Storage Heating in apartment - average ESB bill?

QuiteInterestin

House hunting at the moment and I've seen a place I really like, unfortunately it has the dreaded storage heaters. For those of you living in houses/apartments with storage heaters, what are your ESB bills like? I know everyone is different but could anyone give me as estimate of what the average ESB bill would be for a 2 bed apartment that would have one large storage heater (living room) and smaller one (hallway) on all the time (heating at night and releasing during the day) as well as the occasional boost in the living room/bedroom heaters. I would also have the water heating for a few hours at night on the night rate. Any help/info would be much appreciated! Don't know many people with storage heaters and those that I do know seem to have given up on them and use portable convecter heaters instead after being stung with huge ESB bills. I've read the Storage Heating thread (great thread!) and think I could have a decent shot at setting them up correctly before resorting to the portable heaters but it would be great to know what kind of ESB bills I would be looking at if I did.

Not sure if this should have gone in the Storage Heating stickied thread or on its own, so could the mods please move it if you think it would be better there. Thanks

Idbatterim

I live in 2 bed apartment, have gas boiler here. Turned off all rads except one in living room and in my main bedroom. After picking up one of the below earlier, oil free heater with digital timer, climate control and remote control.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dimplex-CDE2ECC-Cadiz-Eco-Electric-Oil-Free-Radiator-Electronic-Climate-Control-/330837458356?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item4d0772fdb4&_uhb=1

just going to wheel it between the bedroom and living room as needs be.

I take it your looking to rent and not buy?

QuiteInterestin

Rent definitely! No plans to buy anytime soon. Saw the apartment on daft and have a viewing arranged for next week. Hopefully the agent will know what the current tenants ESB bills are like. Its at the top end of my budget so would like to have an idea of the bills to help me decide.

mikemac1

In a two bed with storage heating

Heating isn't used 10 months a year and with people out working all day bills are around 70-80 every two months.
Grand, it's tough to get lower then that

November to February it shoots up to around 180 every two months

Storage heater just eat, yes eat the electricity.

But overall it's not so bad.
I see you put your heating on at night and release during the day.
To be honest I don't know how to do that, I might use the booster 30 minutes in the morning and a few hours in the evening these winter days.

If your place is well maintained you should not need heat most of the year

Rodin

QuiteInterestin wrote: »

Rent definitely! No plans to buy anytime soon. Saw the apartment on daft and have a viewing arranged for next week. Hopefully the agent will know what the current tenants ESB bills are like. Its at the top end of my budget so would like to have an idea of the bills to help me decide.

about 200-250 last winter. I think storage heaters are an awful idea. I dont bother with the one in the hall, and have a portable heater on timer in the bedroom

QuiteInterestin

mikemac1 wrote: »

In a two bed with storage heating

Heating isn't used 10 months a year and with people out working all day bills are around 70-80 every two months.
Grand, it's tough to get lower then that

November to February it shoots up to around 180 every two months

Storage heater just eat, yes eat the electricity.

But overall it's not so bad.
I see you put your heating on at night and release during the day.
To be honest I don't know how to do that, I might use the booster 30 minutes in the morning and a few hours in the evening these winter days.

If your place is well maintained you should not need heat most of the year

Thanks, 70-80 sounds grand, 180 not so good but at least its only for a small part of the year. I'm not sure how I'd set them up if I was living there, I'm just guessing, probably wouldn't bother with the hallway one to keep the costs down. I lived in an apartment with storage heaters before and we had them set to heat at night and release during the day so I'd imagine I'd do the same again. Don't remember the bills being too bad then but we were students at the time and pretty stingy with turning it on. We were also gone every weekend and a few weeks over Christmas/Easter etc so we missed the coldest part of the year.

Rodin wrote: »

about 200-250 last winter. I think storage heaters are an awful idea. I dont bother with the one in the hall, and have a portable heater on timer in the bedroom

Was that for the whole winter or just 2 months of it? Will be renting on my own so no one to share the bills with!

