Apartment with electric heating

I'm considering buying an apartment with electric heating, I've no experience with electric heating and anytime I ask somebody all I get is "It's rubbish" which doesn't really help....

Couple of questions.

1 The electric heaters look quite old, how much have they advanced in say the last 10 years. If I considered upgrading the system in the house would it be worthwhile (Cost and efficiency)

2 How expensive are they to run, I know this is a difficult one to judge but could anybody give an example of their electric bill and how often they turn it on?

3 What options are there, are storage heaters that use electricity at night and run during the day the best option?

4 If the apartment has electric heating I'm assuming it hasn't been fitted for gas so converting to gas heating would not be an option?

thisistough

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm considering buying an apartment with electric heating, I've no experience with electric heating and anytime I ask somebody all I get is "It's rubbish" which doesn't really help....

Couple of questions.

1 The electric heaters look quite old, how much have they advanced in say the last 10 years. If I considered upgrading the system in the house would it be worthwhile (Cost and efficiency)

2 How expensive are they to run, I know this is a difficult one to judge but could anybody give an example of their electric bill and how often they turn it on?

3 What options are there, are storage heaters that use electricity at night and run during the day the best option?

4 If the apartment has electric heating I'm assuming it hasn't been fitted for gas so converting to gas heating would not be an option?

Hey OP

I live in an apartment with storage heaters, I'm a tenant so I've never looked into the cost of upgrading/installing gas. For 3 people in a 3 bed our bills over the year average €130 every 2 months, the highest being €230 over winter and the lowest being €95 for winter!

dubrov

I'd be more concerned with how well insulated the apartment is.
If it is well insulated and on one of the higher floors you probably won't spend much on heating anyway.

Storage heaters work well if you are in the apartment during the day. They charge during the night and release the heat during the day. You can control the rate of release but even the lowest setting will still leak heat.
The main problem is that if you are not back until 6pm, a lot of the heat can already be released. It might be cheaper to leave the heater on for 3 hours in the evening than 8 hours overnight (at half price).

I doubt gas heating is allowed in apartment complexes due to the potential for gas leaks to cause a massive disaster,

thisistough

thisistough wrote: »

Hey OP

I live in an apartment with storage heaters, I'm a tenant so I've never looked into the cost of upgrading/installing gas. For 3 people in a 3 bed our bills over the year average €130 every 2 months, the highest being €230 over winter and the lowest being €95 for winter!

That doesn't seem too bad at all, I assume these are total cost and not the split bill? I'm pretty sure I was paying more than that in the last place I rented with gas heating.

dubrov wrote: »

I'd be more concerned with how well insulated the apartment is.
If it is well insulated and on one of the higher floors you probably won't spend much on heating anyway.

Storage heaters work well if you are in the apartment during the day. They charge during the night and release the heat during the day. You can control the rate of release but even the lowest setting will still leak heat.
The main problem is that if you are not back until 6pm, a lot of the heat can already be released. It might be cheaper to leave the heater on for 3 hours in the evening than 8 hours overnight (at half price).

I doubt gas heating is allowed in apartment complexes due to the potential for gas leaks to cause a massive disaster,

The BER rating is a D2 so it's probably not well insulated in the first place also it was built around 10-12 years ago. It's a ground floor apartment so can't rely on others to heat it

Thanks for the responses!

sassyj

I am currently living with electric heaters and I hate them.

Gas central heating is way cheaper and you have the bonus of it heating your water at the same time, in most cases. You will have to pay to heat water if you have electric heating. With gas, even in summer, you can heat water with your gas at a much cheaper unit rate.


Is it a centralised time clock system, or would each heater have to be set up when you want heat to come on. That's another disadvantage, having to fiddle with timers on each heater depending on needs.

I also find it dries out your skin compared to gas. I miss gas central heating! I would personally avoid based on my experience of both.

yqtwqxqm

I had storage heating in a ground floor apartment.
I used to leave them heat up overnight and then open the flap when i got home from work aroun 6 or 6:30 every evening.
I found it fine. Over the year it worked out cheaper than anywhere i ever lived with gas central heating.
I guess you have to know how to use a storage heater though.
Most people dont.

yqtwqxqm

I had storage heating in a ground floor apartment.
I used to leave them heat up overnight and then open the flap when i got home from work aroun 6 or 6:30 every evening.
I found it fine. Over the year it worked out cheaper than anywhere i ever lived with gas central heating.
I guess you have to know how to use a storage heater though.
Most people dont.

