No Central Heating - best way to stay warm? and dry clothes?

[solittletimeandsomuchtodo]

So I've moved into a gorgeous little cottage but no central heating.
(just a rental and just here for one winter)
Oil filled radiators - the best option?
how on earth can I dry clothes in this weather? - no dryer and no money to buy one.
and
I'm on a split (not sure what it's called) electric meter
7pence nighttime rate and 27p daytime rate
So what's the most economical way to survive winter? (I have a 4&5 year old) and i work from home during the day.

Aaaarrgh

Switched all the heaters on Friday afternoon.
Woke up sat without any electricity.
Have been flat out all weekend and away do going back tomorrow to deal with the rotten food in the fridge and a call to the landlord.
Do you think I should have staggered turning them on? Only three in the cottage.

If you lost all the electricity in the whole cottage, then probably you have an RCD near the fusebox which had tripped. Older houses in rural areas, especially with overhead power lines, are often wired that way, though it does not meet modern standards.

Sadly you could probably have switched it back on again, you might have had to turn off the box for the storage heaters as maybe one of them is damp or faulty and caused the trip.

Each heater would normally take 15Amps or less so unlikely to trip the company fuse (main fuse) in your cottage as it is likely to be at least 60 amps, and company fuses are very tolerant of overloads.

If you were charging all the storage heaters, and several convector heaters, and the immersion heater, and cooking a big christmas dinner on an electric cooker, or using an electric shower at the same time, then the company fuse might blow, but it takes a lot. No other fuse or breaker should cut power to the whole dwelling, except an RCD on the incomer.

If you take some photos of the meters, fuseboxes and timers, and the various cables around and between them, and upload the pics to your profile, I could make a better guess.

We've saved a fortune since having storage heaters (I don't "like" them but it does seem a lot cheaper.)

However I've heard conflicting ways of operating them so thought I'd ask here as it might help OP.

The knob on the right, input you adjust to the general time of year/weather and leave it, so as low as will work, that's right isn't it?

The knob on the left -I've heard you either set it to say, quarter to nine and leave it there so you get it coming out all day. Or you turn it right down to zero overnight so little leaks out and then adjust it during the day and back to zero at night? Any idea which is most efficient? We're tending to leave it near zero but then does that mean we put the input one up too much to make it work?! I'm well educated but they baffle me.

We've recently changed to a different tarrif so we have a "boost" for a couple of hours in the afternoon whcih makes a huge difference. We're no longer cold in the evening!!

OP - if you can get storage heaters to work they are a good way of providing cheap heating but just not as controllable as central heating. I would imagine you could get your landlord/agent to show you?

When I lived in a draughty house we sealed the windows up. Look online they are called window insulation kits, really worked.

Pseud

the knob that controls the flap letting the hot air out, the more you open it, the quicker the heaters will run out of heat.

AFAIK the "charging" is thermostatically controlled and stops using electricity once the internal bricks are hot. I deduce that if they did not fully cool down the previous day, because the flaps were shut, it will take less electricity to get them hot again.

Lots of people who are out of the house all day resent the heaters warming it while they are out, and being cold by evening. If you get a low-price afternoon boost that is a great advantage.

Even an Economy 7 tariff shouldn't have daytime rates in the realms of 27p a unit. Are you sure that isn't for the first x number of units a year, in lieu of standing charge? Even in that scenario it still sounds very high. We're on Economy 7 with storage heaters and our daytime rate is nothing close to that.
Incidentally we are also - for very complicated reasons - renting a cottage elsewhere with oil central heating. We are comparing costs and very very surprised to find that our, as we thought, horrendously expensive all-electric home is actually very comparable in overall costs.