efficient use of Storage heating in new 2 bed appartment

JoeA3

Hi folks,
I have just moved into a new apartment (it was built about 2 years ago but I'm the first occupant).

The heating system is all-electric, whereas I have been used to having gas or oil in previous places. I have heard that electric (storage) heating can be eye wateringly expensive, so I'm looking for advice on whether I've it set correctly or not!

There is a Horstmann E7 Water heating control timer in the hallway, this is the one I think: http://www.horstmann.co.uk/downloads/ElectronicDocuments/Electric-Water-Heating/E7Q-UserGuide.PDF

I have read those instructions, and I have it switched on to "Timed" mode and I have the clock set against the "Winter time". I haven't used the boost timer yet. I assume that's to get me additional hot water if necessary?

I have Dimplex DuoHeat rads (http://www.dimplex.co.uk/products/domestic_heating/installed_heating/duoheat_radiator/duoheat_radiator/index.htm) in the main living area and in the hallway. I have both switched on, and both appear to be set to "Normal" (factory default settings). The one in the living room has 2 switches (with red light) on the wall next to it, whereas the one in the hall only has one?! So the one in the hall only comes "on" at night when its storing up the heat or whatever.

My issues/questions are:
- my understanding is the horstmann timer kicks in at night and this heats up the water and the Rads "store up" the heat for the next day. This seemed to start before midnight lastnight. I would have thought this should be much later, i.e. well after midnight to avail of the cheaper rates?


- the 2 Dimplex rads are on and fairly warm (even hot!) from the morning right through the day. By the time it gets to 9/10pm, the time when I'd most need the heat, they're only lukewarm...

- the dimplex manual says to leave both wall switches "on". If I do this in the living room (remember, there's only one switch in the hall rad), then the living room rad is piping hot, and I assume burning up electricity on the expensive day rate. I thought it should only come on when really needed... the living room is very warm during the day, it gets a lot of sunlight.

- it seems a chronic waste of energy (not to mention money) for the heat to be running in the apartment all day long when I'm only there in the evenings. Is this how this is supposed to work?

Sorry about all questions, just this is new to me and don't want nasty esb bill shocks... I was used to switching on the gas in my old place for an hour or two in the evenings when I really needed it for water/heat, and even then, the bills were steep enough over the winter. But in my new place, I have a warmed up apartment and a tankful of hot water all the time even though I don't need most of it!

RandomUsername

Hi , regarding the living room you should have the output on low during the day and ramp it up in the evening .

regarding the the one in the hall i don't know but that type of dimplex rad are ment to have 2 supplies one is constantly on day and night and one comes on at night to charge the blocks

from what i remember of that type of rad the face does get fairly hot

hope this helps

JoeA3

kevinfox wrote: »

Hi , regarding the living room you should have the output on low during the day and ramp it up in the evening .

regarding the the one in the hall i don't know but that type of dimplex rad are ment to have 2 supplies one is constantly on day and night and one comes on at night to charge the blocks

from what i remember of that type of rad the face does get fairly hot

hope this helps

Hi Kevin, thanks for reply.

For the one in the living room, the manual (http://www.dimplex.co.uk/assets/kb/operating_instructions/0/DuoHeat_i_Range_Operating_Issue_7.pdf) seems to suggest that:

- I should leave both wall switches on. I've found that if I do this, then the radiant heat is on and I assume burning up electricity!

- That once I set the background (output?) to a comfort setting, i.e. around midpoint, that I shouldn't need to adjust it again. Are you suggesting that I should manually adjust this every morning / evening?


The rad in the hallway looks identical to the one in the living room, albeit a little bit smaller. But this one has only one wall switch and the red light only comes on at night. So there doesn't seem to be a way to adjust this one's output level at all

RandomUsername

The way i understand it the unit needs power to release the heat stored that's why you must leave power on it all the time , if it doesnt have enough stored it will act as a regular convection heater .

I'd check up the one in the hall and see is it a different type

I think it's the input that you shouldn't need to adjust after it's setup
The output should be adjusted as required

cast_iron

For a start, the Horstman timer is completely seperate to the heating. The horstman heats the water only. Night hours start at 11pm in Winter, so that's not a problem. The boost setting gives a smaller amount of water in a short time (good for the evening if you only need a bit and all the hot water is gone!)

As for the storage heating, that one seems like an expensive one to run the way the manufacturer indicates. Yes, they are supposed to heat up at night and give off heat during the day. And yes, sadly, by the time you get home, most of the nighttime heat is gone. In short, for the use you want, they are fairly useless (except for weekends - if you're there at all).