PhoenixParker

Insulation is the key. If your apartment has neighbours on all sides (top, bottom, left, right) then storage heating will be grand. Add a good aspect and you'll barely need to use them. In that situation they're wonderful.

As you add external walls the need for good external insulation rises rapidly. In my experience storage heaters are no match for poor Irish build quality when external walls are involved. Newer apartment blocks are much better then old ones but I'd still approach with caution.

mvt

I think there are new German models of storage heaters which are supposed to be super efficient but don't really know much about them.

Glen Dimplex,which is actually an Irish company is considered to be the industry standard here & in the Uk have a wide range of models.

I installed one for a friend last year in his living room,a combined storage/standard heating one & he seems happy enough with it.

It was around 700 euro.

Funnily enough there was an internal wiring fault in the unit but they sent out a guy fairly quickly to fix it.

Have storage heaters myself but hardly ever use them,in the middle of an apt block & never really gets that cold

dubrov

I am sure you are already aware but ground floor apartments tend to have other issues apart from heating.
Off the top of my head I can think of:

Noise
Structural issues. They tend to manifest themselves at the bottom (rising damp etc.)
Less secure
Less privacy (hard to open curtains)

yqtwqxqm

dubrov wrote: »

I am sure you are already aware but ground floor apartments tend to have other issues apart from heating.
Off the top of my head I can think of:

Noise
Structural issues. They tend to manifest themselves at the bottom (rising damp etc.)
Less secure
Less privacy (hard to open curtains)

Ive lived in several ground floor apartments and had none of the complaints you speak of at all.
I found the own entrance ones to be a great thing actually.
While sometimes it might be night to be on an upper floor if there is a view, i prefer my own entrance, no stairs or lifts to wait on, though i have lived in one that was first floor with own entrance and had steps up to it too.
Sometimes they have a little patio/garden area too, way bigger than balconies.

dubrov

It depends on the ground floor apartment really.
Apartments with their own entrance wouldn't really have the noise issues.
Those with an entrance that face onto a shared lobby will certainly get more noise problems especially with people coming home at 3am.

If your sitting room / bedroom faces onto an area where people are constantly passing, most people will pull their curtains during the day for privacy.
This can feel a bit claustrophobic.

thisistough

Yeah that's the total bill! I honestly thought when I moved in that it was going to be much worse, we don't go cold either so we haven't been working to keep the bills down! Just to add as well we have a day/night meter, not sure if these are standard with electricity only places, but just in case it makes a difference

The Randy Riverbeast

Depends, they are fine if the place is warm.

Last place with them stayed warm enough so we just used to non storage heater part of it as required. They are an all or nothing kind of thing where you need to know if you'll need them the next day.

Mrs OBumble

If there's only one person in the place, then the daily charge can end up being a large proportion of the overall bill. So having gas (= an extra daily charge) can end up being more expensive than just having electricity.

caviardreams

dubrov wrote: »

I
I doubt gas heating is allowed in apartment complexes due to the potential for gas leaks to cause a massive disaster,

Just for info - having gas in apartments is not an issue. Except for being more expensive to fit - hence the prevalence of electric over gas in many apartments.

When I was buying an apartment gas heating was a deal breaker for me OP - I haven't had great experience with it in the past so it was just something I wanted. I do find the room heats up so much quicker with gas personally which is something I really value, but everyone is different.

DoozerT6

I have storage heating and still don't know how to use it properly, even after over a decade in my apartment. There were no instruction leaflets or anything in the apartment when I moved in so I had to figure it out for myself. I find them horrendously expensive; I have two heaters in my fairly large living/kitchen area and this winter I only turned one on to save money, and just wore more layers inside . My current bill was still €200. I don't like that you can't set them on a timer: they're either on 100% of the time or they are off completely. Mine literally have an on/off switch on the wall (and another switch for the fan heater at the bottom) and that is it. All this faffing about with input and output controls is a pain. Eff that, just give me something that will come on at a pre-specified time, heat the place up and then turn off again.

