Electric Radiators
Discussion
I'm in the process of replacing the heating in my house. I've no mains gas so limited to electric heating and have been using Ecostrad Allora radiators for the past couple of years. They have been atrocious; extremely poor heat output, hugely uneconomical (yes, I know electric rads aren't typically cheap, but due to the poor heat output my electricity bills were up to £250 p/m for a 2 bed!) and unreliable (3 heating elements have gone in ~3 years). The app to control them has also been abysmal, it would randomly wipe all timings and replace them with random ones, leading to all the radiators coming on at 2am!
This time I want to go for a more typical wall mounted electric radiator, not the 'designer' style I currently have with the Ecostrad Allora, heat output over style, if you will.
Can anyone recommend brands and ranges they have experience with (either in home or as an installer) that are genuinely good?
This time I want to go for a more typical wall mounted electric radiator, not the 'designer' style I currently have with the Ecostrad Allora, heat output over style, if you will.
Can anyone recommend brands and ranges they have experience with (either in home or as an installer) that are genuinely good?
A500leroy said:
No experience but the advert for Fischer looks intriguing.
I'll have a look, thanks.ARH said:
Why can you not use LPG or oil?
I've no real knowledge on these, but would I not have to factor in pipework, throughout the entire house as well as the associated tank etc? It seems the cost would be far, far more to install than 4 or 5 electric radiators.Edited by offspring86 on Sunday 12th October 09:25
offspring86 said:
A500leroy said:
No experience but the advert for Fischer looks intriguing.
I'll have a look, thanks.ARH said:
Why can you not use LPG or oil?
I've no real knowledge on these, but would I not have to factor in pipework, throughout the entire house as well as the associated tank etc?If given the choice, choose oil, as LPG is just full of cowboys trying to rip you off with 2 year contracts and made up legislation to stop you tank being legal.
I'd get a quote for an oil install, and when doing your sums assume spending £50/month on oil. That's very much a ballpark figure, but the stuff is cheap and you'll be wanting to do the maths.
I'd be very surprised if the oil install didn't pay for itself in well under a decade compared to the cost of heating with electricity.
Even if you are intending to move house the oil system compared to an electric one will be worth something to a buyer.
I'd be very surprised if the oil install didn't pay for itself in well under a decade compared to the cost of heating with electricity.
Even if you are intending to move house the oil system compared to an electric one will be worth something to a buyer.
We had a 9kW electric boiler with a wet system in our 2 bed flat (77 sqM)
The cost of running this over the past two winters has been exorbitant, so at the end of winter this year, I decommissioned the boiler and installed 4x Mylek radiators - along with a vertical (water filled) radiator in one of the bedrooms.
Early indications are that the heat they produce is pretty much instant, although despite being specified as ceramic, they don't hold the heat for long after they cycle. But it's yet to be cold here, so I've only used one of them briefly a couple of evenings ago.
Of course the main benefit over the wet heating is that if we only want / need to heat one room, we only need to run a 1.5kW or 2kW heater instead of a 9kW boiler.....
For what it's worth - in our previous flat we had some expensive German 'Electrorad' heaters (very heavy the 2kW version weighed some 42kg!!!) - these were also ceramic and didn't store the heat for long either.
Link to the Mylek ones - they're cheap as well.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MYLEK-Programmable-Thermo...
The cost of running this over the past two winters has been exorbitant, so at the end of winter this year, I decommissioned the boiler and installed 4x Mylek radiators - along with a vertical (water filled) radiator in one of the bedrooms.
Early indications are that the heat they produce is pretty much instant, although despite being specified as ceramic, they don't hold the heat for long after they cycle. But it's yet to be cold here, so I've only used one of them briefly a couple of evenings ago.
Of course the main benefit over the wet heating is that if we only want / need to heat one room, we only need to run a 1.5kW or 2kW heater instead of a 9kW boiler.....
For what it's worth - in our previous flat we had some expensive German 'Electrorad' heaters (very heavy the 2kW version weighed some 42kg!!!) - these were also ceramic and didn't store the heat for long either.
Link to the Mylek ones - they're cheap as well.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MYLEK-Programmable-Thermo...
In our welsh house, we used the ifra red flat panel heaters, rather than pay to extend the heating and new boiler as seen at the homebuild exhibition etc.
Various ones available, we used these,
https://suryaheating.co.uk/infrared-panel-heaters/
Better than the old ones, look like whiteboards, and don't get hot enough to burn if touched, important as we put some in the kids bedroom
Various ones available, we used these,
https://suryaheating.co.uk/infrared-panel-heaters/
Better than the old ones, look like whiteboards, and don't get hot enough to burn if touched, important as we put some in the kids bedroom
Interested to see what gets recommended here.
We have a similar issue. 2 bed penthouse with double height walls of glass so like a greenhouse. Mezzanine area draws up any heat and so leaves it freezing downstairs. Can easily soak up £500pcm in cold months.
Installed some new ones last year but can’t say it’s made much of a difference.
We have a similar issue. 2 bed penthouse with double height walls of glass so like a greenhouse. Mezzanine area draws up any heat and so leaves it freezing downstairs. Can easily soak up £500pcm in cold months.
Installed some new ones last year but can’t say it’s made much of a difference.
Shnozz said:
Interested to see what gets recommended here.
We have a similar issue. 2 bed penthouse with double height walls of glass so like a greenhouse. Mezzanine area draws up any heat and so leaves it freezing downstairs. Can easily soak up £500pcm in cold months.