I have a similar setup to yourself and have settled on just turning on the convector part of the heater in the evening to warm the place for a bit, and leave the overnight switch off altogether. Mine has its own "boost" settings for different times of the day, but I found these have a mind of their own and abandoned them.

The long and short of it is that electric storage heating is pretty useless and expensive for the average apartment with people working during the day (where most of them are installed) and are just one more reason to avoid buying/renting a typical Irish apartment.

JoeA3

Thanks guys, I think its fairly clear now. The only bit that I don't quite get is why there's only one wall switch (with red light) for the rad in the hall, meaning that I cannot adjust this radiators settings at all! The one red wall switch/light that it has comes on at night, as expected, but to adjust its input/output I'd need the other switch... which isn't there. Hmmm.

This is a brand new a well kitted out apartment too (well... it was built at the tail end of the celtic tiger), so I'd have thought the heating system would be modern/efficient!

Neither is there any radiator in the bathroom or the ensuite. There's a little switch outside both which looks like a thermostat but doesn't seem to do anything. Its the Fenix-Therm 100 at this link. That seems to suggest that it controls underfloor heating but the tiles don't seem to heat up when I switch it on.

DublinDilbert

JoeA3 wrote: »

Thanks guys, I think its fairly clear now. The only bit that I don't quite get is why there's only one wall switch (with red light) for the rad in the hall, meaning that I cannot adjust this radiators settings at all! The one red wall switch/light that it has comes on at night, as expected, but to adjust its input/output I'd need the other switch... which isn't there. Hmmm.

This is a brand new a well kitted out apartment too (well... it was built at the tail end of the celtic tiger), so I'd have thought the heating system would be modern/efficient!

Neither is there any radiator in the bathroom or the ensuite. There's a little switch outside both which looks like a thermostat but doesn't seem to do anything. Its the Fenix-Therm 100 at this link. That seems to suggest that it controls underfloor heating but the tiles don't seem to heat up when I switch it on.

Sounds like you have a mixture of instantaneous (one switch) and storage heaters (two switches), this would be fairly common.

IMO storage heating is not well suited to appartments as there is typically no one there during the day, when the heat is available. Storage heaters are meant to be able to store their charge all day long, then release it in the evening time, but i've never seen it work in practice. The builders only installed it cause it was cheap and meant they didn't need space for a boiler/exhaust.

When I lived in an apt, we just used in the instantaneous electric heating as we never knew what evening we would be there etc... They are typically very well insulated and have people on both sides heating up their space, so don't need massive amounts of heat.

david

I'm in a very similar apartment with the same plumbling/heating it seems. The storage heaters are pretty useless. I just use all of the heaters instantaneously as needed and the water heater is set from about 5-7am. I've never ran out of hot water (2 bed, two showers plus moderate washing up every day). The bills are usually less than €100 every 2 months.

If you're fond of heat, the storage heaters can be expensive. We got stung for €240 for Nov/Dec with about 14hrs heating used per week (one storage heater in living room mainly).

We've apartments on all four sides of us so it never really dropped below about 15c room temp right through last Winter.

cast_iron

JoeA3 wrote: »

Thanks guys, I think its fairly clear now. The only bit that I don't quite get is why there's only one wall switch (with red light) for the rad in the hall, meaning that I cannot adjust this radiators settings at all! The one red wall switch/light that it has comes on at night, as expected, but to adjust its input/output I'd need the other switch... which isn't there. Hmmm.

There's often an input dial on the hallway one, but sometimes not. There will be only one switch in the hall as instantaneous power is not usually required. The input may well be tied to the input on the input of the sitting room, though don't hold me to that....some setups are a bit complicated.

This is a brand new a well kitted out apartment too (well... it was built at the tail end of the celtic tiger), so I'd have thought the heating system would be modern/efficient!

I'm sure they were efficient....for the builder to install! As the previous posters have said, in practice, storage heating in apartments isn't really a good idea at all.

Neither is there any radiator in the bathroom or the ensuite. There's a little switch outside both which looks like a thermostat but doesn't seem to do anything. Its the Fenix-Therm 100 at this link. That seems to suggest that it controls underfloor heating but the tiles don't seem to heat up when I switch it on.

Seems like underfloor heating alright. There may be a label inside your fuseboard that may confirm easily if there's underfloor installed. Either way it would usually take a while to heat up, so put it up to the max and leave it on for a couple of hours and see what the result is.

smallbrowncat

This is a really interesting thread and I wish I had seen all this information before the start of winter! I also live in a new 2 bed Dub apartment (electric storage heater and was new to the northern hemisphere/central heating thing. This terrible electric night storage system is complete bollocks. During the coldest parts of winter, the storage heating was completely gone by the evening so we were having to use the boost and chew more €€€€€ on the daytime rate.

