Storage Heaters

[LetMeStayInBed]

My dd has made an offer on her first flat. The flat was built in the 80s and It’s lovely but it has electric storage heaters. I have no experience of them but there seems to be a lot of negativity online. Does anyone here have any experience of them?
The flat is 50sq m

Had these in our first flat in the late 1980s it was a new build and from memory we added extra panel heaters to bedrooms and bathroom .
They were ok and kept reasonably warm I think we had a cheap tariff which gave us cheap electricity early in mornings . Caveat we were young and newly wed so guess heating wasn’t our main focus . Not sure I would be keen on them now . Could she install gas ?

I imagine it would be a huge cost to install gas central heating. I noticed when we viewed the flat that the current tenant also had a plug in radiator in the sitting room which makes me think it must get cold. ☹️

Had NSH for over 20yrs in my second house (no mains gas until it belatedly arrived in the village and I had it connected) and if used correctly, they can be very effective without costing a fortune.
Most important thing is to make sure you are on the right tariff. Econ7 was the default and it was not the best, house was hot in the morning but started to cool down in the late evening, plus you had a huge hot water tank. Moved onto Econ10 and it was a game changer. 5hrs at night, 2.5hrs in the afternoon and 2.5hrs in the evening, meant you could set the input lower as they were reheated regularly. Better was that I could have a smaller hot water tank (freed up valuable airing cupboard space) as again, it was reheated regularly.

We had a house with storage heaters. Make sure the electric is in economy 7 or 10. We put our heaters on high input and low output. The heat lasted all day and occasionally I needed to put it up to high output in the evening if it was really chilly. You need to remember to turn it down to low output before you got to bed though. Otherwise all the heat will be used up during the night and morning.

I had them in my first flat over 30 years ago. They weren't cheap to run. The flat was warm in the mornings and quite cool by the evenings. In particularly cold weather I had to use the boost. I'd never have them again but I believe the newer ones are much more efficient.

I had a new build in the mid 80s, charged the storage heaters on cheap tariff overnight, but never great and had to use an electric fire too. Cheap to install by builders, expensive and not efficient imo.

They are awful. Expensive and ineffective. Also look dreadful.

Had them in two of my previous rented flats, I didn't have a bad experience but I wouldn't choose to have them.

They were small flats and were quite comfortable in the winter, though you had to keep the doors closed to keep the heat in the rooms.

The main issues were their lack of control, mostly in the late autumn and early spring when the seasons were changing. I had to use the weather forecast the evening before to predict when to turn them on.

They did work though.

I have storage heaters in my flat. Mine are old and expensive to run. As others have said, make sure she is on the economy 7 tariff which gives cheaper overnight electric. My storage heaters come on around midnight and switch off about 7 am. All fine, you get up to a very warm flat, but in the evening it can get chilly and there is no way of putting the heating back on.

Most do have a "boost" switch, but these can be really expensive to use. Again it can make your place really hot, but there is no way of turning the heating down, so I end up open windows.
It is very much the lack of controlling my heating that I dislike.

Also if she is all electric, she will almost certainly have an immersion heater. These can be incredibly expensive if left on. Again, make sure that it is timed to be on overnight and not switched on during the day. My immersion is on about 2 hours a night and that gives me more than enough hot water.

A friend has them, but just doesn't use them.

You mentioned gas, my friend's flat is in a block that is electric only so GCH might not be an option.

If you are one of the 'economy' tariffs use the cheaper overnight power for washing / dishwasher / anything else you can think of.

We moved into a house with them 18 months ago and I was worried because when I had them 30 years ago they were rubbish for a family with children, we never had heat when we needed it in the winter.

We replaced the ones in our house with modern ones and they are fantastic. Upstairs are simple panel heater that we can control with an app if we want to. Downstairs has fancy high heat retention ones that are so much cheaper to run than the old ones.

If hers are old she may need to think about replacing the consumer unit too.

I would only make on offer on the basis of seeing the previous two years of electricity bills, I suspect they may be horrendous.

My mum had them in a flat and ended up just using plug in convector heaters. SH were expensive to run as you run out of heat by the evening and end up using the boost function. She had modern ones fitted about a year before she moved and they were no better they just looked nice. I wouldn't ever consider moving somewhere with them.

This is a good idea.

This, they can be a really expensive way to heat if the building is not well insulated.