Electric heating/hot water options

[tgr]

A relative is moving into a flat in a 1970s concrete block of flats (not high-rise)

There is no gas supply.

Heating is currently provided by early 1990s storage heaters, and hot water by an immersion heater. Apart from the kitchen and bathroom sinks, there will be a shower to supply rather than a bath.

What is the most suitable (and modern) solution to electric heating and hot water?

Thanks in advance

[anonymous-user]

I’ve got a gledhill pulsacoil in my flat. Only had one problem with it in 12 years. Mains pressure water heated overnight on economy 7. Not got storage heaters, just straight panels on the wall. Very rarely need them on and then only one room really so my electricity bills are around £35 per month all in. No gas so don’t have much choice but I find it incredibly cheap to run.

[tgr]

Thanks a lot - looked it up and indeed it sounds tailor-made for this application. What sort of heating panels do people recommend?

And it may sound silly but should we be looking at underfloor heating, or should that be ruled out now?

[caziques]

Two choices in these situations,

either straight electric (where Economy 7 can be part of the solution)

or use a heat pump.

Heat pump has much higher capital costs with lower running costs (and the outdoor unit has to go somewhere).

[tgr]

Thanks Caziques

Indeed, the storage heaters are economy 7 right now.

Are all panels broadly the same?

[EddyP]

Don't know all of the details and at what point it's not economic but a house we looked at a while ago went away from oil heating to all electric and fitted an electric boiler but still had wet central heating. They were really impressed with it, seemed to think it cost no more than oil, no worries about deliveries, no worries about smells etc..
Their boiler looked like this sort of design:

https://www.electric-heatingcompany.co.uk/electric...

[dhutch]

EddyP said:

Don't know all of the details and at what point it's not economic but a house we looked at a while ago went away from oil heating to all electric and fitted an electric boiler but still had wet central heating. They were really impressed with it, seemed to think it cost no more than oil, no worries about deliveries, no worries about smells etc..
Their boiler looked like this sort of design:

https://www.electric-heatingcompany.co.uk/electric...

We had a holiday cottage with this, and it did work quite well, no obvious efficiency losses, and gives normal radiators/convectors people expect.

However if you currently have the cabling in for night storage heaters, I would have thought replacing with panel or oil filled electric option would be easier than running pipes.

What you really want is a thermal store so you can take heat out during eco7 and put it back in when you need it. Which is obviously what a night-storage heater is meant to do, but they tend to put heat out all day, if anything front loaded to the morning. Where what most people want is for at all to come out at 5-7pm, assuming working during the day and the house is relatively leaky as most are.


Daniel

[rfn]

We got rid of economy 7 in our 1980s flat with storage heaters and the landlord replaced them with these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Haverland-Designer-RC8TT-...

They were pretty great and gave off "nice" heat like normal radiators.
Th