Central heating in apartments?

MorningStar

I am looking at redoing a property and the heating at the moment would not be my choice as it is really electric storage heaters. THen I realised there doesn't seem to be much options. What type of heating do people have in appartments? Is it possible to get stuff installed in appartments like oil and gas?

joejoem

I dont think so, as far as I know electric heaters are the most economic for apartment blocks. I would be nervous if there was gas supplied to be honest, it would have to be dangerous! Electric Storage Heating is very reliable and heats an apartment up very fast. With (most) new apartments the heat will stay inside for ages meaning you only have to have them on for short amounts of time.

copacetic

joejoem wrote:

I dont think so, as far as I know electric heaters are the most economic for apartment blocks. I would be nervous if there was gas supplied to be honest, it would have to be dangerous! Electric Storage Heating is very reliable and heats an apartment up very fast. With (most) new apartments the heat will stay inside for ages meaning you only have to have them on for short amounts of time.

why would gas be dangerous? Electric Storage heating is renowned for being unreliable and expensive. I have gas in my place and it was a major selling point for the whole development that it had gas central heating, my understanding is that it is by far the most popular option for buyers and by far the more economical choice.
Check out http://www.sei.ie/content/content.asp?section_id=981 for
cost comparison.

However retro fitting it is not really an option..

MorningStar

joejoem wrote:

I dont think so, as far as I know electric heaters are the most economic for apartment blocks.

They definitely aren't economic and they are not straight forward to use either. Some people think the electricity is cheaper at night but this only applies if you have a special meter.
I don't like electrical heating because of the price and use.
Gas is generally safe but I remember in the 80s an apartment block near Landsdowne blowing up due to a gas leak.

s_gr

MorningStar wrote:

They definitely aren't economic and they are not straight forward to use either. Some people think the electricity is cheaper at night but this only applies if you have a special meter.
I don't like electrical heating because of the price and use.
Gas is generally safe but I remember in the 80s an apartment block near Landsdowne blowing up due to a gas leak.

All apartments using storage heaters have two esb meters!. Most people havent got a clue how to use them but if they read the information, they work out very well. Even more since gas has gone up 25% since oct 1st!

MorningStar

s_gr wrote:

All apartments using storage heaters have two esb meters!. Most people havent got a clue how to use them but if they read the information, they work out very well. Even more since gas has gone up 25% since oct 1st!

Didn't electricity go up too!
My older apartment doesn't have two meters. I studied electrical design and storage heaters are basically not a great piece of kit. They are not efficent or cheap to run. With better insulation they might seem good in newer builds.

Victor

Oil is probably impractical for "apartment buildings" given size of boiler, metering, risk of leaks etc.

Gas can be used in most apartments of modern design. It is not suitable for converted period houses or older aprtments. The risk is disproportionate collapse - the gas explosion damaging one element of the building and then a substanital portion of the building collapsing. There was a case in the UK around 1950 where an explosion in one flat demolished an entire new building, simply because it hadn't been designed with gas in mind. The incident in Serpentine Avenue in the 1980s was symptomatic of a dysfunctional Dublin Gas that needed huge investment. The was an explosion that destroyed a house last year in Rathfarnham(?) where a pipe was damaged by traffic and gas leaked into the building. Much more people are electricuted than killed in gas explosions.

The Bord Gáis pricing structure has a large fixed element - about €20/month and at one stage during the summer the bill was €20 standing charge and €1.50 for gas. The next summer I disconnected and survived into October without the gas heating. Bord Gáis do have very quick response times though - reconnections can be done in 2-3 days, although new connections might take longer.

Electricty is only really worthwhile if you can avail of night-time storage heating, which is only really good if the property is occupied during the day.

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My landlord has oil heating installed in my building on one boiler that provides background heat and then if we want it a little warmer there is electric heating.

Having some back-up is nice in the event of a supply disruption, although given the volume:surface ratio of apartment buildings (they are much slower to cool down than houses) it is less critical than a bungalow in the middle of the countryside.

loyatemu

aye - i used to live in a large apartment building in Ballsbridge (gas boiler comfortingly located in the bedroom) - and we only ever used the boiler to heat water. The apartment itself never got cold.

Tazz T

I've had both. Gas Central Heating is infinitely better than crap storage heating.

With electric storage heating on nightsaver, by the time you get home from work all the heat has already escaped during the day. With GCH, simply turn it on when you get home and the place is warm in 20 minutes.

My heating costs a bomb in winter (around 240 per two-months) and the place is still cold. I'm not looking forward to this winter when it's gonna be even more expensive.

RainyDay

I had electrical storage heaters in a rented apartment about 10 years ago. The storage heaters take in power overnight and release it as heat over the next day. This meant that basically it kept the apartment nice & warm during the day, when the apartment was empty and left if terribly cool in the evenings. We had to have a portable gas heater or we'd light the open fire at weekends. The lack of flexibility was a real problem - maybe the technology has improved by now?

iguana

Electric underfloor heating may be an option. It can be more economical than gas or oil. There are no rads, and with electric you can have individual timers and thermostats for each room.

It seems easy to install, and you get to rent/sell the apt, (I'm assuming it's an investment property) with the added kudos of UFH.

Imo it's at least worth looking into.

garred

RainyDay wrote:

I had electrical storage heaters in a rented apartment about 10 years ago. The storage heaters take in power overnight and release it as heat over the next day. This meant that basically it kept the apartment nice & warm during the day, when the apartment was empty and left if terribly cool in the evenings. We had to have a portable gas heater or we'd light the open fire at weekends. The lack of flexibility was a real problem - maybe the technology has improved by now?

Amen to that.

Victor

iguana wrote:

Electric underfloor heating may be an option. It can be more economical than gas or oil. There are no rads, and with electric you can have individual timers and thermostats for each room. It seems easy to install, and you get to rent/sell the apt, (I'm assuming it's an investment property) with the added kudos of UFH.

UFH does have advantages - less floor space because of no rads, safer for children and the elderly because there is no risk of burns from rads (typical operating temperature 20 degrees), individual controls.

Where it falls down is that it may not react quite as quickly as gas / oil - while the surface area is much larger, the temperature differential is quite small. Heating capability = surface area x temperature differential