Electric Radiators / Storage heaters

[Lia884]

Does anyone have experience of replacing storage heaters with electric radiators? We have old storage heaters that are very expensive to run and are looking to upgrade. We have no access to gas and cannot get a heat pump as we’re in an apartment. We’re looking at German style Magamatic ceramic radiators, or oil filled and would love to hear from anyone who has experience with these. We’re home all day so do need heat during the day but we do not need heat at night time or for it to be on all day every day! Does anyone know how these compare and what the running costs are like?

Sorry late response. Depends if you are on a dual meter or not - we are and the storage heaters are significantly cheaper as they charge overnight on the cheaper rate. They are a bit of a pain as we have old ones so once they’re on they’re on and we can’t then control the temperature but worth it for how much cheaper they are to run. For example, over a month it’s cheaper to run 3 storage heaters than our 1 little oil filled radiator.

Thank you! We're finding them very expensive as although you can use half price electricity to charge them they charge at double the wattage plus you then have to pay more for your day time usage as the day right is higher. With them on it's warmest at night which is a total waste whereas we only really need heat when we need it during the day.

Ours only charge at night because of how they are wired in (no idea how that works!) so don’t use any electricity during the day at all even when switched on at the wall and just let out the heat stored overnight. I turn the outage to the lowest setting at night and then turn them up when I need to during the day. They don’t work perfectly as they are old but I know the newer ones are apparently fantastic with managing the heat outlay.

Oil filled electric radiators are good as you can obviously control when they are on and off but they are typically a lot more expensive to run (on the basis the storage heaters are only using electricity at night). It does also depend how good your insulation is though. Ours is terrible as we live in a timber cottage with no insulation in the outer walls so we do need a constant heat source to keep the temperature up inside and would use the oil radiators a lot more than just on for a few hours in the morning and evening.

Ah yes I see, I know insulation makes a massive difference so if you'd need the radiators on all the time that would get very expensive! We have a Economy 7 tariff as well and the storage heaters only charge at night, but because they use half price electricity at double the wattage it would the the equivalent of 8 hours of usage during the day and that's why we're considering switching. It's so hard though so always good to hear from people with experience before deciding and committing!

I'm just bumping this - did you get any further with it OP?
My elderly mum has a flat with storage heaters and she has a strange set up in her electric meter and when I take readings I have to send in 3 readings. She is shortly moving to a smart meter..... The previous owner of her flat removed the storage heater from the living room and we're now looking in to replacing it. My electrician has recommended Rointe electric radiators as like you she needs the heat in there during the day.

Yes we changed out our old storage heaters for electric radiators and went for a Pointe in the living room. So far our bills have been cheaper! It's not as warm in the mornings so if someone wants it quite warm/hot all day long and during the night new storage heaters might be a good option. However for us we've round that we have more flexibility and slightly lower bills during winter and much lower bills days that we are out for a bit or it's not super cold! The Rointe has been very good. It did have a problem and switched itself off a few times but Rointe sent an electrician.