Hey up,
Can anyone offer any suggestions on replacing my ancient storage heaters??

I live in a rented house, old stone built number in the countryside, very scenic but also Baltic in winter!

Heating is currently by an open fire and 4 old school storage heaters (the old ones with no timer feature and the size of a small wardrobe)! The electrickery bill for the last winter quarter was £1300, an envelope opening experience I’m anxious to avoid repeating! The only other thing that uses a lot of power is probably the tumble drier but with a small baby I’ve resigned myself to that being a neccesary evil…

I’m on a tariff where the electric is a fair bit cheaper at night but not sure if it’s actually the old economy7 or not tbh!

So, I’ve put as much insulation in the loft as I can, insulation film over the windows, heavy curtains etc, would I also be better off turning off the storage heaters and replacing them with oil filled radiators?? How would I know if they were more efficient?

Anything else that would help, keeping in mind I rent so can’t change a great deal…. 🙁

Cheers!

Wood burning stove.

Any other form of electrical heating would be the same = a kW in, a kW out. Stone has a huge thermal mass and if you can’t insulate or draft proof any more, you need a cheaper and more efficient form of heating – a stove is 5x more efficient than an open fire.

Stove would be nice I agree but as it’s not my house I doubt I’d get away with that level of alteration

How do you get your hot water? There are stainless insulated cylinders available now that have floating baffles, and elements top and bottom that are very efficient and keep the heat in way better than a lagged copper cylinder.
Running your washer/dryer overnight with the cheaper leccy would help.

Edit: you are renting so changing the cylinder is out.

If you switch to any other electric heating it will normally mean during the day so will cost more. As above kW in = kW out with electricity.

Do you have shutters you can use at night? Heavy curtains were on my list but you already have them

If you can secondary glazing units would help but are expensive.

Do you have any damp? Damp air has a higher specific heat capacity so a dehumidifier could help. At the end of the day it’s output is heat so it won’t really cost you much more to run.

Have you got any draughts?

If you are on economy 7 then does the power to the heaters only turn on in the cheap period? If not then it might be worth asking the landlord if you can get some timers fitted to them. Just needs the wall outlet plate replacing with a timer one.

Thanks folks…

I’d never actually thought that the heaters might not only use power during the night! That probably shows my understanding of electric! Timers sound like a good idea if not, any idea how Id see when they’re using electric? Borrow a smart meter thing maybe?

Bathroom is downstairs and extremely damp, landlord has offered a fan but obviously that won’t solve the damp problem so maybe a de humidifier is the way to go….

Switch them on and off whole looking at the meter – you should be able to tell, even without a smart meter.

Do they have an easily accessible cable? You can get small clamp on meters (we got one free from british gas) that are supposed to go on the meter feed but you can also put them onto individual appliances.

A heated clothes airer is much cheaper to run than a tumble dryer (might not meet all your drying needs but might save you having to use the td all the time). Lakeland’s one is legendary 🙂 but Aldi have a special buy coming up. Also we used to have an open fire with (useless) storage heaters. On very cold days we used a portable calor gas heater as well–they throw out a really good heat.

You’ve done pretty all that you could be expected to do. I’d be trying hard to get a stove fitted – I think it would help a lot compared to an open fire.
Have you thought of moving to another property?

I was going to suggest that as it is a rental is there nothing else near by that is more efficient to heat that you could move into?

If it is a serious concern then get some conversation with the landlord going as to what they could help you/allow you to do. Installation of a wood burning or multi fuel stove would make the place a more appealing place to rent in the future so they may feel it is a worth while expense.

Thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately there are very very few houses to rent in darkest swaledale! Other than the fact it’s cold it’s an ok house for the money with a big garden and shed etc.

I think having the chat with the landlord through the agents may be the way forward and see about getting a stove for next winter, it’s a big expense for something that would end up being the landlords, but if it saves on electric… To my knowledge the landlord never visits, they live the other end of the country. Neighbours have gutted their side and tiled floors, all sorts, so it may well not be a problem…

We spent £275 a month to heat our house in Killin – modern, 4 bed large house. Welcome to storage heaters.
You can get all sorts of help as a tenant – if you have lanlords permission you can get grants, insulation, new windows etc…

You should be able to see if you are on economy 7, as a renter you still ‘own’ the contract with the electric supply company?

Economy 7 from memory should give you cheap electric overnight for the hot water immersion and the storage heaters, and then a 1hr or so boost mid afternoon. Normally a second/split meter and everything wired into this split side of the meter gets turned on and off automatically with the cheap rate times.

If your storage heaters are wired into a single rate meter they will be on all the time, and if you are on economy 7, the day rate is probably more expensive than a single rate tariff.

Another biggie is draught proofing, no point heating if the wind is blowing around the front door/through letter box and out the cat flap at the other side of the house!

We’ve got storage heaters (large 3 bed flat, the shops below don’t seem to be heated though, walls are uninsulated cavities and only roof space above us).

Insulating the roof makes a huge difference, that and figuring out how the storage heaters work. If you can do anything to the roof I’d start there.