Rodin

QuiteInterestin wrote: »

Thanks, 70-80 sounds grand, 180 not so good but at least its only for a small part of the year. I'm not sure how I'd set them up if I was living there, I'm just guessing, probably wouldn't bother with the hallway one to keep the costs down. I lived in an apartment with storage heaters before and we had them set to heat at night and release during the day so I'd imagine I'd do the same again. Don't remember the bills being too bad then but we were students at the time and pretty stingy with turning it on. We were also gone every weekend and a few weeks over Christmas/Easter etc so we missed the coldest part of the year.



Was that for the whole winter or just 2 months of it? Will be renting on my own so no one to share the bills with!

2 months. I rent on my own

david75

Storage heaters burn money. Get out of there ASAP.

Rodin

david75 wrote: »

Storage heaters burn money. Get out of there ASAP.

no suitable houses nearby

Lenin Skynard

I've a two-bed and the ESB stays fairly low. €60-70. Storage heaters aren't too bad at all if you manage to suss them on when you're on the night rate.

The trick is to set them on a medium input and a zero output at night and to set them on a medium output and a zero input in the day. I've lived in places with gas/oil/solid fuel and this really isn't as "dreaded" as you'd think once you figure it out. It can actually work out much cheaper and more consistent.

mikemac1

When you get your first bill OP you'll see a lot of VAT and standing charges

70 euro may seem high and it's possible to get this number down but there comes a point where you're paying the fixed charges anyway so no point in freezing or skipping the immersion showers, just use it

Winter is different but it's at most 2-3 months a year for the cold.

You will be on your own and bills to pay.

Yeah mind what you do but at the same time no point paying a lot in rent and then suffering every evening.
If you want the storage heater then use it.
At the same time once you get to February you shouldn't need it again

If there are draughts then get the landlord to fix it. Small things make a big difference to keeping the heat in

Idbatterim

I reckon heating is probably regularly required for November, December, January & February. I only heat the living room / kitchen when im in it and then bedroom at night time. I just thought the heater I bought was really good as its intelligent for want of a better word, as opposed to the storage heaters which just seem such a waste, much like immersion heaters...

QuiteInterestin

Thanks for the advice and info! Ideally I'd like to rent somewhere with a different form of heating but all of the places I'm interested in have storage heaters so I'll just have to give them a go. I won't know til I try.

mikemac1 wrote: »

When you get your first bill OP you'll see a lot of VAT and standing charges

70 euro may seem high and it's possible to get this number down but there comes a point where you're paying the fixed charges anyway so no point in freezing or skipping the immersion showers, just use it

Winter is different but it's at most 2-3 months a year for the cold.

You will be on your own and bills to pay.

Yeah mind what you do but at the same time no point paying a lot in rent and then suffering every evening.
If you want the storage heater then use it.
At the same time once you get to February you shouldn't need it again

If there are draughts then get the landlord to fix it. Small things make a big difference to keeping the heat in

Thanks for this, will have to find a happy medium where I'm not running the heating 24/7 or freezing every evening because I'm too stingy to put on the heating. Spent long enough like that as a student where I was afraid of putting on the heat for fear of running up the bills. It will probably be January before I move so at least I'll have missed some of the colder months.

Lenin Skynard wrote: »

The trick is to set them on a medium input and a zero output at night and to set them on a medium output and a zero input in the day. I've lived in places with gas/oil/solid fuel and this really isn't as "dreaded" as you'd think once you figure it out. It can actually work out much cheaper and more consistent.

It's a while since I've had to set up storage heater but how do you this? I thought the heaters only had 2 dials, input and output. Do some have separate dials for day and night? or are these settings to do with the fuse box?

An Ri rua

God, there's some awful misleading advice in this thread !!

