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I don't dispute that, but there are electric rads that are less efficient than that. Just saying...
 
Spent £50 or £500 it will still produce the same heat with the same electric.
Has anyone graphed storage heaters , new /old
and ,how big they would really need to be to be well insulated to retain heat till it's needed.
(Thinking like a central air solution-all eggs in a well designed basket)
High temperatures + Poor maintenance = Back to tumble drier risks ..
(Snoop cam says you need a service -or you house insurance will be invalid).....
( Wacky ideas for the future )
 
Personally I prefer gas heaters to storage heaters.
Gas from the mains is about 3 % cheaper than electric heaters. There are certain government incentives which make certain heating systems more affordable and therefore more popular. I think heat pumps are starting to become popular.
 
As you may all know, when carrying out an EPC, if you haven't got mains gas, you automatically get a 3 star rating. Mains gas is the ONLY way to go, apparently...

Aye,,,right!
 
Personally I prefer gas heaters to storage heaters.
Gas from the mains is about 3 % cheaper than electric heaters. There are certain government incentives which make certain heating systems more affordable and therefore more popular. I think heat pumps are starting to become popular.
Hi @SparkyHarry, was that a miss type. Should it have been 30 % cheaper or 3 times cheaper maybe.

Either way I agree gas is cheaper than electric. Unless it’s the off peak electric tariff storage heaters, which are plain rubbish.
 
Perhaps I am getting confused here, between comments on electric storage heaters and electric radiators. I have a couple of 40 year old storage heaters. They are not easy to control, and you can't just switch them on and off at will, obviously, as they are "off-peak" or whatever it's called nowadays. I feel that these are not so "efficient", whilst accepting what Paignton Pete and davesparks say.These are in the hall and living room. The other rooms have plug-in electric radiators and electric towel rads in the bathrooms. These rads operate very quickly, and have thermostats. The house is very well insulated. Thus, for me, the non-storage type are more "efficient"...perhaps "effective" would be a better term?
My recent experience with infrared panel heaters has shown me that in the right space, these are very "effective", easy to install, maintenance free and attractive to look at. I cannot get gas in my house, so electricity is the only option. Using an electric wet system has huge installation hassles, and associated costs. All walls are brick, so if I were to replace the old system i would use infrared as its characteristics suit the property very well.
I appreciate that this may not be the solution for many, but may be worth a look for some.
 
Heat pumps in thoery should win hands down but in practice they dont.

There are many reasons for this but the biggest one for me is our climate. It is too varied and when cold its also often wet. This leads to icing of the coil and unless you are very savvy can cause a lot of damage. In order to overcome this the manufacturers program them on the safe side which means at the time you need it most the heat pump will be using internal heat to defrost the coil.

Ive seen some horrendous electricity bills from people who were sold an "economical" system purely because they never really came out of defrost, i could manually sort them but the programmed defrost never really worked, efficiently.

One of the other issues is responsiveness, they are not and shouldn't be. They should be ticking over maintaining a steady temperature but people like to whack the temp up and feel toasty radiators on their arse, expensive.

They are sold as being more efficient than gas but only in a few instances have i seen it significantly so, especially when you factor in the £7,000+ installatoon costs.

I like the principle of the heat pump but have yet to see it perfected.
 
Hi @pirate. I like the term effective heating as opposed to efficient heating.

I do get what your saying regards cost of installing gas.
Cost off installing gas combi with say 8 rads. £6000.
Or a few electric rads £1000.

If your yearly energy bill is £1200 as electric and by converting to gas it could drop to £900. It would take 20 years to get your money back and then you would probably have to have a new boiler fitted due to age.

Under those conditions electric is more financially viable.

I agree that off peak storage heaters are not efficient, because you have them on when you don’t need to heat the house and controlling the output during the day is nigh on impossible. By 5-6pm when you get in from work there is no heat left so you have to turn on the day tariff electric heaters.
 
I love the technology and idea behind airspurce heat pumps, but I have also come to the conclusion they are not as viable as the claims made by manufacturers.

The only thing I can see a use for them is to heat an outside pool in the summer months.
 
I love the technology and idea behind airspurce heat pumps, but I have also come to the conclusion they are not as viable as the claims made by manufacturers.

The only thing I can see a use for them is to heat an outside pool in the summer months.
They will work in a communal or estate heating system where larger HPs work in concert this way you can invest heavily in control systems and monitoring to hit the efficiency numbers.
 
Oh, I love a quiz!
Imagine a workshop, twin brick outside walls, no cavity insulation, concrete floors covered in a vinyl layer, single storey, well insulated ceiling with 300mm insulation squeezed under 22mm chipboard loft flooring. Floor area is 100 square meters, ceiling height is 3 meters, windows and doors take up 10% of wall area, and glazing in these is top notch. What would be the likely requirement in KW to keep this building at 22 degrees assuming the stats keep the heaters on to maintain internal temperature regardless of outside temperature?
Or is that just too much of a guess?
 
Does anyone have knowledge on how the Lifetime cost of gas and electric compare in a domestic application. Almost by default gas central heating is installed assuming that it’s cheaper option.
IMO, gas is cheaper.
 
Electric heating is cheaper to install but much more expensive to run.

What really ----es me off is when companies like Fisher heat come along and tell some old dear that they can slash their bills by removing the storage heaters and installing their super duper German engineered panel heaters.

In my experience the opposite is true.

I put in a price to install Dimplex Quantum storage rads at about 1/3 of the cost this bunch of cowboys were quoting for the bollox heaters they sell and still lost out!!

The poor soul that fell for it kept telling me that it wasn't my fault I couldn't understand the new technology but the nice salesman would explain it to me.

Funnily enough I asked to arrange a meeting with client and said salesman but he didn't turn up.
 
Oh, I love a quiz!
Imagine a workshop, twin brick outside walls, no cavity insulation, concrete floors covered in a vinyl layer, single storey, well insulated ceiling with 300mm insulation squeezed under 22mm chipboard loft flooring. Floor area is 100 square meters, ceiling height is 3 meters, windows and doors take up 10% of wall area, and glazing in these is top notch. What would be the likely requirement in KW to keep this building at 22 degrees assuming the stats keep the heaters on to maintain internal temperature regardless of outside temperature?
Or is that just too much of a guess?
save loads.......
turn it down to 15 and buy an army greatcoat from the surplus store.
 

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