Electric radiators

butterfly022

Hi,
I just bought my new apartment with electric heat. In the rooms panel heater the common area's storage heaters placed currently.
I would like to change them for newer more energy efficient heating system.
I lookedup and what I find is , they have this ATC electric radiators- but even the bigest is not suitable in a room bigger then 18 cubic metres.
Another one is the german electric radiators called Technoterm Lucht Lhz - these are seems to be decent enough.
Please share your experiences with this radiators. Im thinking to change mine to this geman one but I would like to hear some experiences, how much does it cost to run. I would appreciate for any advise.

Sleeper12

Better response in the electrical forum rather than the plumbing I'd imagine

antoinolachtnai

In general these heaters are expensive to run. You can expect it to be a good bit more expensive than your storage heaters (up to twice as expensive) though you may get an improvement in comfort. It will also mean your apartment will have a worse BER and with only electrical panel heaters your apartment will be less marketable.

Is this actually a ‘new’ apartment?

There are previous threads on this topic. One option is to fit an air-to-air heat pump if it is feasible.

EdgeCase

Definitely do not replace storage heaters with heaters that use peak time electricity. You'll double your electric bills.

Electric heat is basically 100% efficient - energy in comes out as heat. There's nothing going up a chimney.

So changing the type of heaters won't make any difference to the bills really.

If you're stuck with electric heating as your only option : look at the insulation level, ventilation heat losses, windows and so on.

The only electric system that would cut your bills would be a heat pump.

butterfly022

This is the information what the company give me , I can read it but not understand it. 😉
It all looks good but I want to make a right decesion.
I have to change them becouse they all burned and unusable , so thats why Im so concerned to change it for a right one.
Thanks for all the advice.
Any of you would be kind to check out especially these type of heaters with this company.
ELECTRIC HEATING SOLUTIONS
Specialists in Efficient Electric Heating Systems

Average Running Cost Comparison
3.4kW & 1.7kW Combination Night Storage Heater
(spec'd to heat up to 30sqm)
It requires an 8hr charge from the night tariff ESB meter.
Night tariff electricity, per kW = €0.0855 (Airtricity)
5.1kW x 8hrs x €0.0855 = €3.49 per day
(any additional use of the day tariff boost will be charged in addition to €3.49)

2.4kW Technotherm Radiator
(spec'd to heat up to 29sqm)
The daily running costs will depend on hours of operation, temperature maintained, room size, and
insulation. We will consider the average running cost for 8hrs per day, maintaining 20° C, in a
30sqm room, moderately insulated.
Day tariff electricity, per kW = €0.1727 (Airtricity)
1.kW (2.4kW heater charging for average 25 mins per hr) x 8 x €0.1727 = €1.38 per day

electricheatingsolutions.ie

EdgeCase

From a physics point of view, if you're heating a space with electricity 1kW of electricity gives you 1kW of heat.

A different design of heater may distribute it around the room better - fan boosts, better heat transfer and so on, but you can't change the amount of energy that you're using without modifying the room with better insulation.

If an electric heater is for consuming say 3kW that energy has to go somewhere. It's not being absorbed into the heater. It's not disappearing into magnetic fields or something like that and it's not being blown out a hole in the wall (as is the case in gas boilers). So all of that energy is being deposited in your room.

There are significant differences in efficiency with fuel burning systems as they have to transfer the energy from a flame to water via a heat exchanger. Older systems exhausted a lot of the energy straight out a chimney. So in those kinds of systems there's a lot of discussion about energy efficiency.

Basically, you can't give someone accurate energy consumption figures without knowing all the details of heat loss from the building.There isn't any typical figure as every building is substantially different.

You're paying half price for the energy your storage heaters are using at night. The same number of kWh but making use of cheaper power.

Personally, I'd advise you to get the existing system maintained by an electrician who specialises in storage heating systems. Make sure the settings are all correct and the heaters are working properly. The biggest issues with those systems tends to be misunderstanding of how they work and people ending up charging the heaters at peak rate power which gets very expensive.

You also need to adjust all their thermostats and dampers correctly and that does actually require a bit of knowledge.

If you're using radiant panels only in the bedrooms. Maybe look into better alternatives that store heat as you could be paying a lot eg if you're using a bedroom as an office space during the day and heating it at peak rate.

Also the cost per kWh of electricity Vs natural gas is significantly higher. So generally these systems aren't cheap to run.

If your choices are limited to just replacing old ugly storage heaters - I would replace them with modern storage heaters. I can't see the logic of using peak rate electricity.

ED E

Edge is spot on here.

A) Keep current storage heaters
Get slightly better storage heaters


You will never make this apartment more economical to heat and frankly you really should have done your homework pre purchasing a property.


If its a brand new build and occupancy is low you will benefit when units above/below/around are occupied.

butterfly022

Thank you for all your advice.
When I purchased the apartment I knew the electric heat is the most expensive but I couldn't stretch my budget more... so thats what I can afford to buy.
I cant change the system for gas so I have to stick with electric heat.
I have small kids so the whole apartment needs to be heated all the time. In the bedrooms I deffenetly have to change those old panel heaters, in the common area's very used ( burn smell coming out and the cover is burned as well) storage heaters also need to be changed.
So I might get new dimplex storageheaters to the common area's and to the bedrooms these german radiators which are also partly storage heaters but using day rate.
I'm sorry to asking too much but I have nobody who would know about electric staff.
Thanks a million.