They should be fed on a separate circuit from the meter, so there should be two meters (we’ve actually got 3, heating, day and night). That’s how they bill the different rates, the heating circuit only comes on when the meter switches it on. The heaters themselves have 2 controls, one thermostat controls how hot it gets the bricks inside, the other how late in the day it releases the heat (I’ve no idea how it does this, thees no clockwork or timer, but that’s what the manual says it does). Once we figured out the settings the flats nice and warm in the evening and cold enough in the mornings that we have a couple of small heaters come on 5-6 to heat the bedrooms on the nighttime tariff.

The electrickery bill for the last winter quarter was £1300,

Pah! Try bottled LPG. During the last v cold winter before we had our stove we went through £2000 gas over a similar period….

Wowzers, I won’t be swapping to lpg then that’s for sure!!

The meter seems to be quite new, and gives 2 digital readings, I assume one is for the day rate and one for the night rate? Will have a look at it in the morning as its in the shed down the garden and see if either meter slows down when the heaters are switched off at the socket I think.

I might also pop a bit more insulation up in the loft, can’t hurt I don’t suppose!

Cheers

We’ve got the same house in Scotland! Loft was insulated with a grant, Storage heaters we only use the one in the hallway to keep the worst of the chill off.
Best thing we got was a dimplex eco cadiz heater, that and a couple of wall mounted convector heaters supplement the open fire, and unlike oil filled heat up and cool down quickly so you get heat when you want not half an hour later. The open fire gets lit pretty much every night unless its really scorchio cos once the walls get cold it takes ages to warm the place up.
Curtains over all doors as well as windows.
Heated towel rail in the bathroom uses as much leccy as an olde worlde bulb supplemented by a wall mount infra red for when needed.

All that expensively heated air is disappearing up the hole in the roof, even faster if the fire is actually on.

If your fire has a flat front, stick one of these in it. You can then remove and sell once you move out, if the landlord doesn’t want to keep it.
It will make a huge differnece in in a property like yours.

Have a look at the Green Deal it was closed back in July but it should be opening up again by the end of the year. You’ll need to okay it with the landlord but I can’t see it being a problem. Could help with double glazing, insulation, maybe even a new boiler (I assume that would have to be oil).

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/green-deal

We’re in a very similar property near you although it’s now toasty warm – the landlord has fitted programmable Rointe heaters to all his ancient properties and it has made a world of difference. I did some research before they were fitted and some people reckoned they were no more efficient than normal radiators, however, our old cottage is now a different place and I can’t recommend them enough. They’re timed to come on around 5am for a few hours then back on around 4pm till 7pm – the fire is generally roaring by then and with free wood that’s fine.

it’s a big expense for something that would end up being the landlords,

I would have thought that the landlord should pay for it.

If your fire has a flat front, stick one of these in it. You can then remove and sell once you move out, if the landlord doesn’t want to keep it.

I’m not really seeing how you can say this. To fit an insert stove I’m pretty sure you need to remove the fireback this is already there (we certainly did), so you can’t really remove it!
Also if you’re relying on the stove to provide a large amoutn of heat you’re better off with a standalone stove as inserts tend to put a fair bit of heat into the chimneybreast. This is not all that bad as the heat still comes out in the end but a standalone will have a bigger inpact, plus they’re easier to fit.

Designed to sit in place with fireback still there. Doesn’t always work though.

I don’t think you are meeting us halfway there. I don’t expect a direct link but a clue would be nice. (Not as nice as a direct link tho)

Is that to me sweepy? It’s an Aarrow Eco 5+ inset if so.
Eco 5+

Yes, it will lose some heat to the chimney breast, but it’s an easy way of getting something many times better than an open fire without any modifications. Don’t see how fitting a standalone stove can be cheaper, unless it’s done badly.

Is whining to the landlord not an option?

Yes, it will lose some heat to the chimney breast

You don’t lose this heat, it just gets released from the brickwork later (a bit like a storage heater).
A standalone stove can be installed without a flue liner, that stove ^ seems to require a 5″ liner. Also, if it can be installed without removing the fireback then the firebox is going to be pretty tiny meaning frequent reloading.
If the fireplace was suitable for a standalone, a stove off eBay could be installed very cheaply.
If I were relying on the stove as the main source of heat (and I had the choice) I wouldn’t be going with an inset as a standalone will give off more heat quicker.
And yes I do have both standalone and inset stoves.

I would suggest communicate with the landlord, it may take a while as they need to understand their investment. In a couple of years tenants will have the right to ask for the property to come up to a certain standard, EPC ‘E’ rating. You will probably need a green deal assessment.
I believe there is some new legislation coming in soon, so landlords will start to understand this issue. In the future if the property does not score an E on the EPC then I it can’t be let!
I am currently looking at old stone built cottages and Woodburning stoves are being used with back boilers to try to get to level E.
Quick google http://www.eversheds.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?ArticleID=en/Real_estate/Green-Deal-Minimum-Energy-Standards
sorry trying to keep it brief.

You can fit your own temporary secondary glazing of a fashion.
Perspex sheets with magnets around the edges + opposing magnet on the window frame, and you can hang them as required, makes a big improvement for the cost. It’s a popular thing among those who have single-glazed sash windows. I think you can buy them pre-made ready to put in place.

thsese astroturfers are getting smarter…..

They’re getting banned-er.