All electric newbuild?

[ginghamstarfish]

Looking a buy newbuild, all electric, solar panels battery 8kw, plus solar assisted heat pump for hot water (works via evaporation??). Anyhow my question is this - the room heating consists of ceiling mounted infrared panels. The predicted EPC is very good, A 93. The tech brochure estimates average annual usage of 14kwh per day (obv more in winter less in summer). The house is lovely but a bit apprehensive about electric heating. Any thoughts about this setup?

Is the future, I would love this. Is expensive to trofit but as gas is on the way out it will be great to be set up from the start.

I’m on all electric and it’s fine but expensive to have the heating on, you should be ok in a new build because they design them to be as energy efficient as possible.

'Trofit' should be retrofit

I'd say you'd have a couple of expensive months.

I have some of this (although without the new build insulation benefits).

I'm assuming it would be a single rate tariff as it's not storage heaters? But if not and you have cheaper night rate you'd see more benefits.

The downside is that when you need it most, solar is unpredictable. Yesterday I generated 13kwh. Today it was 0.9kwh.

Do you know the wattage of the infrared heaters? Again I have one of these and I like it. It's 700w so if I have a surplus in generation I stick it on but it needs to be a decent sunny day.
Realistically you'll be unlikely to match the draw the heaters require on most winter days and similarly the battery will only discharge at a certain rate that might manage one but not multiple especially when running the rest of the house. Hopefully you'd keep your heat well though.

I'm on a split rate so even without sun I can charge the battery on the cheap rate which is only 5.5p. But it isn't connected to the storage heaters as the draw would be too much and there's no benefit as they only run on the cheap rate. It does run the majority of the rest which is a big saving.

This isn't to say it's not a good system, just that you need to understand the limitations.

In the better months you'll be laughing and will have minimal, if any, bills.

If you pay by DD you should be able to spread out the expensive months (December and January are noticeably shorter for sunlight hours though I am very far north) so it's quite manageable.

I'm all electric in a new build.

When we moved in we had an air source heat pump (we actually have a hybrid system with gas boiler backup, but the use is so trivial it's not worth counting). We have recently added 7kw of solar panels, plus 14kw batteries.

It works well for us. Looking at February so far our highest day's use was 23kw, lowest 17. During summer it's more like 12kw per day - 5 bed, 220sqm house.

If your batteries can be charged from the grid then look at a tariff with cheap overnight hours. We have an EV (not included in figures above, it uses as much as the house does) so already had a time of use tariff. We use that to charge the batteries up overnight then run down during the day to supplement the solar.

The battery is 8kw, so in theory could charge from the grid off peak at night. There is an EV charger (but we don't have an EV) so I think could have the overnight tariff?
The infrared panels wattage varies by room, from 2 totalling 1800w in the large kitchen diner to 350w for the landing. Talked to a man already living in one of these for a few months, and he says they have all been disappointed with the bills so far - he is using 40kwh per day in a 5 bed, nb using 30kwh per day in a 4 bed. So that will almost all be coming from the grid at full price.
I realise the solar is a benefit when the sun is shining, but you don't need heating then, and that is surely the major part of bills in an all electric house. In summer then it's just fridge freezer, tv, computer, washing machine, but there are only 2 of us so not having loads of showers or doing laundry/drying every day, no EV.
Just feels like a leap into the unknown, and if we buy, how easy would it be to sell on?

Sounds like the IR heaters aren't going to be nearly as efficient as our air source heat pump given their ratings. Because we've just had the panels installed I'm keeping a fairly close eye on our usage and (unless we're cooking at the same time) then the highest we hit when the air pump is going is about 3.5kw being used which includes about 500w for lights, gadgets, tv etc. It only tends to run for about an hour at a time

I've just looked at my data for January (I'm in Scotland, so not the warmest place) and my average daily use for January - excluding the car - was 22kw. Highest day was 35 (we had a guest who did two loads of washing and drying that day), lowest was 15.

I'd be happy with everything except the infrared panels - they heat very unevenly so one spot can be toasty warm and 50cm away is cold. it is like the warmth of the sun in summer in a sunny spot v a shady spot.

Don't IR heaters heat the person, not the air & room? So you're not actually warming up the fabric of the building - so won't that lead to damp and mould?

I think with them being relatively novel they would put some potential buyers off when looking to resell - especially as you would have to now be truthful about how your particular installation performs, rather than the builders estimate for something not yet built.