electric heating

[rob1]

I have a cottage back from long term letting that needs a lot of work to bring it up to standard, there is no gas available for heating and hot water, little room for an oil tank and from another house I rent out can be problems from departing tenants wanting refunds for oil left, so have been thinking of putting electric heating in anyone with experience of running costs and good systems to use, there is a good log burner to provide the base heat so would be top up heat mainly. TIA

 

[suffolksmallholder]

I decided to go with electric underfloor heating having experimented with this idea in a single room. I know I can keep this room at 18 degrees for three days when the temperature outside is hovering around 5 degrees. I have put all what I learned into three rooms approx 12' x 14' in size. All the upstairs has 180mm of insulation and the downstairs has 150mm owing to fixing and other space issues. The ground floor is on 100mm with the concrete being the thermal mass/heat store. The upstairs will certainly not need any heat input as I have always gone with the hot air rising and this will be trapped unless a window is opened. Even in an unfinished state my idea seems to be working as the temperature is 20 degrees, right now, without any inputs! Too hot to be trying to fit the solar infrastructure!
I think you will find that there is a scale of £'s spent in heating against insulation/heat loss. In the long term, in which I'm a great believer, this will pay big time! The 'depending' part is the capital input versus the property worth/tenant income/market....& etc.
If you are doing this work as part of a major refurbishment it is certainly worth doing but only if you are prepared to do it well and lay new floors along with efforts keeping the heat in the property and no cold bridges (cold bridge), otherwise this is not a cheap fix.
Windows are A rated along with argon filled double glazing, similar the doors.
As to the actual gubbins that does the heating CEF or similar electrical suppliers will advise you on your needs leaving you with the simple task of measuring and organising the fitting of the correct cable. You will need an electrician too to fit switched spurs to your 13 Amp ring. The Canadians have the market here so your timer will be from that part of the world.
SS

 

[exmoor dave]

I replaced some storage heaters with those clay cored electric heaters from these guys

http://www.southwestheatingsolutions.co.uk/tech.html
very pleased with them, I have the thermo set at 18 from bout nov round to april, electric bill has gone up but not bu a huge around, but the house is so much more pleasant and its dried the place out at last!

its a nice gentle type of heat rather than the fierce heat of the wood burner.

if we need to put new heating in our let house, we'll defo put more of these in.

also going to give underfloor a go in my bathroom this winter.

 

[TheTallGuy]

Modern storage heaters are better than what was around in the 80's, but are still a bit of a faff to get set right & if you are intending to rent out the it's probably not such a good idea. Best thing to do is to put in as much insulation as practical and close up any draught gaps, decent AA rated windows etc. Lowest cost installation is to use basic panel convector heaters, under-floor is more expensive & takes a bit of fitting, but gives better heating as you heat the whole room and not the margins.

For "hot water", instant water heaters are quite a good option if there is any distance between the tank and the sink as you don't waste so much water & heat in long piping runs. If you do have an immersion tank then put at least two layers of lagging on if you can.

Running costs are hard to quantify as it will depend on the building & room sizes, insulation, thermostat settings etc. The numbers I have heard bandied about is that electric heating is around 15-20% more expensive than gas, but then you don't have the issues surrounding a boiler and wet system.

 

[jimmer]

the new houses here are having electric heating
i questioned the builder as to why we were having what i have grown up thinking was a very expensive heating system
he says that these new electric heaters are very efficient and you get 1kw of heat from each kw of power used as opposed to a boiler using power to pump and time lost to heating things up ,whereas electric is instant
i will find out what make we are having and let you know
they are some fancy german built things

 

[Blue.]

Feck they aren't cheap,looks like better off with another duvet.

www.amazon.co.uk/Electrorad-Aeroflow-Chamotte-Fireclay-Electric/dp/B00FEEU9US

 

[jimmer]

Feck they aren't cheap,looks like better off with another duvet.

www.amazon.co.uk/Electrorad-Aeroflow-Chamotte-Fireclay-Electric/dp/B00FEEU9US

i think ours are going to be gas filled rather than a block type thing

 

[TheTallGuy]

he says that these new electric heaters are very efficient and you get 1kw of heat from each kw of power used as opposed to a boiler using power to pump and time lost to heating things up ,whereas electric is instant

Almost all electric heaters give 1kW heat for 1kW electric (pumped systems are lower performance), but the inefficiencies are moved downstream to the power stations - okay so it could be solar or electric generation, but even they are not particularly efficient when you look at the tons of concrete and chemicals used!

 

[suffolksmallholder]

I rebuilt a tiny, single story, thatched yeoman's cottage in 1987 and put on a little brick extension using the best available insulation at that time. The concept was to create another building inside the old, retaining all the original salvaged materials. This was before underfloor heating was readily available so storage heaters were used. As I was trying my hardest to keep within the local Conservation Officers wishes all the construction materials, where possible, were collected from no further than a five mile radius of the cottage. Luckily the sawmill was still going then which enabled the team to use Beech and Oak timber in exactly the same way as the original builders. A large storage tank on a white meter made the hot water for the bathroom and an under sink heater was put in the kitchen. Twenty seven years and only two tenants later the renovation has certainly paid for itself. As far as I know the only items needing to be replaced have been a storage heater & the under sink heater as this gets a lot of use and the water in that area is very hard and one storage heater in one of the two bedrooms.
I think electric heating is good in small properties and there is probably a point where is becomes inefficient in larger ones.
We did find a whole colony of Glis under the dirt floors, looking like rolled up socks as they had started to hibernate when we started!
SS

 

[Exfarmer]

Remember kilowatt for kilowatt gas is about 25% the cost of electricity
Also that heat lost in the system still actually heats the house.
Whichever way you look at it , electric is a very expensive way to heat a house!

 

[TheTallGuy]

Remember kilowatt for kilowatt gas is about 25% the cost of electricity
Also that heat lost in the system still actually heats the house.
Whichever way you look at it , electric is a very expensive way to heat a house!

It depends on many factors & whilst the headline figures of ~5p/kWh for mains gas & ~16p/kWh for electric (apparently that's the average) make gas look cheap, when you factor in the heat loss out of the flue & the cost of annual boiler maintenance/servicing the gap can begin to narrow, especially when comparing with storage heaters on dual rate tariffs. The average home is probably better off on gas, but it's not always the case.

 

[rob1]

It depends on many factors & whilst the headline figures of ~5p/kWh for mains gas & ~16p/kWh for electric (apparently that's the average) make gas look cheap, when you factor in the heat loss out of the flue & the cost of annual boiler maintenance/servicing the gap can begin to narrow, especially when comparing with storage heaters on dual rate tariffs. The average home is probably better off on gas, but it's not always the case.

And of course the initial cost of a gas central heating system is much higher and much more disruptive putting in rads etc compared to putting panel heaters in

 

[jimmer]

i think the heaters are in ,in the new builds , i will take some pics