heater issues

OK, this could have gone many places: Home and Garden, Grievances (because it's driving me insane!) or here.

Right, we now rent a large-ish house formerly a stable block for race horses. The walls are very thick and made from stone (except for a few interior walls). There is a pitched roofspace that I think has very little insulation. When we get sun, that helps keep things warm but given this is England, we can't expect too much of that!!  Most of the windows are double glazed and there are curtains on all of them.

The house is fitted with exceptionally expensive to run electric 'storage heaters'. Even if we turn off all the ones we don't want running, we still go through pounds a day in electric. We estimated that if we used the system (and that's not running heaters in all rooms) we'd end up paying £120+ a month in electric (including other appliances, etc).

Now, we know some of this is simply due to a larger house (especially given our last flats were smaller and also had gas). However, even the estate agent told us that these heaters aren't cheap.

It has been suggested to us by others that a better alternative is the portable oil filled heaters available from Argos and other stores. Right now we have one large and one small fan heater which we are told are more expensive than the oil ones.

Does anyone have any insight into this? We desparately want to keep our heating bill at a more manageable rate!

Help!

One option for quick local heat are Halogen heaters,they are the flat panel type and supposed tp be very safe,if you knock one over they switch themselves off.They very in price usually about £15 each but if you have a Latifs? store near you I saw them last week at £7.99 each.

Dave

OK, this could have gone many places: Home and Garden, Grievances (because it's driving me insane!) or here.


The house is fitted with exceptionally expensive to run electric 'storage heaters'.

Help!

Make sure the storage heaters are running on an "off peak" rate.
This requires two electricity meters or a modern one that can record both normal rates and off peak rates.

I hate, hate, hate my storage heaters, but at least they run on economy 7 (naff in it's own way, too ) and we only have three of them.  I know nothing about how much they are actually costing us, as we pay a set electricity amount each month.  I'd be interested to know, though, how much oil heaters would cost in comparison as my storage heaters are generally cool/cold in the evning, when we get home from work.  They keep the cats warm during the day, though.

Our house has storage heaters.  I would be sure I was on Economy 7 tariff for electricity and use www.energyswitchandgive.com to find out who would be the cheapest supplier for your uses. 

We don't spend any more than we did when we had gas heating though that is because we are lucky to have a south facing house and have the sun shining in all day.

I know those oil things and we have several. Gotta tell you, they are really good. I do suffer from the cold, being from Florida and all. I sit with a fan heater on me all the time, even in summer. And we have central heating. One of those oil things on 'high' will heat an entire room with the door closed in a couple of hours. Take the chill off in about half an hour and completely give you the sweats by morning if it's on all night (like in a bedroom).

Maybe if you set the heater timer to just certain times of day...take the chill off in the morning...and use the oil things in the rooms where you are most, like a home office, or watching TV or the bedroom.

Thanks Lisa, somehow I thought you'd come through! We switched the storage heaters on yesterday evening and have now gone through £6 of electric in 24 hours!!! And that's with them on timers and with us manually shutting off our hot water heater! 

We must get an alternative.

Anyone have any idea if the halogens are as cost-effective as the oil ones? We think the fan heaters are probably pretty expensive.

We have storage heaters, an electric shower, and an electricic oven/hob. lights, and general distribution for power points.
The average quarterly bill is around UK£120.
The heating and hot water is on off peak.
That is what makes the difference.

Thanks Lisa, somehow I thought you'd come through! We switched the storage heaters on yesterday evening and have now gone through £6 of electric in 24 hours!!! And that's with them on timers and with us manually shutting off our hot water heater! 

Are you having to feed a meter to keep your electricity running, or have you been taking regular readings to know how much you've spent?  I wouldn't have a clue how much 24 hours of electricity costs me. 

Are you having to feed a meter to keep your electricity running, or have you been taking regular readings to know how much you've spent? I wouldn't have a clue how much 24 hours of electricity costs me.

We have a meter that we feed with a 'key' that you put money on at the local shops. However, we are supposed to get switched to regular billing sometime this month. The meter tells us how much money we have used up.

We have storage heaters, an electric shower, and an electricic oven/hob. lights, and general distribution for power points.
The average quarterly bill is around UK£120.
The heating and hot water is on off peak.
That is what makes the difference.

Thanks Cascode. The DH just did a Google on our specific heater brand and now has some good tips. It seems this £6 day may be because we've only just turned them on and it takes several days for them to get running efficiently.

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you let them charge up at night (off peak) so you can use as needed during the day? guess we oughta see if we can install a timer for the hot water, too!

Can you have the electricity company come out and do an assessment on your energy usage? That is way to much IMO.  We have a large 4 bedroom house an only spend £30 a month in electricy.

In an old house years ago we had a meter as well. We had a old farmhouse that let in some major drafts and night storage heaters. I'm fairly certain I remember £5 lasted us the better part of the week - when we had to press the £5 emergency button LOL

I'd contact your electric supplier and talk to them about it. Sounds like you need an energy health check

Rosie

For those who might be confused by the term 'off-peak', per-minute rates are lower off-peak. It's like using the telephone during certain hours of the day. Those reading probably already knew about that definition, but when I moved here I didn't quite understand what 'off-peak' meant and why it was better to try to run major appliances then.

Here's one breakdown I saw...I don't know if it's the defintive, so use it as a guide only. Proably best to ask your own utilities company.

Off-Peak Hours (less expensive):
Weekdays - Monday through Thursday, 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.      
Weekends – 9 p.m. Friday through 9 a.m. Monday 

On-Peak Hours:
Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 
Note: These hours are also in effect during holidays

I'd say of any appliance, the fan heater costs the most to run.
Electric assessments are free, if I'm not mistaken...good suggestion, wildrose.

On electricty, the Economy 7 tarriff is, I think, applicable only to electricty used between 00:30 and 07:30 in the morning - that's 7 hours worth. And when the clocks change, it becomes 01:30 to 08:30.  It's just possible that some of you may have an older "protected tarriff" which gives you longer low cost electricty, but such schemes aren't generally available for new customers.

On phones, geeze - I think it gets pretty complex but the off peak hours are much longer and much more like those Lisa lists.   Even within a single contract, you can have "off peak" being one set of hours for calls to one country and another set of hours for calls to another!

We switched the storage heaters on yesterday evening and have now gone through £6 of electric in 24 hours!!!

I wonder how you know what it has cost you in 24 hours ?
It sounds like a pre-payment meter.  They can be set at very high rates per unit (kWHr).
Maybe that is the problem ?

I wonder how you know what it has cost you in 24 hours ?

I think your question was answered earlier on...

We have a meter that we feed with a 'key' that you put money on at the local shops. However, we are supposed to get switched to regular billing sometime this month. The meter tells us how much money we have used up.