Storage Heaters. Help! Im clueless.

[minisoksmakehardwork]

We've just moved into a rental property with storage heaters. Neither DH nor I know the first thing about them so we asked the agents for an idiots guide to get us started. Ive followed the instructions as best I can - no boost or late boost output with input set to about 7 on most of them as it has turned pretty cold but isn't freezing yet. There's one with dials that don't say input/output on them but one has numbers all the way round which might be degrees celsius. I shall google that one to find out what's what.

But; We are finding despite the idiots guide indicating otherwise, they are belching out heat from early in the morning and then by evening, most of them are stone cold. The one with different dials doesn't seem to have heat last very long at all.

Can anyone with storage heaters please give me an idea of where we are going wrong?

This should help

That’s pretty much how I’ve found them, I’m afraid. We ended up turning them all off during some pretty cold winters as we had to keep our bedroom windows open due to mould and we had a little halogen heater in the living room. And lots of jumpers and blankets!

If you can set the dials to give out the minimum heat in the morning, there might be a bit left in the evening but not all heaters are very controllable tbh (are they the really deep ones?)

Also check that you are on a electricity tariff that is cheaper overnight when it's storing all the heat!

Good luck, I'm sorry to say I have no advice on how to operate them as I lived with them for a year and have never been so cold in a house.

However, my electric blanket was my savior.

It might be worth checking that you are now with the cheapest energy supplier.

I always changed to a new provider when I started a new tenancy.

Sometimes they havnt been changed for years. Some - (not all) landlords couldnt give a toss, as they wont be paying the bill.

It might be worth you getting;

Cheap electric tariff

Portable oil filled radiators

Electric blanket.

If you decide to use other electric heaters in the daytime, instead of the storage heaters, make sure you are on the right tariff for that.
Not cheap overnight and expensive during the day, which is the usual tariff when storage heaters are used.

Obv do have that one if you keep using the storage heaters.

My advice? Turn them all off. Buy some energy efficient portable plug in radiators. Buy some plug timers. Connect. Relax whilst enjoying the lovely warm temperatures and low cost.

Seriously, there is nothing good to be said for them unless you are at home during the day and tucked up in bed with an electric blanket by 8pm. Sorry.

On a more sensible note, check your tariff is reasonable and your electricity clock is set to the correct time. Outs was about 6hrs wrong which did make a difference.

We have storage heaters and are fine with them. We are on Economy 7 which is cheap from approx. 12.30am to 7.30am GMT (so 1.30 am to 8.30am in the summer). We set ours to high input and zero output overnight then if it is coolish in the evening we turn the output up. We also heat our water overnight (you will probably have 2 immersion heaters in your tank; the lower one for overnight, the higher for a daytime boost if you have used all your stored hot water). The usual setup is a feed from the meter to the storage heaters and the lower immersion that is only live in the cheap period, then a feed to the upper immersion and sometimes as a boost to the storage heater that is live all the time. During the cheap period the whole house is on the cheap tariff so we run the washing machine then, shower then, and generally do anything using a lot of electricity early in the morning. When it is really cold we have a coal fire in the evening (or a fan heater if we are feeling lazy) but most of the winter it is fine. We have a wall fan heater in the bathroom as I like my bathroom really toasty when I am in there. Just don't expect instant heat, let your house stay at an ambient temperature.

We have storage heaters and they work great - in well insulated rooms! In poorly insulated rooms I've found them a disaster. Like you say, they lose all their heat before evening. We set ours to input 5, up to 7 if it's freezing and 9/maximum very rarely in the worst weather (snow storms). That keeps our house (except kitchen which is heated differently) toasty 24/7 without costing a fortune. But we are mid-terrace and reasonably insulated (for a couple of hundred year old house)

Thank you for the help and advice. We seem to have settled into better heat/times at the minute - I did watch the video and that was very helpful.

I wonder if they have been turned off for a long while before we moved in. First few nights we really did feel the chill of the evening and they were blasting out first thing. But adjusting the ones we can (a couple have broken dials) has helped.

We’ve decided to stay with them for now before investing in portable heaters as I am home most of the day. Of course, I now have to work out the best time to do my many, many loads of washing and then drying!

For drying I use the Lakeland heated airer, its about 6p an hour to run, if you are paying a good price for your electric supply.

Hello
Am also having the same problem.
We've moved into a house with these ones
Blyss Electric 1000W White Convector heater and I am yet to get this to release heat during the day. At night times for some reason it is getting hot but in the morning no heat :-/

We moved into a house with them and using them cost a fortune - partly because we had to light a fire in the evenings. And run portable heaters when it was really cold. You need to check the forecast and predict how cold you'll feel next day.

To offset some of the expense, check tariff and take advantage of cheaper off-peak electricity. I took the risk and then ran dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer at night. Water heated overnight too (that's another story). Make sure that when clocks change, everything is still using cheaper electricity.