I am considering replacing them to the more modern energy-efficient electric heaters so I would also be interested in hearing if anybody else has installed them and could give feedback.

Hi OP: I bought an apartment with old style Creda (I think) storage heating a few years ago. Old early 1990's hideous ones.
I replaced them immediately with 5 "SmartElectric" Lucht electric heaters (living x2, hall and 2 beds) - as much for aesthetics as for efficiency initially - but it's worked out great for me… They look fantastic and work off programmable thermostats/timers.

The place is approx 90 sq metres, and total electricity bills have averaged about 160 every 2 months over past year. We tend to keep hall/big living room/kitchen/office on thermostat min of 18C during weekdays (I mainly work from home), 20C during evenings and main bed on 15C overnight. Bathroom has separate underfloor heating & towel rail radiator thingy also both on timers. We also run night rate lecy on the water heating - rarely need to boost this up. There are plinth heaters in kitchen (rarely used) and a fake wall fire (also electric but Dimplex) booster in living room. We travel a lot though - and just leave everything on no-freeze/6C when we're away for more than a long weekend. Place is always toasty - and we have to open windows/doors all the time to air out etc.

Anyway - the upgrade made a huge difference to the heating (along with new windows/balcony doors), and really changed the look of the place!

EDIT to add: after the upgrade the apartment finally had the feeling of a proper centrally heated home as opposed to the old old/damp/zone heated feeling before if you know what I mean? The bedrooms had panel heaters before - and I upgraded with full storage heaters which really made a difference.

DoozerT6

Cali_girl wrote: »

Hi OP: I bought an apartment with old style Creda (I think) storage heating a few years ago. Old early 1990's hideous ones.
I replaced them immediately with 5 "SmartElectric" Lucht electric heaters (living x2, hall and 2 beds) - as much for aesthetics as for efficiency initially - but it's worked out great for me… They look fantastic and work off programmable thermostats/timers.

Those are the heaters I was thinking of, Caligirl, I've seen adverts pop up on FB for them a few times. Could you give an idea on price? (I'd probably be looking at two heaters for my main living area). I have those Creda heaters too, they're at least 13 or 14 years old now.

Hey - well been 16 months or so but as I recall price exactly as per their website less about 10% thru my bargaining efforts… My total for the 5 was under 3K or so fitted from what I rememberL I think there was some additional wrangling/negotiating on their taking the old ones away. I'm a total bargainer - not sure if there'd be much more leeway - but they were nice about my attempts and I remember being kinda shocked that they showed up exactly when they said they would and being very low drama to deal with. I had low expectations and was a bit nervous as couldn't find many details online….

Anyway: living room has a 1800 vertical Lucht LHZ and a 1200 classic, hall has a small 5 or 600 (can't remember which) and bedrooms/office 1200 classics. These and hall one made best impact overall tbh. My living area is big for an apt - 25ft long by 17 ft wide and has one Lucht vertical 1800 Hz and one 'Classic' 1200 Hz in the dining end. The dining one is really a waste as it's never on much - usually left on manual as it's adjacent to kitchen so if we're eating /entertaining the kitchen/cooking heat suffices. The hall/second living room ones I downgraded from the SmartElectric recommendations - I knew what they recommended would be a bit ott esp as I was also upgrading doors/floors/windows.

Few foties attached - living vertical one, small hall one and master/alt living/office ones. Taken in bad light a few mins ago!

Oh - I've rented an apt in Dublin with gas ch like 10 years ago - and it was great but find this solution cleaner and quieter (no boiler hum/annual maintenance) and for me it's easier to have one less utility bill. I've also rented two different apts with old/newer dimplex electric storage heaters, and read all the details on how to use them properly but none were as good as these. No connection at all with Lucht/SmartElectric, just reporting. And gotta admit aesthetics huge for me, so that might be skewing my report subconsciously or whatever….

The Ging and I

mvt wrote: »

I think there are new German models of storage heaters which are supposed to be super efficient but don't really know much about them.

Glen Dimplex,which is actually an Irish company is considered to be the industry standard here & in the Uk have a wide range of models.

I installed one for a friend last year in his living room,a combined storage/standard heating one & he seems happy enough with it.

It was around 700 euro.

