Should we swap our electric radiators for oil filled ones?

[MrsHf]

We live in a house with no gas just electric and find it very cheap to run in the summer but when it gets colder and we turn on our wall mounted electric radiators the electricity bill becomes very expensive. We were looking into changing them all to oil filled radiators instead (small house so would only need to buy 7). Does anyone have any experience with oil filled radiators and will it make any difference to our bills or will we just be spending money for no reason?

We have oil filled radiators we find them much more economical than the electric wall heating

They heat up very quickly and we find the room heats up really quickly and we have to turn them off
I would recommend them op

It won’t make any difference at all.

It won’t make any difference to the amount of heat you get out for unit of electricity you put in.

The only difference will be that the oil filled radiators will take longer to warm up and correspondingly longer to cool down.

@stepuporshutup thank you! Do you know what brand your oil heaters are please?

@etulosba With our current heaters as soon as you turn them off the temperature of the room drops so quickly, they are on a thermostat but don’t find it helps with efficiency very much. Hoping that oil radiators will improve the electricity bill a bit over the winter 🤞

Have you considered investing in electric throws, draught excluders etc More heat the person than the space type thing.
ime electric heating just is expensive, regardless of oil filled or storage brick heaters. If the room temp drops quickly now, the same will happen regardless of using a different t type of heater. You need to look at ways to retain that heat.

How much is it going to cost to replace them OP and are you going to save enough to make it worth it? How long before you've paid off that investment with the savings? If the house gets cold very quickly maybe you'd be better spending the money on insulation or better windows?

At the cost of replacing, your would be better off looking at adding solar panels to use on your electric bill. You would then benefit all year, and the savings made in summer go into winter heating bill. A battery to store solar even better so you can use overnight/ when cloudy

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 we’ve got vents in all of the rooms that are unnecessary due to there not being gas in the property that we’re going to block up with insulation, we’ve added better seals to the windows but due to it being a listed building we can change the windows, add solar panels or change to gas @Caspianberg unfortunately, so we’re pretty limited in what we can do to make a difference. Because we have a small child we have to have the heating on in the winter really so just trying to find a better way to reduce the bill even by a small amount. Just a bit stuck on what to do now as changing the radiators seems to be the last option. Would cost about 2k to change them which we don’t mind paying as long as it makes a little bit of a difference so in the long term would pay off.

**can’t change windows

Can you install secondary glazing on the inside? Have you checked what the full options would be for new windows?

Listing alone doesn't prevent all window changes - there are usually options even if one of them is to replace with like for like but proper fitted to the opening, so you aren't dealing with old warped wood with enormous gaps etc.

It may be cost prohibitive though.

Can you install underfloor heating?

Listed building - bugger. they are drafty and simply do cost a lot to heat as a result.
I don’t think changing to oil filled radiators is going to help much if at all. Thicker, full length curtains, door curtains and draft excluders, radiator reflectors, letter box shields, key hole shields, carpets/rugs etc and maybe just heating the room/s you are actually using as well as heating the person, might be a better option. Even using the cling film trick at the windows as temporary secondary glazing would help.

Delonghi
I did buy them second hand a few years ago and we are really pleased with them
Maybe just buy one to begin with to see how you get on with it
Maybe they will be cheaper in the summer

As others have said 2kw of electricity will cost the same to produce whatever the type of electric heater. An oil filled heater takes longer to heat up and cool down but the heat produced will be the same. A fan heater or halogen heater may feel warmer if it is directed at you, but the rest of the room may feel colder. Replacing the heaters with like for like kws will not be any warmer.

Would cost about 2k to change them which we don’t mind paying as long as it makes a little bit of a difference so in the long term would pay off.

As somebody else said, you would be better off spending the money on secondary glazing.

Don't think it's a good idea to block up vents they are not there just for gas, although happy to be contradicted as I'm no expert, but I was told old properties need them or you will get damp and mould from condensation.

My understanding of the oil radiators is that you can turn them off and they’ll still give off heat (not sure if that’s right or not) but would it take more energy to heat them up in the first place making them the same cost as our current heaters? @KentishMiss So there’s no cheaper to run alternative to electric radiators if it takes the same amount of electricity to produce the same amount of heat? The whole thing is a bit confusing to me! 🙈

Yes, oil filled radiators do give off heat once switched off - as it cools down. Like an oven. The effect doesn’t last for hours though (like an oven!). You will notice within 20mins (or thereabouts) that the heating is off. They take longer to beat up as well though - hence costs being roughly the same.

Yes, exactly so. Longer to heat up and longer to cool down, but no more efficient at turning electricity into heat.

So there’s no cheaper to run alternative to electric radiators if it takes the same amount of electricity to produce the same amount of heat? The whole thing is a bit confusing to me!

The easy way to look at is that all electric heaters are 100% efficient. All the electricity you put in will end up as heat, one way or another.

You would be better off making sure that as much as possible of the heat given off by whatever heaters you already have stays in the house.

My friend lives in a listed building and she can't have solar panels on the roof but she can have them in the garden and on the garage. Could you check whether you can do that?

I would consider putting that £2k towards installing oil centr heating and secondary glazing. Electric heating is the most expensive way to heat a house, however you do it.

A heat pump would probably be a better solution than oil. That way you are only using the electricity to move heat from outside to inside.

Neither will be possible for 2k, and would probably need listed building consent too.

Have you looked to see if your council funds any energy projects?

this is our local one. Do you have anything similar. Start with an energy survey.

www.cep.org.uk/

I have had oil for ovber 20 yearsand it has been great, but now I am getting elderly people get electric radiators fornothing! I do not know what to do