How to use storage heating

JackReacher1980

Folks, moved into an apartment a few months ago, and its my first experience of storage heating. We have an input and an output dial. We turn the input dial up when we go bed at 11, and turn it down to zero when we get up at 9. Our bills are over three hundred euro, we are in a three bed apartment. We heat the water at night. Can anyone tell me if this is an average bill?? Are we working the heating properly?

mazthespark

bill sounds about rite but most storage heaters are kind of "set & forget" as the name implies the heater stores heat in bricks contained inside the heater and then releases it. so the input dial regulates the amount of heat stored and the output regulates the rate at which it is released. the storage heaters switch on at nite and heat up (similar to your hot water) and release the heat then durin day depending on output setting. there is no need to adjust knobs once your happy with the heat you are gettin from it. the heater will turn off itself in morning is usually controller by your night rate electricity by the esb

hope this helps and makes sense

Dempo1

Sounds to me the apartment is not connected to night time metering. Storage heaters are only economical if utilized on a night time rate from the ESB, i don't know much about this but you should contact the ESB about this. Your Emerson will also use allot of electricity. Unfortunately one draw back of apartment living can be the dependency on Electricity for Heating. For example my oil consumption which also gives me piping hot water and used approx 8hrs a day is costing me an average of €25 per week.

The ESB website has a clever calculator on how much particular appliances use per two months, take a look at it, the Kettle and any element-ed appliance will expensive.:rolleyes:

M cebee

the metering is prob ok

3-bed is large for all electric heating

Dempo1

Its a real pity Gas was not installed, another thing i did at my place was install a stove (70%) effiecient but i realise this may not be an option unless your on ground level and have a chimney. Eitherway, your bills do seem to be quite high.

mazthespark

300 euro is about rite for this kind of situation. all of your heating & electricity is on the one bill so it may seem high. if the house is room rented then the cooker etc may be on 3-4 occasions an evening a lot of lights left on 2/3 tvs maybe it wouldnt be long adding up

JackReacher1980

Its just myself and a friend renting, so only actually two of us there. The cooker might only be used once a day, but as for the storage heating only coming on at night, it doesnt seem to work like that. By the logic above, does that mean that I turn the storage imput up to 9, and just leave it like that all the time?

We are Airtricity, by the way.

mazthespark

it generally should but you wont get heat at night ony durin day when heater is off if you get me. there should be a switch (or 2 if its a combi) beside the heater most of them have a light on them and this should be lit from about 12 am to 8 am

Dempo1

I did not account for the fact all your electric costs are in this Bill so all in all, its not as bad as you may think. I don't know much about eirtricity but i had heard they are competitive, are you getting billed bi monthly by the way?

JackReacher1980

Yep, thats 2 months. I dont think its too bad, but the flatmate is having a fit!
If I just thought we were using the storage heating correctly, then I wouldnt care.
We are the only ones on the top floor of our apartment block, and we rarely see neighbours!

Thoie

JackReacher1980 wrote: »

We turn the input dial up when we go bed at 11, and turn it down to zero when we get up at 9. ... Are we working the heating properly?

Turning the input down to zero in the morning when you get up does nothing - think of the input dial as only working at night.

The input controls the amount of heat stored, and the output controls the rate at which it's released. It might take you a few days to find the right level for the input, but once you've found it you should rarely need to go at the input again.

If you're out all day, leave the output on a lower setting. Think of the output like a tap on a fixed quantity of water - you want a small trickle of heat coming out all day. If you turn the output up high, all the heat will rush out early in the day when you're not there to appreciate it.

(For the people rolling their eyes right now, ignore physics and just go with it).

You can, if you want, turn the output to minimal before going to bed, and only turn it up when you get home in the evening. If your output is on a thermostat (Try twiddling the output dial during the day - listen carefully and you'll probably hear a "click" at some stage - that's the thermostat. ) turn the dial down until you hear the click in the evening, then turn it a teensy bit back up past that.

Find out if your night saver electricity is just for the storage heaters, or if everything kicks over to nightsaver at night. If everything kicks in, get in the habit of using the washing machine/dishwasher/tumbledryer during the night hours and that will save a bit as well. Make sure your immersion is coming on during the night hours too, and not during the day.

If there's a storage heater in every room, consider if you actually want to heat all the rooms - maybe you could leave the door of the 3rd empty room open and just let warmth from the hall circulate through.

Hagar

Is it a combination unit with a supplementary convector heater? The convector part runs at the normal tariff and can be quite expensive. Have you got the convector on as well without realising it? No offence, it's easy enough to do if you are not familiar with the heater unit.

JackReacher1980

Yep, we have a convector, I think, which I try not to use! Have just realised that our bill may have been estimated - it works out at exactly the same, divided by week, as our first bill, which was only for 6 weeks.
We used to have imput and output dials at 5imput, 3 output, would that make sense?
I'm guessing (and I'm not very technically minded), that we should put the imput to about5/6, and only use output when we come home at night? Or am I getting this completely wrong?

Thoie

JackReacher1980 wrote: »

I'm guessing (and I'm not very technically minded), that we should put the imput to about5/6, and only use output when we come home at night? Or am I getting this completely wrong?

That sounds about right - mine are marked 0-6 and I keep input around 4 and output between 2 and 3 (because I like the place to be warm when I get in in the evening).

Cicero

OP- Thoie has it bang on there...just a couple of extra things to consider- some obvious-

1.If 3 bedroomed and only 2 people- don't have the heat on in every room
2.It cost's a little more to go on the night charge (i.e there is an on-going charge for night-rate electricity) but it should work out better for you overall
3. If you have a clothes dryer and use it a lot, then you'll definately see reductions in your bill if you only use it during the night-rate time period.
4. You may or may not be able to go on the night -rate:- see link below for further explanation

http://www.esb.ie/esbcustomersupply/residential/your_account/urban_nightsaver_tariff.jsp

JackReacher1980

Thanks, we dont actually heat the third bedroom - we have heat in our own bedrooms, but its not storage, so dont use it much. Only 2 storage heaters, one in the hall and one in sitting room. Have turned off the one in the hall completely, as its not needed.
Gonna just try leaving the heating system at 5 imput and 3 output, see how that works out, methinks. Have also just figured out that the bill was estimated, so might not be as bad