Funnily enough there was an internal wiring fault in the unit but they sent out a guy fairly quickly to fix it.

Have storage heaters myself but hardly ever use them,in the middle of an apt block & never really gets that cold

I am very happy with them

Cali_girl

Cali_girl wrote: »

Anyway - the upgrade made a huge difference to the heating (along with new windows/balcony doors), and really changed the look of the place!

The Ging and I wrote: »

I am very happy with them

Thanks for all the responses! It sounds like the newer electric heaters are far superior to the old ones which is great! The other massive benefit for me is being on my own i'll only have to deal with the standing charge for electricity and not gas.

12Phase

dubrov wrote: »

I'd be more concerned with how well insulated the apartment is.
If it is well insulated and on one of the higher floors you probably won't spend much on heating anyway.

Storage heaters work well if you are in the apartment during the day. They charge during the night and release the heat during the day. You can control the rate of release but even the lowest setting will still leak heat.
The main problem is that if you are not back until 6pm, a lot of the heat can already be released. It might be cheaper to leave the heater on for 3 hours in the evening than 8 hours overnight (at half price).

I doubt gas heating is allowed in apartment complexes due to the potential for gas leaks to cause a massive disaster,

You'd be wrong there. Gas fired heating is common in apartmens and it's extremely low risk. Electric heating is also very low risk but probably carries a greater risk of fire in other respects. For example drying clothes or putting furniture against a water filled gas system's radiator isn't ever any problem. Covering a storage heater most certainly is.

Often the bedrooms have just full rate convector heaters too which can prove very expensive to run if there's bad insulation.

Developers building to low budgets tended at one stage to install electric heating to save capital expenditure. Landlords also seem to like no legal maintenance requirements. Annual service for gas boilers is required.

dubrov

dubrov wrote: »

I doubt gas heating is allowed in apartment complexes due to the potential for gas leaks to cause a massive disaster,

Of course it's allowed and it's very common particularly in better apartments and newer build ones. From my experience lower end apartments and older ones tend to have electric while better apartments tend to be gas.

SarahMollie

I have them in my place and whilst I wasnt delighted with the idea, I wasn't willing to walk away from a property that was otherwise a great fit for me.

I have a duplex, soI have 4 downstairs (2 combo, 2 storage only) and regular electric heaters in each bedroom upstairs.

I hardly ever use the upstairs ones, I turn them on the odd time just to make sure theres no issues with damp etc, but mostly they're not necessary.

I did have all 4 downstairs on when we first moved in (December) and our bills were about €160pm. I'm down to only using 1 storage heater downstairs now, and hopefully will turn it off after April if the weather warms up a bit. Hopefully my next bill will be much cheaper.

I also have a water heater running on a night rate. Its essential that your tank has the best insulation for this to be worthwhile but I think it works for us. Our tank has that hard insulation and even if I want to have a shower at 11pm (at that stage it won't have been on for about 13 hours!) the water is still scalding.

Definitely make sure you have a night rate meter with storage heaters. when I analyse my usage, 90% is nighttime, so it would be very different if that cost the same as the day rate! I can also set my washing machine to run overnight so that I get the night rate for that too.

Idbatterim

if you dont have gas, no gas standing charge or annual boiler servicing needed. also you can simply heat individual rooms by themselves...

luckyducky2016

Hi looking for some advice. My immersion switch blew on friday night. I since have it replaced (only yesterday evening). I had no hot water this morning in the shower though, I texted the electrician this morning but he has not got back to me. I understand that it might not work straight away but I thought I would have a hot shower this morning. I had asked the electrician if there was anything I needed to know with regards to the switch, he said no. Its standard. Is it just a case of waiting for the water to heat up? I didn't think i would have an issue with an electric shower

athtrasna

luckyducky2016 wrote: »

Hi looking for some advice. My immersion switch blew on friday night. I since have it replaced (only yesterday evening). I had no hot water this morning in the shower though, I texted the electrician this morning but he has not got back to me. I understand that it might not work straight away but I thought I would have a hot shower this morning. I had asked the electrician if there was anything I needed to know with regards to the switch, he said no. Its standard. Is it just a case of waiting for the water to heat up? I didn't think i would have an issue with an electric shower

Try the plumbing and heating forum.