Installed some new ones last year but can t say it s made much of a difference.
In commercial premises where the temperature gradient is a problem then ceiling fans can help.We have a similar issue. 2 bed penthouse with double height walls of glass so like a greenhouse. Mezzanine area draws up any heat and so leaves it freezing downstairs. Can easily soak up £500pcm in cold months.
Installed some new ones last year but can t say it s made much of a difference.
My two pennyworth:
When we bought our current home it had 20 year old brick filled electric storage heaters, the ones that take two days to warm up then you need to open the windows as the temp outside has warmed and you're sweating.
We had similar in our last place in N Yorkshire.
They're dreadful, ugly, useless and expensive.
In N Yorks I installed wall mounted electric radiators, they plug into the standard 13Amp socket on the ring main, they're timed to warm up, have an overnight setting, thermostatic, clean. And they weren't expensive to buy and easy to install myself so installation was free. They were italian/spanish made, bought from a guy in N Yorks but I think he's retired now. He did for a while get the same kit made for him in the UK. They were so good, I bought one for the attic room in our current home.
However when we moved in 2017, I did the full spreadsheet type thing. ASHP, oil (we'd need a boiler, tank, full wet rad system) lpg (see oil and it's more expensive than oil), GSHP, biomass etc. At the time, oil prices were rocketing I seem to remember, you need to try and forecast future energy costs.
We ended up with ASHP. We still needed the heat pump and a full wet rad system installing but we received a grant from the Scottish Government Home Energy body which covered about 95% of the whole cost and we pay that back with the quarterly RHI
So it's worth your while seeing what grants are available to cover "renewable energy/zero emissions" type installations and also worth looking at how long you're going to be in the place.
For us in the different situations, I think we took the right decision, one thing to remember is power outages. Last weekend we lost electric for two days. Folks nearby lost it for 3 days. It wasn't cold outside so not a great problem but had it been -5°C it would have been a different story. Of course oil/gas needs electric to pump the hot water around anyway so maybe a gas fire or woodburner if you've cheap logs but then you're into installation costs again.
When we bought our current home it had 20 year old brick filled electric storage heaters, the ones that take two days to warm up then you need to open the windows as the temp outside has warmed and you're sweating.
We had similar in our last place in N Yorkshire.
They're dreadful, ugly, useless and expensive.
In N Yorks I installed wall mounted electric radiators, they plug into the standard 13Amp socket on the ring main, they're timed to warm up, have an overnight setting, thermostatic, clean. And they weren't expensive to buy and easy to install myself so installation was free. They were italian/spanish made, bought from a guy in N Yorks but I think he's retired now. He did for a while get the same kit made for him in the UK. They were so good, I bought one for the attic room in our current home.
However when we moved in 2017, I did the full spreadsheet type thing. ASHP, oil (we'd need a boiler, tank, full wet rad system) lpg (see oil and it's more expensive than oil), GSHP, biomass etc. At the time, oil prices were rocketing I seem to remember, you need to try and forecast future energy costs.
We ended up with ASHP. We still needed the heat pump and a full wet rad system installing but we received a grant from the Scottish Government Home Energy body which covered about 95% of the whole cost and we pay that back with the quarterly RHI
So it's worth your while seeing what grants are available to cover "renewable energy/zero emissions" type installations and also worth looking at how long you're going to be in the place.
For us in the different situations, I think we took the right decision, one thing to remember is power outages. Last weekend we lost electric for two days. Folks nearby lost it for 3 days. It wasn't cold outside so not a great problem but had it been -5°C it would have been a different story. Of course oil/gas needs electric to pump the hot water around anyway so maybe a gas fire or woodburner if you've cheap logs but then you're into installation costs again.
Resistive heating is always going to be the most expensive, so should be the last choice for anyone.
Oil and gas are convenient, but I wouldn't say especially cheap by the time you have put radiators in all the rooms, put in a tank, boiler etc.
ASHP should be about 1/2 to 1/3rd of the price of resistive heating over a year. If you get air to air the heat is also more instantaneous because it's blow round the room, rather than the radiator have to heat via convection.
You'd be best to get an air conditioning unit put in, does heating in winter and cooling in summer. Will be much cheaper than resistive heating, and much less expensive or problematic to install than oil or gas. It is also likely that at some point some of the taxes from electricity will be removed and put onto gas, so potentially the electric cost might go down. Also, don't underestimate the benefit of air conditioning! Once you've had it you won't want to be without.
Oil and gas are convenient, but I wouldn't say especially cheap by the time you have put radiators in all the rooms, put in a tank, boiler etc.
ASHP should be about 1/2 to 1/3rd of the price of resistive heating over a year. If you get air to air the heat is also more instantaneous because it's blow round the room, rather than the radiator have to heat via convection.
You'd be best to get an air conditioning unit put in, does heating in winter and cooling in summer. Will be much cheaper than resistive heating, and much less expensive or problematic to install than oil or gas. It is also likely that at some point some of the taxes from electricity will be removed and put onto gas, so potentially the electric cost might go down. Also, don't underestimate the benefit of air conditioning! Once you've had it you won't want to be without.
motco said:
Evanivitch said:
OutInTheShed said:
Such a house is probably a candidate for ASHP.
Air to air being a reasonably easy fit, even if a little intrusive visually. Evanivitch said:
motco said:
Evanivitch said:
OutInTheShed said:
Such a house is probably a candidate for ASHP.
Air to air being a reasonably easy fit, even if a little intrusive visually. Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff