Blooming storage heaters

[lifeonaloop]

My HA home is heated with economy 7 storage heaters and they are useless.

They don't pump out much heat but the heat they are pumping out is costing me a small fortune.

We have no gas in the house hence the storage heaters. I've bought a couple of little heaters for my children's rooms but the rest of the house is freezing and as a single parent I cannot afford to keep paying so much money for hardly any heat!

I have spoken to my HA and they have said they have no plans to replace the heaters as they are only 11 years old.

We are all sat in the living room under blankets (including the dog) and wearing jumpers. Any idea how to heat my home?

We don't have an actual fire, just the storage heaters.

This happened to me. They are the worst invention ever. I'm not sure they ever generate heat and I spent four years and thousands of pounds being cold. The previous owners assured us they had "electric central heating" and I had never heard of storage heaters so we had no idea. In the end we borrowed the money to have gas central heating installed but I understand you aren't in a position to do that. I have no suggestions but lots of sympathy. They should be banned.

They're awful. I'm putting in £80 per week in the electric because I'm also on a meter. The storage heaters just eat money.

Well the electric has just ran out and so far this week I've put in £55

Completely the opposite view here:

Maybe it's the make of the storage heaters. I love them. My mum has them and her house is always warm, whereas my gas-centrally heated house is only warm when the heating is on. She doesn't have gas but her electricity bills aren't that high.

I would happily take the gas central heating out and put storage heaters in, if it weren't for the price and upheaval of doing so. I hate gas, it makes me really nervous.

I had them in a previous rented home and they were utterly useless.

Tbh I would stop using them altogether. If you can buy another couple of big electric heaters (I don’t know what type is best), I’d just use them instead. At least you’d get some actual heat for all the money you’re spending on electricity.

We have them and our electric company actually put up the cost of electric in Sept because my dp told them we had them in the flat when he moved in. But we have never used them. We was putting in triple the amount of electric on almost overnight, when he rang British gas they said he was on the tariff for storage heaters, so God knows how much it would cost if we had been using them!!!
Make sure you are on a cheap tariff. Also we have bought ceramic heaters, we live in an old bank so it's a listed building with HUGE windows. The ceramic heater warms the place up really quick. I think it was about 40 quid from ebay.

I used oil heaters when i had a house with storage heaters as mine were crap too, i'd have a small one in the bedroom that went on a timer 30 mins before i usually went to bed and 30 mins before my alarm in a morning, then a larger one in the living room, also timed for when i got in from work

Forgot to mention that’s what I did - I got a few oil filled heaters and just used those instead. Such a big difference. It’s miserable being cold and paying for the privilege!

I hate them. According to The Internet, they shouldn't cost too much to run but EDF appears to think otherwise. I only turn mine on if its really cold, like this week.

www.sust-it.net/storage-heater-energy-calculator.php

Is there not something fairly crucial about how you use them? I would Google 'using electric storage heaters efficiently '

Nah. They just don’t work very well at all. The only way I got them to give any noticeable heat at all was to use them all the time rather than as storage heaters, but even then they weren’t efficient at all and didn’t really heat well.

We have exactly the same problem OP. Storage heaters that were costing over £100 a week and we were still cold!
Last year I bought an oil filled radiator, go for the highest KW you can get, I bought a 4KW one for £200 and it’s been worth every penny. Our weekly electric bill is halved and we are never cold.
With you having children have you checked with your power supplier to see if you qualify for the warm home allowance?

I threw the storage heaters out when I moved here. I do not have gas, i do not want gas.
I have an oil-free radiator [1.5kw or 2kw] in each room and a multi fuel burner in the living room/kitchen [used in the evenings].
I'm just fine, they do the job and electricity bills are not too bad at all considering I am at home the majority of the time. I heat the room I am in. The home is well insulated.

No issues with ours .
The lounge is a constant 20c .
It's a bit more expensive than gas heating but not hugely so .

We installed new storage heaters this year and they are much more efficient and warmer but I still never feel cosy warm! It doesn't beat central heating though - I just know never to buy an electric only house!

This is what settings they are in the lounge.
We don't use our bedroom one as we don't want it heated all the time so we use a oil rad in there when we feel like we need some heat in there.

My fil has got storage heaters and was often cold because of using them incorrectly. Do the turn the output right down at night? It might pay you to have a browse on google; there is plenty of advice re their use. I agree they can be expensive though, especially as you've got a cash eating meter. Is there anyway you could have this changed (removed) to regular billing? My brother was in an HA place and I had both the gas and electric meters changed for him as he was paying a premium for their use. You don't have to have the HA's permission to do this. In his case, they had been put in place for a previous tenant.

Do 'you' turn the output down at night, not 'the'.