YOu don't vary the input unless you want more heat. i.e set it between 4 and 6, then pretty much leave it there 24/7 unless the weather pattern changes and you need less or more heat. YOU DO NOT CHANGE THE INPUT DURING THE DAY. It is impotent / ineffective / inoperable etc etc during the day. In fact, the storage heater, as a rule, is DEAD during the day; being a brick that is letting out heat slowly or slightly more quickly via a mechanical flap that you operate via the OUTPUT dial.
The OP looked for advice on using a storage heater and instead got advice from one or two who don't know how to use a storage heater but instead just use the convection option which is immediate fan heat and has NOTHING to do with the storage heater operations or billing...

I experimented last year, in a 2-bed apt, and ran 2 of my storage heaters @6 input and 1 in the hall at 4. I had a bad dose of (the real) flu for a lot of Jan-Feb and was off work. My place was rarely below 22c in living area and 17 in hall and bedroom. The hall heater heated my bedroom too; I closed the second room up to prevent draughts pulling through from the open-vent nature of many apartment rooms. I think my largest bill was around 200. Another was 130. For winter months. That's not so bad at all. But then, winter 2011 wasn't bad either. I had oil heating and a spce heater (Inverter 5006 direct-injection paraffin heater) in a bungalow in the hard winter of 2010 and THAT ATE MONEY !! The oil heating, not the paraffin. In fact, I still use the paraffin heater in my rented apt; naughty me. But very cosy. A cute cosy culchie!

The https://www.electricireland.ie/ei/residential-energy-services/reduce-your-costs/appliance-calculators.jsp appliance calculator on Electric Ireland's website will clarify a lot of your concerns. If you stick a 1.8kw (check the little serial tag on your heater and google it) storage heater on a 6 and let it do its thing on nightsaver for 2 months, you're looking at 60-70 per heater. That is NOT that bad at all.

I say stick one on full at 6, stick your hall one on at 3 and leave the second one off entirely and both bedroom wall heaters. Then use a convection heater or an oil-filled rad to heat your bedroom in advance.

But its really worth reading through the Storage Heater stickies and asking questions until you understand it. The Devi-reg is another issue but simply sniffs the outside temperature. Don't get too hung up on it.

End of rant. Its just some here are giving advice on something THEY claim they know nothing about !! I am sure they know plenty about heating an apartment but you did firstly ask about using storage heaters.

Stay warm.

djimi

I'd say you did amazingly well to get away with a bill of only 200 when using storage heaters. The last time I used ours the highest bill we has was nearly 350 with one storage heater running, which was an increase of almost 200 on our normal bill. From doing some research on the matter this seems pretty much the norm, which is why I stopped using it. Using a plug in oil filled rad now and our bills have barely increased by 50 over the winter months.

irishgirl19

Around 250-300 every 2 months.im in a one bed flat.I got the bill yesterday it was horrible.will be following this thread to see can I pick up any tips

Dandelion6

I have two storage heaters running all the time in the winter and a third that I run when it gets especially cold. Winter bills around 200-250 every other month.

MMAGirl

I reckon it costs around 150 a month averaged over the 6 month heating system.Having used all of these methods of heating I think gas is most expensive. Then oil, and electric storage is cheapest - I was surprised too. I posted,on that in another thread somewhere.


Oil and gas prices have risen hugely,and are continuing to rise.

Lantus

A lot like people say is the property itself. If your apartment is 'in the middle' then you are by default warmer as you have a property above and below. If its relatively modern thats another potential bonus as insulation would be better.

If your a bloke and dont feel the cold then it wont likley bother you much. I lived in a property with a GF and she hated them. She wanted to top up the heat during the day as she wanted which you can't do and if it gets cold and you haven't adjusted the input you can get caught out until the next night cycle when you can adjust it. Mrs Lantus is the coldest person in the world so not to be able to boost the heat at any time within a few minutes would be relationship suicide.

Can't dry clothes on them (or at least you shouldn't) and thats a pain.

Personally compared to a wet system I find them a pain. But, many people get along with them. I certainly would never buy a property with them in though. But apartment living is different to housing

Dandelion6

Lantus wrote: »

But apartment living is different to housing

There's no reason it should be, at least in this respect. Had proper central heating in apartments in the US, really don't understand why you don't seem to be able to get it here.

loveofliving

Great thread.

