Storage heaters - ok, or what to replace with?

Storage heaters - ok, or what to replace with?

Author
Discussion

Condi

17,089 posts

170 months

Sunday 15th May 2022
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trixical said:
Mains gas isn't necessarily an option even if it's very close by, there was someone on a thread a few months back who had got the gas supply to their door but couldn't find anyone who would install a meter and take on the supply, not sure if they had any luck since.
That sounds strange. Most major energy companies have dedicated teams and will liase with the DNO to get a meter and supply point fitted.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/gas-and-electr...


Chainsaw Rebuild

1,997 posts

101 months

Sunday 15th May 2022
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A pellet or wood chip boiler might be an option, I don’t know much about it but perhaps worth a look.

Evanivitch

19,803 posts

121 months

Sunday 15th May 2022
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You can get reasonably cheap and simple Air to Air heat pumps these days if you have a bit of outdoor wall space. A 3-to-1 system can serve multiple rooms and you'd get air conditioning in there too.

Huntsman said:
Exactly.

Plus, lets not forget that the UK grid delivers 70% of its power from fossil fuel, while that number is reducing, an ASHP is still mostly dino juice powered.
A heat-pump with a COP of just 2 has a better CO2e when running on a modern has powerstation than a condensing gas central heating boiler...

Equus

16,770 posts

100 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
If you were clever enough, you could run a heat pump with a big thermal store to buffer it, combined with a Tesla power wall and solar PV, so that you're running the heat pump through the day on solar and Economy 7 electricity stored from the previous night.

It would take someone with more patience than me to work our what overall running costs/efficiencies you might achieve, and what the payback period on the complete installation might be, but it would probably appeal to the typical man-maths of getting something for nothing by the most expensive and complicated means possible!

caziques

2,567 posts

167 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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It is quite amusing when people who have no knowledge of heat pumps pontificate about them.

I have a 24 hours on a plane to the UK this weekend, I'll try and do one of those tables with all the myths about heat pumps, similar to the one about EVs.

Design is paramount with a heat pump powered central heating system, with an oil boiler anything will work.

NZ is different, generally a bit warmer and 80% renewable electricity is 16p a kWhr standard rate, 6p night rate for 10 hours.

Volare

401 posts

62 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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My experience;

1950s 3 bed semi, good windows, cavity wall and loft insulation.

Had electric storage heaters for the first 4 years, absolutely terrible, apart from heating the home hot water was also a problem, 2 immersion heaters in a water cylinder, they failed often and the recovery time was awful. That doesn't include the astronomical running costs and poor reliability of the heaters themselves.

Looked into ASHP with the RHI subsidy, wasn't worth it, unless your home is well insulated, can accommodate UFH and fit large volume radiators it would cost a fortune to run. Installation costs were very high too.

Fitted a combi oil boiler and whilst it did give some issues at the start it has been fantastic at heating the home and giving us tons of hot water.

Not ideal in the world we live in but its very efficient, has a low NOx burner and is frugal on fuel (<1000ltrs last year).

Edited by Volare on Monday 16th May 10:44

Equus

16,770 posts

100 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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caziques said:
It is quite amusing when people who have no knowledge of heat pumps pontificate about them.
Almost as amusing as when someone from a global backwater with no knowledge of our construction techniques or the thermal performance of our buildings tries to convince us that he is the only person who knows how to design a heat pump installation, and that every Building Services Engineer and heat pump specialist in the UK is incompetent.

If you're doing a list, remember to include the cons as well as the pros: I've noticed that you're less good at that.

And remember as you do so that (in addition to the point you've already acknowledged, that our climate is cooler than NZ), most of our housing stock is masonry and therefore has higher thermal mass with lower eirtighness than the timber frame properties that predominate in NZ.

Nobody is saying that heat pumps can't or don't work, but they have their place and high thermal mass, low thermal efficiency existing housing stock isn't it.

Siko

1,976 posts

241 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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Only thing I'd add is there is a belief that ASHP only work with UFH. It's not correct - they do work best with UFH but especially modern rads designed for low energy/high output such as Stelrad K3 etc work really well too if no UFH available. We have UFH downstairs and old (but pretty!) victorian rads upstairs and both work brilliantly.

Fusss

280 posts

79 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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Even the modern Dimplex Quantum heaters are not worth it in my opinion, and they aren’t cheap!

We had an approved firm come round to survey and quote us for replacing all of old storage heaters with top of the range WiFi enabled Dimplex Quantums and Dimplex panel heaters upstairs.

To dig up the road, connect the gas, have full central heating installed including combi boiler, radiators, towel rails….. Was only £1k more expensive. So that’s what we did, and haven’t regretted it once.

Google the Quantum reviews and do some proper digging. They aren’t all that. We ended up getting in touch with loads of people who had them before we nearly took the plunge so we had real user experiences, and they responses were not amazing. Still damn expensive to run and still run out of heat when you need it.

I’d do anything to get anything other than electric heating. Its woeful.

turbospud

499 posts

237 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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Equus said:
Almost as amusing as when someone from a global backwater with no knowledge of our construction techniques or the thermal performance of our buildings tries to convince us that he is the only person who knows how to design a heat pump installation, and that every Building Services Engineer and heat pump specialist in the UK is incompetent.

If you're doing a list, remember to include the cons as well as the pros: I've noticed that you're less good at that.

And remember as you do so that (in addition to the point you've already acknowledged, that our climate is cooler than NZ), most of our housing stock is masonry and therefore has higher thermal mass with lower eirtighness than the timber frame properties that predominate in NZ.

Nobody is saying that heat pumps can't or don't work, but they have their place and high thermal mass, low thermal efficiency existing housing stock isn't it.
nail on the head there equus,
and also add when further north the temperature extremes in a day

Bustlepuncher

27 posts

149 months

Monday 16th May 2022
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Five years ago I converted two barns in rural Northumberland- a place not known for its warm weather. As we have no gas supply I put dimplex Quantum night storage heaters downstairs and have found them to be very good indeed. Like ashp, I guess the key is insulation and airtightness. I put a lot of insulation into the buildings and its paid off well. Heat never runs out, houses are warm, and night rate electric means costs are not high.

Rockatansky

Original Poster:

1,698 posts

186 months

Saturday 21st May 2022
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I've now had it confirmed that there is no mains gas, so that's that out of the mix.

If it wasn't for impending bans making me wonder what's next then I think I'd favour oil.

Still a long road to go purchase wise, so lots of time to research & think.

Thanks again for all your comments.