butterfly022

Thank you for all your advice.
When I purchased the apartment I knew the electric heat is the most expensive but I couldn't stretch my budget more... so thats what I can afford to buy.
I cant change the system for gas so I have to stick with electric heat.
I have small kids so the whole apartment needs to be heated all the time. In the bedrooms I deffenetly have to change those old panel heaters, in the common area's very used ( burn smell coming out and the cover is burned as well) storage heaters also need to be changed.
So I might get new dimplex storageheaters to the common area's and to the bedrooms these german radiators which are also partly storage heaters but using day rate.
I'm sorry to asking too much but I have nobody who would know about electric staff.
Thanks a million.

butterfly022

Thank you for all your advice.
When I purchased the apartment I knew the electric heat is the most expensive but I couldn't stretch my budget more... so thats what I can afford to buy.
I cant change the system for gas so I have to stick with electric heat.
I have small kids so the whole apartment needs to be heated all the time. In the bedrooms I deffenetly have to change those old panel heaters, in the common area's very used ( burn smell coming out and the cover is burned as well) storage heaters also need to be changed.
So I might get new dimplex storageheaters to the common area's and to the bedrooms these german radiators which are also partly storage heaters but using day rate.
Why these companies are trying to say these new radiators are cheaper to run? Just to make us confused
I'm sorry to asking too much but I have nobody who would know about electric staff.
Thanks a million.

antoinolachtnai

Tell us about the apartment. Is there a balcony? What length of external wall is there? Is it on the ground, middle or top floor? What are the windows like?

And what is your problem? Is it that the place isn’t warm enough?

Or is it that it is too expensive?

EdgeCase

Those systems were generally designed with a rather idealised notion that you were not in the bedrooms during the day.

If you're using the bedrooms all day, the biggest cost saver would be replacing the simple panels, which are just electric heaters much like your average plug-in convector with actual storage heaters.

Some of the modern ones are far more aesthetically pleasing and come with fancier controls and so on and can also include fans which pull more heat from the storage bricks into the room if it's particularly cold.

Other than that, try looking at things like your windows and ventilation. You do need ventilation but just make sure that you've no gaps that you can seal up.

Good quality roller blinds with a thermal layer or heavy curtains can also be a big energy saver in mid winter, and done right can still look very attractive.

The other thing with storage heating updates is you can actually change on or two heaters at a time, as they're all individual appliances, so it can be done fairly easily and without major outlay.

In the longer term, if you own the apartment, I would suggest updating he windows would be more of a priority than anything.

If you're getting smells of burn from the heaters, it's likely they need to be serviced and cleaned. They're probably full of dust. Don't attempt to do this yourself, but seek out an electrical contractor who's able to service these systems.

The one thing I would 10000% stress is make sure the the control system is setup correctly. The single biggest cost with storage heating is heating on-peak. You can also have a situation where the heaters are setup incorrectly (there are dampers inside) and will heat over night and dump all their heat early in the morning because the dampers are set fully open. The result of that can be a warm house for a few hours and chilly evenings.

You should have two settings on each radiator one will be input, which is basically the amount of energy you're putting into them at night. The other is output which just opens dampers to allow air to circulate thorough them and be transferred to the room.

Depending on the size of the rooms and how fast they lose heat, those two adjustments need to be set up differently. It can be a lot of trial end error, and you have to wait 24 hours to see the results.

There are also more sophisticated controls that will try to predict the input using sensors and so on. Again, you'd need to have a chat with someone who knows a lot more about storage heating and the current state-of-the-art.

I know there are very nice looking modern storage heaters by Dimplex that are pretty sophisticated in terms of their controls and so on. Something like that might more of a suitable upgrade path.

This video might help you figure out the controls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiJmnAMNUAM

The one thing I would absolutely stress as urgent though is if you're getting smells of burn from the heaters, get them services. There's a slight but possible fire risk if they're stuffed with fluff and dust.

EdgeCase

NB:

If you're finding heat uneven i.e. hot in the morning and cold by evening time try this:

Turn up the input, but set the output to a medium level.

You can fiddle with the output during the day as you're just adjusting a damper, but the input is what's setting how hot the bricks get at night i.e. how much energy you're storing.

Turn the outputs down if there's a lot of natural heat during the day i.e. from sun or if you're finding the rooms hot, and then open the dampers more in the evenings.

Close the dampers down (output) to low or even 0 when you're going to bed in the rooms you're not using. This will allow the heaters to store more heat. You can then open them again when you're using the rooms.

They're complicated systems to get your your head around and it's not all that intuitive.

ercork

Personally I'm not a fan of storage heaters. They keep a place lovely and warm during the morning and afternoon (using half price electricity) but generally by evening time they have very little heat left in them. Then you have to switch on another heater (oil radiator, fan heater, etc.) that uses full price electricity to heat the place.

- So if you're the sort of person who is not home much in the day time and is only home in the evening they are not a good solution. In this case you are better off switching to full rate electric heaters (these will still use half price rate between midnight and 8am). Whether you get fancy expensive ones (Lucht, Ecovolt, etc.) or cheaper plug in heaters from Argos or Power City doesn't make much difference from the point of view of the cost of the heat produced. But the expensive ones come with very good timers and thermostats so they might lower your running costs (marginally). And they do look nicer!

- If, on the other hand, your place is occupied during the day then storage heaters probably are more cost-effective.

As already mentioned, improving your insulation and draughtproofness should also be done and will improve comfort regardless of what heating system you have.

The only other option if you're stuck with electricity is to get an air to air heat pump. I got one put in last year and so far my winter heating bills have been a fraction of last year's. Granted, this winter has (as far as I remember) not been as severe as last winter but even considering that, the difference in bills is striking. You do need some access to the exterior though - garden, balcony etc. And it will probably cost 1500 - 2000 to install.