Storage Heaters

bragan

I have just moved into a new apartment and they have storage heaters. i have always had gas before, so I'm not sure how these work.
I know that they work off a cheaper electricity. They are supposed to heat at night, and give out the heat over the day.

I have two questions/issues:
1. the storage heaters in the bedrooms have timers. You set them to come on. There are no other controls on them, apart from the timers. Does that mean that unless the timer is set, they won't heat at night, or do they heat anyway, and then don't give out the heat if the timers are not set? when these storage heaters are on, they get hot.

2. the storage heater in the living area works differently. It has two switches on the wall beside it. There are no timers on it. If you turn on the switch on the wall, a fan comes on. So, if we have both switchs off, does that mean that they don't heat at night? if the switches are on, what does that mean?? if this heater is on, it doesn't really get hot, but gets slightly warm towards the bottom. This heater also has two controls at the top, but the writing is worn off, so I'm not sure what they are for.

Any help would be great, because I'm confused. And I don't want to end up with a huge ESB bill.

astrofool

The one's in the bedrooms are not storage heaters, but instant heaters, you turn them on and you get heat, usually good for a 15 minute blast of heat to get the room warm.

On the living room one, turn on the switch which does not start the fan, this is the storage heater and should come on at night, and be warm the next morning. Turn the two switches all the way clockwise, then turn down to your heating requirement. One is for the instant heater (the fan that turns on) and the other is for the storage heater, you should figure out which is which through trial and error. It'll take you a few days to get it how you want.

You should also have a trip switch for the heaters on the trip box.

Electric

I had a system just like you described in college. I would think that the heaters in the bedroom are not storage heaters they are just heaters that work only when you turn them on and don't store heat to release at a later point.

As for the heater in the living room, I think from what you describe it has two functions. One of the switches on the wall will turn on the normal heater (i.e. the one that gives out heat only while you have the switch turned on). The second switch would seem to be the storage heater part. With our one in college this switch always had to be on for the storage heater to work. It would draw in heat during the day and then release it at night (and by night I mean the middle of the night, could never figure out how to release it during the day). Anyway basically it meant that it was lovely and cosy during the day (when we weren't really there) and at night we had to turn on the heater.

It's a very confusing system so would recommend reading the manual if you can or if not googling the manufacturer of the heater and try to find out more about them.

Hope this helps!

bragan

Thanks everyone. That does help. I was wondering why there was such a difference between the one's in the bedroom and the one's in the living area.

Are the one's in the bedroom hard on electricity then?
I think at the minute there all turned off, and the place is quite warm, so hopefully we won't have to use them too often!

sam34

on a related note, i have a storage heater in the living room which also has an instant component. the instant component is controlled by a switch and a temp yoke, just push the plus/minus button. but the storage heater part of it doesnt seem to be controlled by these plus/minus buttons, so its either all or nothing with the storage heating. its a pain because this time of the year the place gets too warm. anyone know a way around this?

Smoggy

check with your leccy supplier you have night rates setup.

Victor

bragan wrote:

Are the one's in the bedroom hard on electricity then?

They are all equally hard on electricity. The difference is storage heaters use cheaper (but equally useful) electricity.

Be aware that storage heating is best used where there is daytime occupancy.

I think at the minute there all turned off, and the place is quite warm, so hopefully we won't have to use them too often!

The weather isn't so bad at the moment - February may be different. Apartments tend to be warmer than houses anyway, because heat lost by one is gained by another.

Electric

Yes they are all really really hard on electricity.

The ESB have a calculator on their website that will allow you to roughly estimate how much your different appliances will cost to run. This might give you an idea of what kinda bill you might be facing.

http://www.esb.ie/main/energy_home/appliance_calculator.jsp