Anyone have or had electric storage heating ?

[Lousylo66]

Sorry for the mundane question I am viewing a house tomorrow with electric storage heating. In most ways the house is ideal but OH says this kind of heating is incredibly expensive and unreliable and will most certainly need central heating installing at some point. Anyone got any experience of it ? TIA

Expensive, hot at the wrong time of day, would only consider it if there was a fire/logburner to supplement it but would ultimately be wanting central heating put in.
Lived with it for 4 years, it was a nightmare.

Thanks for that. Just confirms what oh said.

Had it in previous house and it was fine and easy to use

you can manage it perfectly well BUT it is not as flexible as gas, oil etc. You need the correct tariff and to plan ahead with the weather forecast.

correct use means the heat lasts until bedtime. Of course it is 90% about the insulation, construction and orientation of the house.

unreliable IS nonsense; there is nothing to go wrong with storage heaters unless you cover them and blow the fuse.

ps yes I have lived through two cold winters with storage heaters!

We bought a house with ancient brown storage heaters, managed to survive one winter before changing to modern heaters.

Had them once years ago,and couldn't afford to run them.
I wouldn't want them tbh.

The are reliable, just utter shit. They are very simple to operate and there is not much to go wrong - no boiler, pilot light, or moving parts.
However, you can't just think 'I'm a bit chilly, I'll turn the heating on'. When they are on, unless you are in a modern very well insulated house, the heat has all but gone by early evening.

I lived with them for ten years. I wouldn't entertain having them again. Any house with them would be either rejected or the cost and viability of installing central heating taken into account.

I lived with them for 4 years in a rented flat. I was soooo cold! Used to sit in my sleeping bag at my desk! Would buy somewhere with them only if GCH could be put in before winter.

We have modern electric storage heating. As long as you have good insulation and double glazing it's awesome. We've found it to be cheaper than gas (for five years we had two properties on the go - awful, don't ask!) and warmer, except really late in the evening (after 10 PM).

The stereotype about electric heating is no longer true.

It's freezing and expensive. Ours is over £300 a month (but there are other factors with mine). By 3pm the heaters are cold so you have to wrap up with blankets etc. This year wasn't cold either!

How's the water heated and is there a water timer?

Don't do it.

why are your heaters cold by 3pm? They should last much longer than that!

I'm not sure, I've faffed with the knobs but 3pm is the longest I've got them too.
But they are very old

Problem is Pirate that for a lot of people 10pm isn't really late in the evening, so you end up freezing.

Just for comparison - in our two bed terrace we only had electric storage heaters and used only electricity, no gas. Our monthly electricity direct debit was £90. When we moved it turned out we had been underpaying and had an outstanding balance of £800!
In our three bed semi with gas central heating our monthly direct debit is £80 for gas and electricity and we are £50 in credit.

Although I think the storage heaters themselves were relatively inexpensive to run it was the cost of running supplementary heaters that pushed up the price.

I had them in my flat - it was new build and I was horrified that there wasn't central heating. There were 2 storage heaters and 2 electric convection type heaters that were screwed to the wall but that had controls so you could set them to come on or turn off at different times of the day.

However, the flat was really well insulated and even in the depths of winter I only used to have one storage heater on and in use. The convection heater in the spare bedroom I took off the wall as it was never used. The one in the bedroom was used a handful of times a year - sometimes I would have to remember to put it on if it was a mild winter, just to check that it was still working ok.

So they can be great... but you do need to make sure that the house is well insulated first!

I think the problem is that most electric heating seems to have been installed in older poorly insulated homes. OP, do you have the energy rating for the house?

We have them and they are fab. Probably depends if you are in/out all day too.

We pay about fifty -sixty quid a month for a two bed flat, open plan living kitchen, for all heating,cooking and water.

I was in a flat with old storage heaters; the place was not very well insulated but I knew that before I rented it.

we got an economy 10 tariff, so heaters were charged at night and in the middle of the day, this made all the difference. Also the outputs were turned right down in the day with the input right up. The heaters were still warm until about 11pm.

it is all in the tariff so that's what you need to investigate.

I looked into Economy 10. I was told that people could only be on it if they already were. It wasn't for new people.

My parents had storage heaters and it worked well for them as they were home a lot during the day. They were also on one of the very old tariffs that had been introduced around the old three day week problems to stagger electrical use. So they could still heat up until about 11:00 rather than just overnight.
It worked for them back then because of their lifestyle. Worth considering if you are home a lot during the day.

We are very happy with our storage heating, it never goes wrong and needs only the wiring check with the rest of the flat wiring. It does cost more per KW but no other servicing or breakdown costs. We have water on the economy rate so do have a very large water tank which limits layout changes in the kitchen.

They were in my first property. Coped with them for the 6 yrs I was there, but I'd definitely not choose them.

The trouble is, they take in all the heat at night, then start letting it out - you can't tell them "No, I'm at work in the day, I want to to start heating the house when I get in at 5.30" like you can with central heating.
The heat is then 'all gone' when you come to sit down at about 9pm and it starts to get chilly, but there's no way of getting any heat out of them.

The elderly ladies who owned the flats all around me didn't mind them, as they wanted the heat in the day, and tended to go to bed earlier in the evening but they defintiely didn't suit me.

economy 10 IS still available but you have to argue; the first-line call centre will probably be told to say no. I had to do a lot of arguing when I had it!