Just got the 25 Dec - 25 Feb bill for €371!!!! :eek: That's €100 more than the last one! This is for two people and we were overseas the past two weeks with everything switched off!! The last reading was an estimate so hopefully that time away will be reflected in the next bill. Am angry and jetlagged so just switched off all the overnight switches for the heater and am just going to use boost as necessary now. Have also got a combo washer/dryer so it's energy inefficiency central at our place :S

Anyway, enough of that rant - my question is: how can I change the timer settings on my water tank? It is set on timer to go from about midnight to 7am which I'm sure is far too long. My landlord said he used to manually manipulate the timer before he went to bed so it would come on from 5am and then he'd switch it off when it got up. All of which sounds like a right pain in the backside to do and liable to forgetting to switch it off in the morning, so I'd rather just change the heating timeframe on the timer completely. It's a Stuart Turner pump with a Horstman E7 timer control. Any tips would be greatly appreciated....

So furious I'm going to have to shell out nearly €400 for power for two months for two people. Single income right now so not ideal. :mad:

smallbrowncat

Just got the screwdriver out and took off the cover of the timer (while husband is fast asleep, I'm sure he's wondering what on earth I'm doing banging about in the hot press)... it appears I can't move the timer to start later than midnight/1am-ish. Therefore I might have to go with manual manipulation of the timer as I described above. Also giving up the farce of using the storage heaters at night might help too!

Sigh.... any other energy saving tips would be appreciated!

cast_iron

smallbrowncat wrote: »

how can I change the timer settings on my water tank? It is set on timer to go from about midnight to 7am which I'm sure is far too long.

It's not as bad as it sounds. It usually takes about 3-4 hours to heat a tank fully. Assuming the tank is cold to start with, the electricity is being used for this full duration whilst all the water is being heated. When this point is reached, the electric is switched off. It only comes on every now and again (up to 7am) to top up the heat as a small amount of heat will be lost as the night goes on. It's not actually that inefficient, but there is small bit of waste going on all the same.

If you still aren't happy, you're only option is to change the timer. The landlord's idea seems like too much work really.

smallbrowncat

Thanks castiron!!!

Perhaps therefore the best I can do to avoid a repeat of this enormous bill is to not bother with night storage and just use electricity on boost in the evenings as necessary... it's March so technically it's spring, right?! Haha! Also I'm going to try minimise further my use of the tumble dry function on my combo washer/dryer. Currently I'm using it about 4 times a week, for about 100 minutes each time for things like towels. Hopefully cutting it down further and trying to use it only at night (even though it's quite noisy) will help.

cast_iron

smallbrowncat wrote: »

Thanks castiron!!!

Perhaps therefore the best I can do to avoid a repeat of this enormous bill is to not bother with night storage and just use electricity on boost in the evenings as necessary... it's March so technically it's spring, right?! Haha! Also I'm going to try minimise further my use of the tumble dry function on my combo washer/dryer. Currently I'm using it about 4 times a week, for about 100 minutes each time for things like towels. Hopefully cutting it down further and trying to use it only at night (even though it's quite noisy) will help.

I was always thought that Spring started on Feb 1st, but that's another argument:)

Assuming your not in the apt during the day, then the instantaneous heat in the evenings would probably more efficient. That won't really work for the hot water though!

Those dryers are only half-load dryers, and are yet another useless item common to Irish apartments. I pretty much avoid it except for a bit of airing. A clothes horse is far more efficient:)

JoeA3

smallbrowncat wrote: »

Thanks castiron!!!

Perhaps therefore the best I can do to avoid a repeat of this enormous bill is to not bother with night storage and just use electricity on boost in the evenings as necessary... it's March so technically it's spring, right?! Haha! Also I'm going to try minimise further my use of the tumble dry function on my combo washer/dryer. Currently I'm using it about 4 times a week, for about 100 minutes each time for things like towels. Hopefully cutting it down further and trying to use it only at night (even though it's quite noisy) will help.

I rarely ever use the dryer, unless I've been caught short and my only pair of jeans that I need for an impending night out are still wet :pac:
Why not use a clothes horse? That's what I always do, and the towels are mostly dry within 24 hours, even just sitting in the hall. If I moved the horse out to the balcony or parked it near a radiator it would be a lot quicker obviously.

Also, "SmallBrownCat"... My last apartment had Gas central heating (plus electricity obviously). The gas bill for the December-Jan period was also very high - about €220 and then regular ESB after that which was over the €100 mark too. So when you look at it that way, your €370 bill doesn't seem totally outrageous. It was a particularly cold winter!

