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.

I'd only buy a house like that if you had the budget for an air source heat pump. We have one and used correctly they are fab (don't listen to Telegraph readers!)
I definitely wouldn't bother installing gas, we decommissioned ours and just have an induction hob.

By the time you've found a place that ticks all the boxes turning it down because of something you can change realtively easily seems a bit crazy.

I would :

a) Discount purchase price to reflect replacement.

b) Make sure that replacement was actually possible (normally people have storage heaters for a reason - ie they are not on the gas grid).

c) Look at the EPC and energy saving potential of the house itself, which would be more important to me than the current heating methods. If you buy a house that can't be improved ...

Remember even if you cannot get them to discount, you may only have a couple of years of saving before you can replace them with better. They aren't fixed to the walls giving you high bills for the rest of the time in the house. You can replace heating methods. You can't move a house 3 miles nearer to a school.

Not a chance. They are always the first thing I look for in the photos on Rightmove. I find that if they do have storage heaters the EAs seem to try very hard to make sure they can't be seen in the photos! I have lived in 2 very different type of flats with them. No matter how much you do to use them optimally, they are still less than useless. I used to wake up boiling in the mornings and by the time I'd get home from work the flat would be freezing and I'd go to bed shivering :( It was so cold that family and friends would never visit for long in winter and I'd have to give them a blanket when they were there! Plus they look so ugly. They are expensive to run as well. Either avoid completely or get the seller to knock off the amount of money it would cost you to switch to a different type of heating system.

Bucking the trend, my DH has just removed the central heating system in a flat DMIL owns (boiler kaput) and replaced it with modern electric heaters and an instant hot water system. No risk of gas or water pipe leaks. Heaters are v sleek and modern looking, easy to control (not night storage heaters). Might be worth costing up replacing the storage heaters with some modern electric heaters as a medium term solution. Replacing the boiler was going to be really expensive and this system was cheap, clean and is not proving expensive to run.

Yes I have storage heaters in a nice purpose built flat and it's toasty either way just hall and lounge heating only. Used to pay less than £100per month for all electricity (including hot water) more now due to it all going up.

A flat is a very different thing to heat than a house in terms of running costs (in most cases)

3 years ago I was stuck in a rental
property for a month in winter due to delays with the property I was buying, and my sale having gone through. It had these exact same heaters. I was only there for a month, and the cost of actually staying warm that month (two bed flat, insulated but not great, but double glazing etc all in place and no draughts), admittedly whilst wfh, was almost £1,000. For a month. I wouldn’t touch a system like this with a barge pole. Definitely price up replacing it, and factor that in to what the price should be. It may be that the sellers have already done this (eg if it’s £20k less than comparable properties), but you also need to allow for the fact that putting in a new system will be messy and disruptive, and you’ll almost certainly need to replaster walls and redecorate afterwards (based on one house where I had to have the plumbing redone, it is dirty, messy, and means a lot of work to make good afterwards). ideally you’d get that work done before you move in, which means paying for storage and somewhere else to stay whilst it’s being done. Especially if you are moving in winter, as you won’t have heating till it’s finished.

I wouldn't want to keep them but you may be eligible for grants or loans to upgrade the insulation and install a heat pump- dependent on where you live and if you have young children or anyone with asthma etc. so it could work out well, google on the UK gov site it should help.

I would run for the hills......

You've just given me a flashback to a tiny flat I lived in years ago. No way would I ever want to live somewhere with storage heaters again!

Some can be efficient. Ask about their bills, how much are they paying in electricity overall each year.

IMO storage rads have a bad reputation because they are the cheapest heating to install in rental properties which are often very poorly insulated. I think it boils down how warm or not your property is.
When we bought a flat with storage rads in the 80s they worked fine and kept the flat warm 24/7 even in a cold winter. The large economy7 electricity bill was similar to a combined gas and electricity bill for a similar property.
As they are zero maintenance, there is no need to buy a maintenance contract, this also saves money.

We had them in our first ever house, had to have a portable heater in the bedroom at night and we had bad damp. I wouldn't consider a property with them

@IloveStaceySolomon we had those exact storage heaters in 1991! Honestly the heating is useless, not adjustable, is there an option to install mains gas? If so I would do this. If you are used to gas CH, you won’t like SH & emersion heating for your hot water, it’s really inconvenient.

@IloveStaceySolomon it’s a buyers market, offer on the basis of installing gas CH. Good luck.

No I wouldn't do it.

We rented an apartment with electric heaters which never warmed it and the cost was eye watering. We had 2 miserable winters.

Maybe you could negotiate the price to install gas?

Some houses are so well insulated it doesn't really matter what they are heated with.

Even with mains electric costing 3x gas and 3x heat pump electric, 3x nothing is still nothing.

I know a guy in Norway and asked him whether he had a heat pump (Norway is king of the heat pumps) and surprisingly he said no. And when I asked him why he said the house was so well insulated he didn't need the electric very often, only to heat water and a few times a year to help heat the house and the wood burner was good enough, so why bother pay out for the heat pump cost and the maintenance cost as well ?

That said there is a big difference in insulation capability of your typical scandenavian house and a 70s UK build.

This

I wouldn’t unless I had the budget to replace them.
I rented a house from 2007-2011 with them, electricity bill was 4000 a year and the house was freezing in the winter. They were over 30 years old.
The day I was moving out the owner came in and ripped them all out (after promising to change them in 2007)

OP they just aren't viable as a heating system as others have said. You really need to build in the cost of a new heating system which will be £thousands. Is there mains gas available to the property? I would be suspicious that there isn't otherwise previous owners would have changed it.
If there's no mains gas then other heating options will be even more expensive.

No. Or only if you can replace. My (rented) flat has a storage heater. It eats money to boil you alive at night, to be tepid when you come in after work, to be stone cold in the evening when you need it. No such thing as just turning on the heating for an hour. My place is well insulated too.

No. To the extent whenever I've house hunted (to buy or rent) I've stipulated any property not have them and ruled a place out without looking at it

This.

Having rented one once - no. They blasted out heat all day while I was at work and went off in the evenings when I got home. Useless.

Never ever again, I've had two rented flats and a cottage with them. All utterly miserable in winter. Make sure you have a heating upgrade in your buying budget.