Night meter / new electric heaters

gandroid

I live in a city and have an urban night meter. Town house/apartment constructed in 2006. I have storage heaters in living room and kitchen which I am planning to replace with more modern heaters that will probably not run much during the night.

The electrician recommended these heaters:

https://www.atc.ie/sun-ray-rf-electric-thermal-radiator/

Although I am considering these ones instead as they offer a tall rad option:
https://www.smartelectrics.ie/product/classic-radiators/

The electrician mentioned that the company (ATC) normally advise the customer to remove the night meter once these are installed. Does this make sense?

I'm not totally sure how night meter works but I would have thought it was still worth my while to keep the day/night meter.


According to this,
https://www.electricireland.ie/news/article/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-nightsaver-meter
There is about a €60 difference in the standing charge which isn't much, given the night rate offers half rate electricity at night.

I use the an immersion heater to heat my hot water supply during the night. I use an electric shower but need some hot water for cleaning etc.

Does everything run off the night rate meter between certain hours 11pm and 7am (or whatever the period is).

Would it not make sense to keep the night rate meter given that I can run dishwasher and washing machine etc. overnight.

Or is it that there are cheaper day (or all day) tariffs available if you only have one meter. i.e. cheaper than the day tariff on a day rate as part of the day/night set up. I hope this makes sense.

I assume wiring the newer heaters to where the storage heaters were isn't a particularly complicated job or is it?

Are storage heaters wired in a certain way that the storage aspect always works off the night rate meter? I'm not sure why they would recommend removing the night meter?

Even if the newer heaters are not using the night rate, surely they can still be wired to where the existing storage heaters are without the need to remove a meter and will/could they run off the night meter during the night rate hours e.g. if they were timed to turn on early in the morning for example?

Thanks for any feedback on any of the above.

440Hertz

If you're using electric heating, you'd be completely mad to take out the night rate power and replace it with full day rate. Just update your storage heaters and get some good advice on how to set them.

Storage heaters are charging their thermal storage bricks on night rate power at roughly half the kWh rate of day rate.

Also, make sure you shop around for the best tariffs.

Electric heating systems will convert the electrical energy inputed into the element to heat at basically 100% efficiency, regardless of what type of heaters you're using.

The issue is the cost of electricity per kWh is a lot higher than gas, oil or other sources, so you really need to make use of the off peak electricity prices to make it affordable.

If you just switch over to full day rate power, you could be potentially almost doubling your electricity bill.

It's physically impossible for an electric heater to be 'more efficient' than another electric heater as there's no chemical reaction / burning of fuels, flue losses, etc It's just a straight conversion of electrical energy to thermal energy and there's no where else for it to go other than into the room.

Storage heaters are bulkier, but that's just the nature of what they are. You can get nicer looking ones with better controls, like say Dimplex Quantum, but you'd really feel the energy bills rise if you just start paying 2X the price per kWh to get the same energy.

gandroid

Yes, I hear what you're saying and have thought a lot about it and had posted a previous thread about the decision.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=114938599


Part of the reason I am removing the older storage heaters, which are working fine, and I've never had an issue with them is to create space in a kitchen and living room. I am planning to get some extra storage and shelving units and the new electric ones will allow more flexibility in laying out the walls to utilise space better (it's an apartment/townhouse) and are smaller in size and I was looking at a tall rad to save space.

I haven't given much thought to getting the newer Dimplex Quantum ones you mentioned. They do seem to offer more options than the older ones but even the electrician I spoke to said everybody is getting rid of storage heaters.

I totally agree that there is a lot of guff spoken about the efficiency of "new" electric heaters.

You haven't helped convince me I'm not making a mistake! :rolleyes::)

440Hertz

I wouldn’t mind the “everyone is getting rid of“ statements. He’s an electrician, not an expert in thermodynamics and space heating.

From a cost point of view, your bills will go up if you’re using peak rate power at twice the price per kWh. There’s no real way around it.

If you’re going to get rid of storage heating, and stay electricity and reduce energy costs, heat pumps are the only option. You’re going from using electricity to generate heat to basically concentrating energy, pulled from the environment outside.

Cheapest and most responsive and convenient heating options at the moment in Ireland is probably still natural gas, mostly because retrofitting heat pumps is still not where it needs to be.

Lenar3556

gandroid wrote: »

Yes, I hear what you're saying and have thought a lot about it and had posted a previous thread about the decision.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=114938599


Part of the reason I am removing the older storage heaters, which are working fine, and I've never had an issue with them is to create space in a kitchen and living room. I am planning to get some extra storage and shelving units and the new electric ones will allow more flexibility in laying out the walls to utilise space better (it's an apartment/townhouse) and are smaller in size and I was looking at a tall rad to save space.