Molly Mull

I have storage heating in my apt.....but the last few months it doesn't work on timer...There are two switches alongside heater - one for manual use and one for timer overnight......it will of course work on manual...but that proves sooo expensive...Does anyone out there have any idea please what could be up with heating...i.e. if it's a timer switch?
Does anyone know how to replace a timer switch? Also, are they expensive to replace.
Thanks

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Sounds like you have a mixture of instantaneous (one switch) and storage heaters (two switches), this would be fairly common.

IMO storage heating is not well suited to appartments as there is typically no one there during the day, when the heat is available. Storage heaters are meant to be able to store their charge all day long, then release it in the evening time, but i've never seen it work in practice. The builders only installed it cause it was cheap and meant they didn't need space for a boiler/exhaust.

When I lived in an apt, we just used in the instantaneous electric heating as we never knew what evening we would be there etc... They are typically very well insulated and have people on both sides heating up their space, so don't need massive amounts of heat.

loveofliving

Old thread I know...

Quick question!

Am I right in saying that storage heaters store the heat at night and let it out during the day at which point most people are finding that come evening time all the heat is gone?

My question is -

If it stores the heat at night and you have the 'output' at zero, why can't you just switch the output to 4/5 when you get home in the evening and use the heat then? I don't understand this at all.

We have a big storage heater in the living room and a small one in the hall.
We've left our input on high at night, and when we get home from work we get no heat. The whole heater is ice cold. The only 'heat' is some warm air that ocassionally comes from the fan below the storage heater.

YET, our very small storage heater in the hall IS warm when we get home.

How does this make any sense? :(:(

Am I better off buying a plug in heater and just using it as required for an hour or so in the evening? If I was to turn off the big storage heater in the living room completely (ie both switches off and stopping any electricity flowing in to it) would I realistically save the money that I would be using for the usage of 1 hour plug in heater? Or does the fact that the one in the hall will still be on mean I'll still pay a lot for storage heating?

So confused

cast_iron

loveofliving wrote: »

Am I right in saying that storage heaters store the heat at night and let it out during the day at which point most people are finding that come evening time all the heat is gone?

Pretty much.

My question is -

If it stores the heat at night and you have the 'output' at zero, why can't you just switch the output to 4/5 when you get home in the evening and use the heat then? I don't understand this at all.

Because the heaters can't store the heat all day without significant loss. You can't usually set it to output zero at any time. They can often be controlled to hold back some heat at certain times and release it at a later time in the day.

We have a big storage heater in the living room and a small one in the hall.
We've left our input on high at night, and when we get home from work we get no heat. The whole heater is ice cold. The only 'heat' is some warm air that ocassionally comes from the fan below the storage heater.

Sounds like the big heater is not working at all for some reason. Does it have heat in the morning?

Am I better off buying a plug in heater and just using it as required for an hour or so in the evening? If I was to turn off the big storage heater in the living room completely (ie both switches off and stopping any electricity flowing in to it) would I realistically save the money that I would be using for the usage of 1 hour plug in heater? Or does the fact that the one in the hall will still be on mean I'll still pay a lot for storage heating?

That's usually a more expensive way, but it's a toss up whether or not it's cheaper or not. Depends on how much you use the fan heater in the evenings. Does the big heater not have a fan part you can switch on whenever you like?

meercat

cast_iron wrote: »

Pretty much.

Because the heaters can't store the heat all day without significant loss. You can't usually set it to output zero at any time. They can often be controlled to hold back some heat at certain times and release it at a later time in the day.

Sounds like the big heater is not working at all for some reason. Does it have heat in the morning?

That's usually a more expensive way, but it's a toss up whether or not it's cheaper or not. Depends on how much you use the fan heater in the evenings. Does the big heater not have a fan part you can switch on whenever you like?

agree with castiron

i suspect the overheat trip has activated and your storage heater is not functioning correctly
this may have happened when your output was switched to zero
if you can get your electrician to reset it and open your output to 1 or 2 to help prevent overheat

loveofliving

Thanks for the reply!

We don't have any kind of timer on our heater so I can't see any possible way of setting it so that it saves heat for later.

When we leave at 8am it's freezing and producing no heat, and when we return the exact same. One day this week it felt warm, and since then nothing.

Yes the fan on the bottom comes on and blows a bit of warm air, but surely that's not heat? The actual heater with the vent is where heat should come from, as it does with the small one in the hall (that has no small fan below it). When we turn it on the fan starts and blows out a bit of warm air and then randomely stops and starts throughout the evening but it provides no real heat to the room and the large heater itself is ice cold.