OK, I am probably repeating what's already been asked here but I would appreciate some help on the subject because this is my first time to rent, and i.e first time to use storage heaters.

Myself and my boyfriend have just moved in to a 2 bed apartment, on the first floor of the apartment block. There is one large storage heater in the living room, and one in the hall. The two heaters in the bedrooms seem to be different types of heaters... perhaps they're called convector heaters? You just turn them on and set them and bobs your uncle. They also have a timer option.

When we were explained how to use the heaters we tested them. When going to bed we turned the output right down to 1 and the input about 5. The next day we set the output to about 5 and we had a decent amount of heat that evening.

since then... NOTHING. Under the storage heater, ie attached to it but at the very bottom there is a dark coloured fan type thing. If I turn the output down to zero and then back up to 4/5 it blows our warm air but I believe this is NOT the heating. The red light is on down the bottom ad it sporadically blows out warm air but it doesn't heat the room. The large heater has absolutely no heat coming from it. None whatsoever. However, last week it did for one day. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be?

On the wall beside the heater there are two switches. One is on and has a red light which is always working, and I believe operates the fan. The other one doesn't have any light coming on when we switch it on. Someone suggested to us that this is because it only works from 11-7 on the night rate. Is this true? I looked at it at midnight and there was still no light on. YET we did have a warm heater for one day which suggests that the night before it did indeed 'store heat'. Are the two different switches for the fan and then for the actual heater? I am so confused. Either way we have left both on, left the output on low and the input on high when going to bed and still no heat for two days now, just sporadic blowing of warm air from the fan beneath the heater.

The weirder thing is that the storage heater in the hall is working!

Can anyone offer any advice? We have had it on for days now but we are getting no benefit from it! Should we tell the landlord and have it 'fixed'? or should we switch both switches off and just buy a plug in heater? Would that even be cheaper? please advise. Part of me wonders if the hall one is on and the sitting room one is off then we probably won't save much money anyway! At the moment I am p***** off because both switches on the big one are turned on which means presumably we will be charged for 3 days worth of electricity on the storage heater yet we have gotten nothing from it.

any help would be great! Thanks

Mrs OBumble

loveofliving wrote: »

When going to bed we turned the output right down to 1 and the input about 5. The next day we set the output to about 5 and we had a decent amount of heat that evening.

since then... NOTHING. Under the storage heater, ie attached to it but at the very bottom there is a dark coloured fan type thing. If I turn the output down to zero and then back up to 4/5 it blows our warm air but I believe this is NOT the heating. The red light is on down the bottom ad it sporadically blows out warm air but it doesn't heat the room. The large heater has absolutely no heat coming from it. None whatsoever. However, last week it did for one day. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be?

On the wall beside the heater there are two switches. One is on and has a red light which is always working, and I believe operates the fan. The other one doesn't have any light coming on when we switch it on. Someone suggested to us that this is because it only works from 11-7 on the night rate. Is this true? I looked at it at midnight and there was still no light on. YET we did have a warm heater for one day which suggests that the night before it did indeed 'store heat'. Are the two different switches for the fan and then for the actual heater?

The weirder thing is that the storage heater in the hall is working!

Should we tell the landlord and have it 'fixed'? or should we switch both switches off and just buy a plug in heater? Would that even be cheaper? please advise.

I am p***** off because both switches on the big one are turned on which means presumably we will be charged for 3 days worth of electricity on the storage heater yet we have gotten nothing from it.

I'm in apartment very similar to yours, and looking at my large lounge heater it sounds just the same.

Yes, the bedroom heaters most probably are convection heaters.

Re the two switches, you are right, one is for the fan heater, and one is for the storage. Sometimes you'll find that the red light isn't working in these switches, even though the heater is.

It also sounds like your heater has a thermostat, and this is controlled by the Output switch. This thermostat control both when the fan heater comes on, and whether the storage happens over night.

My guess is because you turned the output aka thermostat right down and had the hallway heater on too, that most days when night-rate time arrived the heater said "it's warm, no need to store any heat" so didn't.

