Storage heaters

mkhall

Hi all. I don't know much about these but my understanding is that they store up heat from night and let it out during the day? Ours was left on accidentally for five days. Is this going to be really expensive? Just wondering what to expect from our esb bill next month, thanks for your help. :eek:

Cathmandooo

They work on a day / night tariff, they heat up during the night (using the night time cheaper tariff) and naturally let the heat out during the day (no electricity being used for this part).

If you are set up with your day and night meters then it's perfectly normal to leave them on all the time, you can adjust the controls to choose how much heat you want them to take in and how fast you want it to let it out.

I have a storage heater, since the weather turned cold we've had them on constantly, they switch themselves off when your day meter kicks in.

goat2

i had two of them in the little cottage i rent out, and the lad who rent used to put on this booster thing, it burnt up lots of electricity on him,
so any way he lost his job, and is still there, and since he is a brilliant tenant, i installed radiators and a multifuel stove, he cannot beleive the heat in his place and the savings he has made, as he can buy what he can afford, he can buy timber, coal, turf, and even burn those woodpellets in the thing just by inserting a basket, he cannot beleive the improvement, now he put stew on the thing, along with a kettle of water, so that when he wants tea coffee, he can put whatever he needs in leccy kittle and it is done in seconds as the water is already good and hot, also he has the hot water for washing and showers and baths from this thing, so the,
he is very thankful for the whole thing,
he found the storage heaters dearer than he finds this to fill,
and he has more benefits from it than the storage, they only gave a bit of heat and only just, were not worth it.
i also put in a top up of insulation in attic while i was at it,
i am broke now from all that also a bit of double glazing.
but it is a happy broke, as it is helping someone else get buy on the little they have now that they are unemployed,
i know how it is for him, as i am unemployed myself, and i am a person who worked all my life, but hopefully things will change.

Piliger

How can we check if they are working correctly as regards timing ?

I was sitting up at 3.30 watching Obama last week and my heater was putting out huge amounts of heat.

Then this week I noticed that the red light on it's hard wired plug was on all day ... but off a lot of the night ... Is there a timer somewhere I can check ?

Petey89

they are the worst thing ever invented, I live in an apartment with storgae heaters and we cant turn them on because they EAT electricty. our bills could triple what they normaly are if we have the heater on, if we dont have heaters on our ESB is about 100-120 if the heaters are on it goes up to 300-400 or more. if you are thinking of gettin a place with these i would stay away.

mkhall

The storage heater was left on five days straight, so would that be the equiv of it being on 24hrsx5? If so, i would expect our bill to triple. :mad: We have electric heaters we use in our rooms for only 2 hrs max per day each. We use a halogen (think this is the proper terminology!) heater for our sitting room. Would that be cheaper?

djimi

Storage heaters are supposed to work off night saver rate electricity and only turn on for the hours at night when the electricity is cheap. It's not like leaving a normal electric heater on for 5 straight days. You probably won't see much of an increase in your bill for leaving it on for a few days.

matrim

Some storage heaters have a boost functionality that straight away pumps out heat and that is expensive.

When you turned on the heater did you get heat straight away or did you have to wait until the next day for heat?

goat2

Petey89 wrote: »

they are the worst thing ever invented, I live in an apartment with storgae heaters and we cant turn them on because they EAT electricty. our bills could triple what they normaly are if we have the heater on, if we dont have heaters on our ESB is about 100-120 if the heaters are on it goes up to 300-400 or more. if you are thinking of gettin a place with these i would stay away.

i fully agree with you, i had them in a place, and tossed them, the esb bill has come down to a third of its bills before tossing those things out,

Idbatterim

why not just get normal oil filled rads for the bedroom and put them on for an hour before bed? storage heaters are a joke!

Petey89

if you had them on 5 days straight, ur bill should only go up a bit, its when they are on every day of the winter months that they will eat up your ESB

baqbaq

I have a related query on storage heaters.

I recently started using storage heating for the first time, and I have set the input to 3.

However, during the night the heater - rather than store heat - emits very high heat, and then during the day no heat has been retained. I try to set the output to 1 when I am out of the house and then up it to 3 or 4 when I come home in the evening but no heat, or very little heat, is left.

I am sure that the heater should not be releasing so much heat during the night - the room is like an oven at 4am. Am I doing something wrong or can anyone suggest what the problem might be?

Ritchi

I tend to turn off output totally at night, do you have that option?

baqbaq

Ritchi wrote: »

I tend to turn off output totally at night, do you have that option?

No, I don't have that option, the 1 setting is the minimum for both input and output.