I just don't get it because one in hall seems fine, but we have a large sitting room/kitchen where we spend 90% of our time and it's freezing. Embarrassing too as people are coming over to see our apartment and it's freezing!

In our boiler room we have an immersion that we can turn on to heat the water (I think) and it has a little dial beside it that has 15,30, 60 etc that you can set to a 'boost'. What is this for? Is it just to heat the water? Why is there a need for a boost button if you can just switch the immersion on with the on button and then switch it off again? Is this 'on' switch and the boost stuff in any way connected to the storage heaters?
Sorry if these questions sound stupid but its our first time to live on our own so its all very confusing :mad:

listermint

loveofliving wrote: »

Thanks for the reply!

We don't have any kind of timer on our heater so I can't see any possible way of setting it so that it saves heat for later.

When we leave at 8am it's freezing and producing no heat, and when we return the exact same. One day this week it felt warm, and since then nothing.

Yes the fan on the bottom comes on and blows a bit of warm air, but surely that's not heat? The actual heater with the vent is where heat should come from, as it does with the small one in the hall (that has no small fan below it). When we turn it on the fan starts and blows out a bit of warm air and then randomely stops and starts throughout the evening but it provides no real heat to the room and the large heater itself is ice cold.

I just don't get it because one in hall seems fine, but we have a large sitting room/kitchen where we spend 90% of our time and it's freezing. Embarrassing too as people are coming over to see our apartment and it's freezing!

In our boiler room we have an immersion that we can turn on to heat the water (I think) and it has a little dial beside it that has 15,30, 60 etc that you can set to a 'boost'. What is this for? Is it just to heat the water? Why is there a need for a boost button if you can just switch the immersion on with the on button and then switch it off again? Is this 'on' switch and the boost stuff in any way connected to the storage heaters?
Sorry if these questions sound stupid but its our first time to live on our own so its all very confusing :mad:

Just to be clear,

The Fan heater at the bottom is in fact a seperate heater to the storage. Its the very same as a standalone under desk heater you might pick up in Powercity. It has no connection to the storage heater above it bar physically being part of the same unit. Most people use this as a booster if the storage heating is low.

But the bottom line is storage heating is atrocious and is unfortunately a cheap option for the builders here to comply with building regulations. Gas would be better or underfloor.

I hate storage heating

meercat

this thread may help
if not try a search of this forum for storage heating

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056021766

cast_iron

loveofliving wrote: »

We don't have any kind of timer on our heater so I can't see any possible way of setting it so that it saves heat for later.

Often, the "output" setting sets when the heat is released. Some heaters call it "early boost" or "late boost".

When we leave at 8am it's freezing and producing no heat, and when we return the exact same. One day this week it felt warm, and since then nothing.

That indicates the heater is broken, as someone said above. I assume it's a rented apartment? If so, call the landlord to get an electrician to sort it.

Yes the fan on the bottom comes on and blows a bit of warm air, but surely that's not heat? The actual heater with the vent is where heat should come from, as it does with the small one in the hall (that has no small fan below it). When we turn it on the fan starts and blows out a bit of warm air and then randomely stops and starts throughout the evening but it provides no real heat to the room and the large heater itself is ice cold.

Some of the fans in those things are not great, perhaps this one has a fault too - it should provide a reasonable bit of heat either way.

In our boiler room we have an immersion that we can turn on to heat the water (I think) and it has a little dial beside it that has 15,30, 60 etc that you can set to a 'boost'. What is this for? Is it just to heat the water? Why is there a need for a boost button if you can just switch the immersion on with the on button and then switch it off again? Is this 'on' switch and the boost stuff in any way connected to the storage heaters?
Sorry if these questions sound stupid but its our first time to live on our own so its all very confusing :mad:

The boost is equivalent to the 'sink' setting. It heats the water quicker, but less of it. The full immersion is probably set to come on at night at cheap rate and heat the entire cylinder. The hot water setup has nothing to do with the storage heating.

frankmul

meercat wrote: »

agree with castiron

i suspect the overheat trip has activated and your storage heater is not functioning correctly
this may have happened when your output was switched to zero
if you can get your electrician to reset it and open your output to 1 or 2 to help prevent overheat

is it common thing, that the high limit stat will trip because the output is set to 0?

meercat

frankmul wrote: »

is it common thing, that the high limit stat will trip because the output is set to 0?

have come across it on occasions
the vent is closed preventing the heat escaping causing a build up of heat and the overheat switch activates

frankmul

meercat wrote: »

have come across it on occasions
the vent is closed preventing the heat escaping causing a build up of heat and the overheat switch activates

I would have blamed the customer for covering the heater with something! I wold have never guessed that could happen.