So my advice would be to turn off the fan heater switch (this is the bit that burns up electricity), but move the output up a bit. Also move the input up fairly high a the moment - it's cold outside.

Oh- and don't be pissed. You will only get charged for what you use. If you don't have heat in storage, you won't get charged for it. OTOH, if the fan has been going a lot (eg overnight when you are asleep) this could mount up.

Overall, I'm very happy to have storage. No forking out for tanks of oil. No having plug-heaters to drip over. No gas and worries about safety. We use one small storage heater probably November - April, obviously with lower input in the warmer months. Get heat through the floor from downstairs tenants too. Bill is approx E80 in summer to E160 in the height of winter.

Dandelion6

Dandelion6 wrote: »

I have two storage heaters running all the time in the winter and a third that I run when it gets especially cold. Winter bills around 200-250 every other month.

Scratch that just got new bill and it's €327! :eek: Never had one this high before.

uli84

got mine too-300 for 2 bed ground floor, mrs OBumble-if you only have electricity in your flat I have to say your bill is impressively low

beccerelda

Hi all, just spotted this thread and hope you don't mind me butting in! I live in a rented one bedroom flat with two large storage heaters, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. This week I got an ESB bill for €450!! Needless to say I was disgusted. I was expecting 250-300. I've lived in properties with storage heaters before but have never had a bill like this. Have checked the meters and readings etc to make sure it's not a mistake. From what I can work out there seems to be some glitch with the heaters or fuse board/wiring or something else. Heat is being stored overnight using the night rate meter but it seems to be storing all day on the day rate as well. Clearly this is very wrong!! I'm just wondering if anyone has had this happen to them or if/how it was fixed? Landlord is coming round tomorrow to have a look and will no doubt call an electrician.

ShaShaBear

Last year, when I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with only one storage heater in it, using the nightsaver mode and having the setting on 4, My bill for two winter months was 290. Would definitely avoid anywhere with storage heating unless you KNOW that the place retains heat well.

ada.kelly

ShaShaBear wrote: »

Last year, when I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with only one storage heater in it, using the nightsaver mode and having the setting on 4, My bill for two winter months was 290. Would definitely avoid anywhere with storage heating unless you KNOW that the place retains heat well.

where you using the heating every night?

QuiteInterestin

Well I got my answer, moved in the first week of February and got my first bill for February only for €71 (meter was read as far as I know). While thats not too bad, my water heating wasn't working at night for all of February (the thermostat had gone in the night heating part of the cylinder) and my main storage heater in the sitting room wasn't (and still isn't) working. Yet, I had more night units used then day units so I'm quite confused as to where all the night units came from. The common area storage heater is beside the door into my apartment and would be back to back with my own sitting room storage heater. I'm beginning to wonder now if it's hooked up to my apartments meter (it was off when I moved in but I turned it on hoping it might help warm up my apartment which is quite cold due to my heater not working). Any one have any experience of this or am I just being paranoid? Asked the same question over on Electric Ireland so hopefully someone will be able to help.

Mrs OBumble

Anything is possible!

It will probably take an electrician to tell. Is your landlord being helpful re resolving the problems?

QuiteInterestin

Thanks, had an electrician in to fix the water heater at the beginning of March and there's another electrician coming this week to sort out the heaters so I'll ask him what he thinks. I've located the electric meters so I'm going to borrow a triangle key during the week and check if there is a separate apartment block meter as recommended over on the Electric Ireland forum. While I'm at it, I'll check if the usage rate of mine increases when the common area storage heater is on.

Landlord is being pretty good about it all, they're contributing towards my ESB bill for February and hopefully the heaters will be sorted this week. The electrician who fixed the water heater recommended the storage heater be replaced, but I think they want a second opinion.

the groutch

people reading this need to bear in mind that the bills quoted storage heaters are for electricity AND heating.
someone on gas/oil will have that bill plus a seperate electricity bill, so storage heating isnt as bad as it seems.