Please advise: I am freezing in my home-does anyone know how these heaters work?

[piddocktrumperiness]

I have been in my flat for a couple of years and tried the heaters a couple of times- switching them on as when I needed. There is undercroft parking below me which means my flat is probably colder than most- that and that I have wooden floors. I found that the wall heaters used alot of electric and did not heat the room well. So I stopped using them altogether and bought 2 oil radiators and a dehumidifier- switching the oil radiators on for 30 mins to 1hr a day if needed.

My electric bill has gone up despite the usage of most things going down. I practically live under my duvet as it is so cold and stay at work as long as I can. I passed by a neighbour earlier this week and she said she has these heaters on all throughout the winter, at a low setting like 3. I can't get my head around how that is better but have been nagged by other family to just give it a go as it is better than being cold.

So in desperation and being fed up of seeing my breath in the morning yesterday I went for it and kept the heaters in the main room, my bedroom and my son's on at a 2 and am crossing fingers. I am terrified of what the energy company will do with my DD but I just am lost for ideas.It's still cold here, and there is only a marginal difference.

Does anyone here have these heaters in their homes? Please advise me how to use them effectively and efficiently

They aren't always the cheapest way to heat. We have bigger, beefier versions of these and they are totally inefficient (yes, I know I am technically using that incorrectly) because they have to be constantly on all night every night and they give off a load of wasted heat when nobody is at home. And I don't know if there are still proper economy 7 tariffs in the UK but where we are, the cheaper overnight rate is a joke, it's barely any cheaper than the normal rate so it costs a bomb to run them.

We bought plug in heaters instead for about €100, they have a thermostat in so they switch on and off as needed to maintain the temperature and more importantly they have an off switch so we can use them only when we are actually using the room that they are in and turn them off if we get too hot. They cost us about 1/3 of the amount to run compared with the storage heaters (which are perfectly functional, they work very well, they are just incredibly expensive).

I think you need to start by keeping the cold out as much as possible; floor and window coverings (ideally thick rugs, thermal blinds and/or curtains - but whatever you can find second hand or rig up cheaply). It will obviously cost, so it depends if you can afford it, but if you can it will save you money in the long term.

Sorry to point out the obvious but have you got Oodies or similar, warm oversized hoody / wearable blanket as that might help a bit? Obviously you need to heat your home too but it might make it more bearable if you can't crank the heating right up.

Agree with several PP they are not storage heaters they are panel heaters. Storage heaters are much bigger units to accommodate the bricks that heat up during the night and cool down slowly throughout the day.

And disagree with the PP who said economy 7 isn't much cheaper. We have it and it's less than half the day rate on our standard, price cap tariff, so our storage heaters aren't proving as bad as I feared this winter.

I got an email about rate increases today so I can tell you our day rate is definitely much higher than our night rate, too.

We're increasing our electricity day unit rate from 38.593p to 41.687p per kWh and our night unit rate from 22.838p to 24.669p per kWh.

Agree with others that these look like panel heaters, not storage heaters. I honestly don’t know how you run these cheaply :(

Every day is a learning day. 😁
Clue is in the name:- Night Storage Heater.
That said (and as I pointed out earlier) these don't appear to be NSH and look instead to be normal panel heaters.

In our old house there was no mains gas so for a long time so we were all electric and NSH were a way of life for us.
The trick is to read the weather forecast and program the input accordingly. Of course the biggest improvement was when we changed from E7 to E10 which gave us cheap-rate EL at night, in the afternoon & evening. Meant the NSH could be boosted just when you wanted it plus you always had a tank of hot water. Also the constant heat meant the fabric of the building never completely cooled down and the whole house was more comfortable.
Had them for 23-years before we paid to have mains gas connected (wanted a gas cooker and with gas connected it appeared to make sense to have GCH installed at the same time).

When used correctly and with the right tariff, NSH can be effective.

Not all storage heaters have feet. Ours are wall hung. I'm not entirely sure we get them right, they are weird, but we use the minimum of them through the house and only recently switched on with the much colder weather.
lots of things you can do to help, hit charity shops for rugs, thermal / black out curtains, keep internal doors closed so you are heating the minimum space. Check if you are on E7 / E10 and make the most of overnight rate.

Carbon heaters are the cheapest form of heat.

You can get a oscillating one off Amazon for less than £50. The heat from them quickly heats a room for very little cost.

Thank you everyone. I have done some research and they're not storage heaters, they're panel heaters- bog standard. I spoke to my neighbour and she has these on at level 3 on all the time. So I tried that, and to my horror it cost nearly £9, having them on, on lowest setting over a long period of time (7pm to 4pm next day. So I'm back to the drawing board. I can't afford to put carpet down just yet but have bought draft tape so maybe that will help with that a little.

I have 2 oil heaters, so I'm thinking of timing them to come on for an hour or so in the early morning for when we wake up, then again for a couple of hours for the evening. I typically put them on the highest heat to get the room to a comfortable degree as my rooms are below 12 degrees without heating.

So I'm wondering if I just ignore these heaters as the room doesnt retain heat from them and they're so expensive to run, and just focus on the oil radiator at low settings and stay in one room

Don't get sucked into the trap of "efficient" heating such as ceramic/stone/oil filled heating Vs convector heating etc.
A kWh of electricity will produce a Kwh's worth of heat, no matter what type electric heater you have.

Oil filled will take longer to heat up, and stay hotter for longer when turned off. But convector/panel heaters will heat the room quicker, but cool down quicker too.
So they produce the same amount of heat overall for the same cost.

I find oil filled are more "comfortable" as they are most like conventional central heating radiators.