I haven't given much thought to getting the newer Dimplex Quantum ones you mentioned. They do seem to offer more options than the older ones but even the electrician I spoke to said everybody is getting rid of storage heaters.

I totally agree that there is a lot of guff spoken about the efficiency of "new" electric heaters.

You haven't helped convince me I'm not making a mistake! :rolleyes::)

What has improved in ‘new’ electric heaters is the controls, and that has somewhat improved their efficiency as a heating solution.

But I would think very carefully about removing storage heating entirely. It’s far from perfect, but what you propose is likely to be considerably more expensive to run.

Did you look at the likes of Dimplex Quantum? It’s a ‘new generation’ storage heater - the list prices are high but if you went to your local wholesaler with what you need they might be able to get a suitable price from Dimplex.

gandroid

440Hertz wrote: »

I wouldn’t mind the “everyone is getting rid of“ statements. He’s an electrician, not an expert in thermodynamics and space heating.

From a cost point of view, your bills will go up if you’re using peak rate power at twice the price per kWh. There’s no real way around it.

If you’re going to get rid of storage heating, and stay electricity and reduce energy costs, heat pumps are the only option. You’re going from using electricity to generate heat to basically concentrating energy, pulled from the environment outside.

Cheapest and most responsive and convenient heating options at the moment in Ireland is probably still natural gas, mostly because retrofitting heat pumps is still not where it needs to be.

Yes, I know that about his opinion and the cost. I don't find it's difficult or expensive to heat the space at the moment and the storage heaters are on a very low setting. I do not use the heaters at all 4 or 5 months of the year.

I am planning on getting additional bead insulation pumped into the walls. An air pump is not an option at the moment as I'm in an apt block and as you say, there are issues in terms of planning/permission etc.

Electricity is my only option for now. I might at least inquire about the newer storage heaters and check their sizes out. Thanks.

ercork

Storage heaters use half price electricity and so are cheaper to operate than on-demand electric heaters for each unit of heat generated. However, they offer very little control and flexibility so it is quite possible that on-demand heaters could end up cheaper in your specific situation. My own experience of storage heaters is that they emit plenty of heat in the morning time and early afternoon but by 5pm/6pm their stored heat has been almost completely discharged. So, for the evening time I ended up running an additional on demand electric heater. As I was rarely home during the day time (pre-Covid!) all of the half price night rate electricity was of very little benefit to me. So in my case, on-demand electric heaters were a more cost-effective option. They also offer much more control in the autumn and in the spring when you can't really predict what the weather will be like the following day.

JackieChang

I suppose you could do a trial run by buying one of these: https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/8889780/Trail/searchtext>OIL+FILLED+RADIATOR.htm

And one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07QZYDKPH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Turn off the living room storage heater, find a comfortable thermostat setting on the argos one and measure how much it costs to keep the room at a comfortable temp for a week. You could buy a little timer and have it set up for a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening.

At the end of the week check the kwH used and figure out the cost using your day rate price. Assuming you'll be using it during peak times.

Because according to all the experts and as others have said here, that cheap 2kw oil filled rad from argos is basically the same efficiency as those fancy €500 ones you attach to the wall. So it will be a good trial run.

I have an all electric house too, but I'm renting so don't have the option to explore other heating methods. I have 1 kw panel heater in the bedroom and a 1.5kw one in the living room. Both oil filled. This style: https://www.credaheating.co.uk/product/car-aluminium-radiator

I have a dimplex night storage heater in the hall.

And I have a dimplex 2kw convector heater in the kitchen.

A frankenstein heating system.

The only one I can actually measure is the kitchen, as it plugs into the wall. So I got that little amazon gadget above to find the right thermostat setting on it where I'm comfortable with the heat, and the hourly cost of it. Costs 13cent an hour to keep the kitchen at a comfortable temp. It's only ~12 degrees outside though, so I'm dreading the freezing winter.

The gadget is also fun to try on other items around the place. For example I measured the cost of leaving my TV on standby for the year. €2. Never plugging out the TV again, what a pain in the arse, sorry folks but mammy was wrong.

Heavy gaming on my laptop would cost me €186 for the year if I was playing 24hrs per day non stop.

My bills were €165 for the last 35 days. P.S. I'm on a night meter, and do clothes washing and heat the water tank at night. It's definitely the electric heating during the day that will drive up the cost. Doesn't help that my girlfriend is always frozen. She's Brazilian so doesn't understand that people usually wear slippers and warm comfy clothes in winter. She thinks she's still in Copacabana beach walking around our tiled floors in her bare feet. I'm learning her though, she's going to invest in fluffy socks.

3d4life

Thats a great start you made there JC.

If you have another thermometer you could use it to log the outside temp along with the other data. With this you would be able to get an approximation to how the heating requirement changes with outside temp.

( One thing that it wont tell you is how the heat loss varies with the strength of wind - and this can be significant in some buildings )