anyone have or had storage heaters for heating?

[Sp3849]

Bought a house picked the keys up today. The house has storage heaters. Plan to change this in the coming months but at the moment until the access track is sorted (no vehicle access) this will be our heating source. When looking around today none of them were on. Checked the switch board and they have there own switch board panel. Turned it on and went around checking the storage heaters but when turning the power switches on the walls to each individual heater on the little lights do not light up. I assume there is no power going to them? Am I being dull? Have I missed something? The lights etc and sockets work so electric is running to the house?!

they will (should) light up around midnight, because the cheap off peak supply is overnight.

they store heat during the night, and let it out during the day.

it will take you a few days to find the settings that suit you. You can adjust input (amount of heat stored) and output (how fast it comes out).

If you are out of the house all day, close the outlet shutters, or they will give out all their heat while you are not there to enjoy it, and be going cool by evening.

They're quite popular with people who are at home all day, and get up and go to bed early.

If your bedroom is cold, get a small oil-filled electric radiator and run it at night (with a thermostat and preferably a timer) because the storage heaters will have run down by evening. The way the meter works, your radiator and other appliances will (probably) get the benefit of the cheap rate, for electricity used during the offpeak hours.

You may need to sit up next to the meter to see what time it switches over. Switching times are deliberately staggered to prevent a big power usage surge if every house came on together.

@PigletJohn thank you so much for your response. So the power supply doesn't come on for the storage heaters until night time then? Thanks for this it does make sense now! I will make sure the switch board and all heaters are set tomorrow to charge up tomorrow night then! Thanks again

that's why they have a separate consumer unit. There will be a time control in or close to the meter, that turn the power on at the correct time. Some of the are radio controlled, and some older ones have a sort of clockface you can see through a window. There is a different scheme in parts of Scotland, IIRC from the old Hydro days. "Total Energy" was it?

If you post pics of the meter, consumer units, and the boxes and cables around and between them I might be able to work out what's what.

if you take the meter readings, there will be an on-peak reading and an off-peak reading; either permanently displayed, or it will cycle through when you press a button. There are regional differences. use as much as you safely can off-peak, including heating your hot-water cylinder with the lower immersion element.

If you stay up late or get up up early, start your washing machine and dishwasher off-peak to save a few pence. The tumble drier is more costly but you should not run it unattended overnight while you are asleep in case it catches fire.

They are very expensive to run. This is why they run on night rate. Some have boosters for daytime. Newer models are less expensive to run.

Had them for nearly 25-years and as long as you know how to set them up (check tomorrows weather forecast) they work perfectly.
The best thing though was when I moved onto Econ10 instead of Econ7. With Econ10 (not every supplier does it) you 2.5Hrs in the afternoon, 2.5Hrs in the evening and 5Hrs at night. Means that instead of just relying on night-time to heat (and coming down to a hot living-room) you can have them at a more sensible heat at night as they will get another two boosts throughout the day.
Also the water heating on E10 was better as I was constantly getting a full tank of hot water, NEVER ran out and was NEVER forced to use the peak-rate back-up immersion in all that time (with the Econ10 tariff I changed to a smaller tank which gave me more room in the airing cupboard).

We had them for the whole of my childhood (no mains gas supply to the village), and they're fine. They wouldn't be my choice in an ideal world, but if that's what you've got, they'll do the job.

Just be aware that they can (especially older ones) take a very long time to heat up properly - it could be a few days before you got the full effect (though getting better and better throughout that time). So if you know there is a cold snap coming, get out in front of it early!

I moved from a house that had them to a house that didn’t. And I miss them. Everyone thinks I’m mad.

But the house was always warm. I get up and down in the night and the house was always warm. Now I’m cold.

I liked being able to turn them on and then not think about the heating at all.
Never had any condensation or mould in that house either. Have in my new one.

Yes they are ugly and expensive to run. But I miss them.

Also. When our electricity went out. They still let out hot air the day after.

Yes, I do remember being horrified about how cold some people’s houses were, Paranoid. Storage heaters (at least in the 80s/90s!) only had two settings - off and boiling!

With NSH, a lot of the issues are a result of a lack of understanding or just a plain unwillingness to operate them correctly.
Of course people want a heating system that can react quickly to changes to the weather but if you have NSH you must adapt and see how you can get the most out of them.
Make sure you set the input correctly, no point moaning about the room being too cold if the NSH hasn't been given a full charge. Likewise the room being too hot, if the input was set high when the weather is turning mild then you will end up opening the windows to cool the room down.
The output setting is usually nothing more than a flap at the top of the heater which releases heat with the only auto regulation being a bimetallic strip control.
Embrace them and they can serve you well otherwise they will constantly disappoint and you will need to sort out an alternative system.

We've just moved to a house with them and they are costing a fortune. They are very old but they easily use 100kW every night, often more. They are only set to 5 input so I'm really hoping that it doesn't get any colder.

Overall, the house is warm but I am definitely going to change them when we do our renovations. They are definitely bad for your purse (well ours are anyway) especially with the energy crisis

@blacklilypad

We've just moved to a house with them and they are costing a fortune. They are very old but they easily use 100kW every night, often more. They are only set to 5 input so I'm really hoping that it doesn't get any colder.

Overall, the house is warm but I am definitely going to change them when we do our renovations. They are definitely bad for your purse (well ours are anyway) especially with the energy crisis

Any electric heating which uses 100kWh of lecky gives out 100kWh of heat. That's physics. Storage heaters are (supposed to be) clever by delaying the time at which the heat is given out. Yours will still be giving out a lot of heat, but they'll be giving it out at night. Maybe the output controls aren't working, or the adjustable insulated flaps (or whatever yours use) need adjusting?

Ours are not clever at giving out the heat. They are rubbish. If the output is at 1 or 9, the heat given out is the same. As I said they are old and our house is not particularly well insulated (we assume). They do get hot but I definitely do not feel like we are getting anywhere near 100kW worth of heat from them presumably not all the electricity is going into heating the heat block inside.

presumably not all the electricity is going into heating the heat block inside.

I don't think that's actually possible! Where else would it go?

I reckon it's more to do with you're saying about the output control. If the flaps are not restricting the heat going out overnight then the heaters are not retaining the heat, and most of it will be going out through the ceiling/windows while you're asleep. It's a bit like trying to fill up the bath without putting the plug in.

@blacklilypad

I wonder if the flaps are jammed, or the knob is not connected?

shutting them should certainly slow the release of heat.

the heating elements are encased in the bricks, so the heat has to go through them to get out

That's interesting. Thank you @PurpleCarpets and @PigletJohn. I'll get my partner to have a look and see if he can work out if the flaps are jammed. They definitely don't do anything currently as I've experimented a lot with it