Storage heater costs

orange247

Hi

Myself and my girlfriend are looking to move in together into a new apartment. We're both living in houses that have gas heating and most of the apartments we're viewing have electric storage heating. Just wondering what are the rough costs involved and the difference between winter and summer.

Would you advise against moving into a gaff with storage heating or if its managed well do costs work out the same?

Cheers
Dave

Victor

Apartments are much more energy efficient than houses as most of your energy losses are to your neighbours and vice versa.

Is it actually storage heating or just electric heating? Storage heating is designed to work overnight (or whatever period you set), whereas ordinary electric heating is instantaneous.

I imagine electricity works out a bit more expensive in winter, but has the advantage over gas+electricity of only having one bill and one set of standing charges. Check out the tariff section of the esb website www.esb.ie

irlirishkev

Hey,

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but it saves starting a new one about the same kind of query..

I've just moved into a place with storage heating and am still trying to figure it out.
Do I switch it on at night in order for it to heat up and warm the place the next day? When I wake up the next morning, should I switch it off to retain heat for that evening?
I'm a big confussed about the system.. also, what's the best way to use the input/output controls..
It's a Goldshield system..

Thanks,

Kevin.

Victor

Do you use the property during the day or in the evening?

There should be one or two timers - one probably controls the (cheap) night rate electricity for storage heating that warms the house overnight and the other is for (more expensive) ordinary rate electricity for casual on-demand heating.

irlirishkev

I'd only be there in the evening..

There's two switches beside the heater, on the wall. One switch starts a fan heater built into it, the other one controls the 'storage' part, if you know what I mean.. ie, I switch it on at 9pm, nothing happens till I get out of bed the next day when I discover it's pumping heat around the room.

The fan heater just 'works' whenever I flick the switch..

Kev.

andersde10

storage heating is fairly useless if your working during the day and only need heat when you get home. I have it in our house at the moment and had in also in our last place and still haven't figured out how to get the heat to stay till the evening when I get home!

As far as I can tell the best bet, to get the most heat anyway, is to have output to min overnight and input to max, then when you get home their should be some heat left and you can just boost it for a little. Unfortunately it seems like a real waste of energy cus most of the heat is still given off during the day. I haven't worked out costs yet but I reckon it'd just be cheaper to turn the storage heaters off completely and just get pure electric heaters and turn them on when I get home.

Anyone else worked this out?

irlirishkev

andersde10 wrote:

As far as I can tell the best bet, to get the most heat anyway, is to have output to min overnight and input to max, then when you get home their should be some heat left and you can just boost it for a little

That's what I did last night.. but I just know my flat is lovely and toasty now, and I'm sitting in work! Perhaps the best thing to do is just use the built in fan heater as I need it. Luckily the place is new, so as a result is well insulated, so should keep the heat in..

K.

andersde10

irlirishkev wrote:

That's what I did last night.. but I just know my flat is lovely and toasty now, and I'm sitting in work! Perhaps the best thing to do is just use the built in fan heater as I need it. Luckily the place is new, so as a result is well insulated, so should keep the heat in..

K.

Yep, just seems like such a waste having it warm when you aren't there. I keep meaning to look at the bills and try to figure out how much it costs me to have the storage heating on full at night and then how long I could use the fan heaters instead for the the same price - would be interesting to know!

Victor

Then I suppose set the storage heaters to effectively a frost setting, so you don't wake up to icicles in the bathroom and have it on for the weekend / whenever you are home during the day and use the fan heater in the evening.

irlirishkev

I Just had a look at the ESB site, and found a bit of information...

Storage Heating

Kevin.