to the add ons. My thought was to put all of the heaters on their own circuits in their own consumer unit so as you say it will not cause an issue to the rest of the house should there be a fault onone of the circuits. I am also installing a wireless wifi thermostat kit so that the client can control the heating remotely via her smartphone as the house is to be a holiday home/rental, hence the contactor.

Once again thanks for your input.

Kind regards
Victor

 

[Leesparkykent]

If the house is being rewired why not go all out and install a wet system with an electric boiler.

 

[telectrix]

If the house is being rewired why not go all out and install a wet system with an electric boiler.

now that would involve allowing a wet-pants in the house. bad move.

 

[Richard Burns]

If you are rewiring entirely then keeping the heaters on their own circuits with no particular interaction with the other circuits would be good.
It would not necessarily have to be its own consumer unit, just a larger unit for the house, though if it were to revert back at any stage to Economy 7 then a separate unit may be useful.
It really depends on the space available and potential cable runs which would be preferable.

If the owner is planning to randomly switch off the heating at her own whim then they may find they have fewer tenants.
However depending on the switching load of the controller you are using it may be a good idea to have a bank of contactors to allow the units to be individually turned off based on a signal input.