Would you buy a house heated by storage heaters?

[IloveStaceySolomon]

Found a lovely house, good location, layout works for our family, but is has no gas and is heated by old-fashioned storage heaters, so has a very low EPC rating. We currently have full gas central heating in our existing house, rated EPC C. I'm worried about the energy costs. Would it be unreasonable to ask to see some bills? Would storage heaters put you off? I know I could get gas laid on and fit radiators but buying the house would leave us no budget to do this.

No, I had them in a rented flat and it's miserable.

I had them years ago in a rented flat - never again, they were as much use as a chocolate teapot - in fact less use because a chocolate teapot might actually get warm once in a while.

Also remeber you might not be able to get gas central heating installed the pipes dont run everywhere

We replaced them in a house we bought, It had a couple of gas fires in the main living rooms and we lived just with these until we could afford central heating.

No.

Solid fuel, maybe. Oil, definitely. Storage heaters, no way.

No!!!! As pp, cold, expensive, inefficient...

As PP said, it depends where you are looking.

My area doesn't have a gas supply so this isn't uncommon.

Those big ones will be about 2kwh each. You need to run them on economy 7. The cheap rate from October (varies by supplier and where you live, sadly I am expensive) is about 17p. So that's up to £2.38 a day for each one although they won't necessarily draw in a full charge every time - it depends how you set them.

I run a couple and have a wood burner. The latter is what really kicks out the heat but in combination they are fine.

However, I am not used to central heating. If you are then they are unlikely to work well for you.

Their advantage is being on all the time so if you are home through the day a lot this is reasonably economic. But if you don't get in til after 6pm it's a bit pointless.

They are really expensive just now so if they need upgrading then investment in gas, oil or even a heat pump would probably be a better use of your money.

100% no! I have exactly those ones. Well, just three of them in a new build. Would get more warmth by lighting a £20 note and it would be cheaper. Never again.

Yes exactly this

Probably one of the most expensive ways to heat a house and hard to get the heat when you need it... but if house has an excellent thermal envelope so retained heat well it could be tolerable... but given the age of the heating system the chances of the house having an excellent standard of insulation etc is slim... oh yeah, you said low EPC, so nah.
But... it does leave room for improvement so if that could be reflected in the purchase price that could be ok you could improve the value taking it as a project.

There are some good deals available on getting a full heat pump system installed that might work out cheaper than a gas connection. Presumably the house also has an immersion heater which will also cost but on the plus side there is space for a proper tank to take heat from a heat pump.

However, I would be a little concerned that if the current owners had not got the money together to upgrade the system, they may have been underheating, which can lead to damp, and I would be concerned that there were other things they also hadn't had the money to sort out. A survey cpuld answer that, but a proper survey not just a mortgage valuation.

At the very least , as pps say, fet a rough idea of what an upgrade would cost, and knock that off the price so you can afford to sort it.

@YourWinter both gas and oil boilers require electricity to function. In the event of a power cut your heating won't work.

Storage heaters will continue to kick out heat for hours. There are plenty of reasons not to have them but in a power cut they are a positive rather than negative - as I have found out many times in rural Scotland!

@RamblingFar quantums are the Rolls Royce of storage heaters! - I'm currently saving up to replace our old style ones with quantums. They really are brilliant if the alternative is oil or bottled gas.

OP, it's a bit unconventional to have NSH if mains gas is an option - is there definitely mains gas available to the property?

There's no gas to our village, we have NSH of a similar age. We've a bungalow, I think that helps, as the heat doesn't disappear upstairs. You're supposed to turn the output dial right down overnight so they heat up but don't release the heat until morning when you turn the output up. I never remember and end up sweating.

We only use one in the living room, one in the hall, and one in DDs bedroom. It's warm enough. We do have a fire for if the heat has run out by late evening or a cold snap catches us by surprise (you have to turn them on the day before you need them)

Yes, Central heating would be better. But not affordable at all to run on oil or gas so we're stuck with NSH and making the best of it. It's OK. All last year we were on the price cap for electric and paid £140pcm. We finished the winter in credit. Our water heating and oven are also electric. So that cost covered almost all energy. (We've had a big gas bottle that's lasted 3.5 years and still going, for the hob)

Oh, type of property - 1970s bungalow, cavity insulation, loft insulation, uninsulated concrete floor, double glazed. Think the EPC was E in 2020 (the bands have changed since I think)

Potentially yes.

It would depend on what the options and cost of replacing them would be and I would negotiate an offer price on that basis.

I'm isn't something I'd buy if no alternative options were available or unaffordable to implement pretty swiftly after moving in though.

I think they would put a lot of people off, so especially in today's market I think you'd be in a strong position to negotiate on the price.

I'd start by getting quotes for different options and take it from there. If the vendors won't allow you to visit to get a couple of quotes then I'd walk away as I'd suspect there where more complications and costs associated with alternative options that they don't want you be aware of.

As long as you have included the cost of replacing the whole heat8ng system into your own total cost.

Also I’d want to know if those heaters are tte only reasons for tte very low rating!!

Btw I would t put off by it just like I would t be put off by a house that needs a new bathroom or a new kitchen.
You know there will work to do. You know there will some cost to it. As long as tte price if tte house reflects that, it’s ok with me!

Absolutely not! Had them in a flat, they’re very inefficient and the flat was freezing. Can’t dry clothes or anything either. There were none in the bathroom, which wasn’t fun in winter 🥶. Some of my clothes were ruined by damp and mould as the place never got warm enough to dry the flat, the whole building had a damp problem. I never had any washing drying there, had to use a launderette as no washing machine.

I always thought they were crap until I stayed somewhere with modern ones and they were fantastic.

With grants available for heat pumps, though, I would probably choose an ASHP as a replacement.

We replaced ours with modern electric heaters. Wasn't too expensive. They're really efficient and our heating costs are roughly the same as people we know in similar sized houses with central heating.

Check out 'rointe'. We've been happy with them (in that we don't really notice them. I'm not the sort of person to have strong views on heating systems- if they work).

We've been in our house 15 years + and had storage heaters all that time.
We had gas put in a few weeks ago. So this will be our first winter with gas.

If you have a main gas supply to the road, definitely change it over.

We were never cold as such, but the hall one broke the year before last and the with the prices last winter we couldn't have the 2 remaining high as we would normally. That cost a bomb over winter
and we were super cold.

We went through the 2010 winter in Scotland with them.

Im not a storage heater fan or anything but they are actually very efficient; almost all the electricity they use gets turned into heat, ie. It’s an energy efficient process. A gas central heating system is typically cheaper though, and storage heaters are not very controllable.

We had storage heaters when I was a teenager.
Downstairs.
House was absolutely freezing.
Too expensive to crank up & the panel heaters in the bedroom never got switched on.
That was a wee 2 bed semi detached as well not a big draughty mansion.
I don't really like my house being hot or putting heating on.
I'll walk about with a hot water bottle stuffed up my goonie.
I do make sure the kids are warm though.
Wow, a wee post about storage heaters transported me right back there to the 90's and made me realise why I don't like heating.

Storage heaters are ok if they are set up correctly and you are on the correct tariff. I used to be on economy 11 but I don’t think that exists now.
The modern storage heaters are much better and I was contemplating fitting them in my house as the ASHP is crap (crap installation can’t really be improved) but I’m going for solid fuel instead as I get free wood. I might be wishing I had the storage heaters by spring!
Some of the older ones do need checking every so often to make sure they are working correctly.

Personally I might, but I lived for many years in properties with no central heating and even now I have it, I rarely bother to turn it above 16 degrees, so take that as you will. I would expect the price to reflect the heating situation.