Electric heating costs

[Lia884]

Would anyone who has electric heating only be able to advice on what type of heating they use and the rough costs (relative to the property size)? We were thinking of chaining from old storage heaters to new electric radiators and just wanted to get an idea from people who use either electric radiators or storage heaters as to the real cost.

Hi Op.

I don’t know if this is useful now as your post was a while ago. I am looking into getting storage heaters myself and here’s what I’ve learnt.

electric heating is 100% efficient. What that means is you pay for the electricity and 100% of that electricity is converted into heat.

Gas heating is less efficient however gas is around 4 times cheaper than electricity.

Storage heaters charge up at night usually on an economy 7 tariff which has a cheap rate from 00.00 to 07.00.

If you’re changing from storage heaters that charge on cheap rate electricity, to electric heaters which you’d be running on daytime peak energy then you would definitely be paying more.

A storage heater is basically like a big thermos flask with bricks inside. The bricks get hot while charging and store the heat, until you ‘open the flask’ to let the heat out. Newer storage heaters are now better at keeping the heat without it leaking throughout the day, so hopefully the heaters won’t run out of heat by the evening when you most likely need them the most. So you may consider upgrading your heaters to the new dimple quantum models. They seem to be the best according to my research. Lots of info on money saving expert forum.

One of the best things you can do to save on running costs is to insulate your home so it actually costs less to heat and it retains that heat.

As I don’t actually have economy 7, for which you need to have 2 electricity meters installed, I’ve signed up with Tomato energy which gives the same discounted night rates. My night rate is comparable to the price of gas.

Apologies if this is info you already knew. I just wish someone had spelled it out to me like this in the first place as I found it all quite confusing. Beware of believing a lot of info from Google because you often find it’s put out there by companies that sell electric radiators and it’s misleading.

The above is accurate, you will pay more if you swap you storage heaters for peak rate heaters.

I would upgrade your storage heaters and possibly add an extra one or increase their sizes if you are struggling with them. They are the cheapest way to heat with electricity.

Thanks for your responses! I did know the above but I think it's useful to share it on these forums as I'm sure they'll be plenty of people starting their research who will benefit! I'm still not 100% sure about storage heaters being cheaper as the older ones (ie before 2018) need to be on for a full 7 hours at night time, even if you only need one-two hours of heat the following day. Whilst they use half price electricity, they use double the wattage. Therefore 7 hours of half price electricity at double the wattage will cost the same as 7 hour of standard rate electricity at half the wattage. Therefore if you need 7 hours or less, you'd be better off with electric radiators. I think in Autumn and Spring most people only need the heating on for a few hours a day so electric radiators would be cheaper, whereas on really cold days in winter storage heaters would be cheaper, but over the course on an entire winter ie Oct to April when most people have some heating on it may balance out cheaper to use electric radiators. I could be wrong and I suppose it's hard to know for sure without trying it.

Yeah I see your point there. They are also super expensive to buy. £800 for a ( let’s be honest) pretty ugly looking rad is a lot! Plus install cost.

My energy tariff actually gives 1/4 price night rate but I’m still weighing up if it’s worth me getting a dimplex. At the moment I get by being extremely frugal with a little oil radiator on wheels, being in quite a well insulated flat.

Did you decide what you’re going to do op?

I had old (1970s / 1980s) storage heaters in part of my 2 bed 60's flat on E7 and they were dire, I was cold all last winter, only helped when I borrowed portable oil radiators and not all the rooms had heating. Earlier this year I installed the following:
https://www.screwfix.com/p/dimplex-1500w-electric-wall-mounted-panel-heater-235mm-x-1142mm-white/347fv in the kitchen (I needed this because of a low window), this in the bathroom https://www.heatershop.co.uk/harmoni-ebro-hs100b?cat=4130 which was hugely overspecced for size really needed but is lovely and toasty and some of these appropriate sizes in the other rooms https://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.uk/ecostrad-iq-ceramic-wifi-controlled-electric-radiator-500w/ If I could have got oil / gel filled rads with the output for the other rooms I would have done but the bathroom rad was 25kg or something ludicrous so don't think they are made much bigger.

I don't think it is cheaper than running the E7 heaters for sodding hours overnight to only be tepid the next morning but I do now have control over when the heating is on (the smart meter has clocked £7-£10 days under both systems), averaging about £6 / day this week (this includes standing charge, cooking, immersion heater etc too). I should add, the insulation in the flat is not great - top floor at the end of a block so don't benefit much from any neighbour's heating.

Electric heating is more expensive to run than gas but as there is no gas to my flat, it was a hell of a lot cheaper replacing the storage heaters with new electric rads and less mess than installing a wet gas system.

The Dimplex and Ecostrad heaters are plug in so didn't need an electrician just drilling to wall mount. Uninstalling the E7 heaters was a slog but I dismantled them piece by piece so down to the heating bricks, elements and metal casing and took them in pieces to the tip over several weeks. A quote I had for replacement electric heating was over £4k and 25% of this was removal. As it was, I reckon I spent about £1.8k on the heaters including a couple of hundred quid on an electrician to put in a couple of extra sockets on the ring main and wire in the bathroom rad.

Thank you so much! That is really useful and so refreshing to hear from someone with such helpful practical info!! :) How are you getting on with the heaters so far as we were also looking at the Ecostrads? We decided to go that route as well (ie replacing all the storage heaters with electric rads) and, although it's still early days, so far we are really happy with the decision! We got a Rointe oil filled radiator and an Ecoso ceramic for the living room and office. So far are bills are consistently either the same or often lower than there were before we changed so - as predicted - so much for storage heaters being cheaper! Although we both work from home - now if we go out for the eve or during the day our bills are even cheaper again.

We decided to take the plunge and change to electric radiators just over a week ago - and so far we're really pleased with our decision! A few days before we borrowed a friends portable oil filled heater and tried that for a day and monitored the cost - and I was very surprised that it cost the same as the day before using storage heaters. Since upgrading we've found the cost has either been the same or - quite often - less! And it's even less again when we go out for a bit during the day or eve! I'm pleased with the decision as we now have nicer looking rads and more space plus much more flexibility when it comes to when we want heating - no more running out by the evening on colds days! I'd say the only down side is that it's not as toasty in the mornings but that's because we haven't set the timers. It is however more toasty in the eves if we want it to be. I think if you got modern storage heaters they probably would be a be cheaper but you're still restricted in terms of aesthetics and scheduling. Let me know if you have any questions!