storage heating in an apartment

Hi, can anyone give me any advice on the cost of storage heating in a 2bed apt?? Also is the water heated off the system or does the immersion always have to be used?

I posted detailed figures from our use of storage heaters over 10 years in a c. 90sqm 3 bed Goldshield townhouse in case they might be a starting point. You'll have to search for it though because I can't remember where the post is. Also your specific costs will depend on other factors too - e.g. the wattage of your heaters, the insulation of the apartment etc. One way to very roughly estimate the cost might be to find out the kW rating of the heaters, multiply by the number of hours that they charge for overnight on Nightsaver and then multiply by the kWh unit cost for that electricity. That will probably overestimate the costs since they operate on a thermostat when charging so the amount of juice used will depend on environmental conditions. On the other hand it gives you a rough worst case scenario cost for operating them overnight. This does not take account of operating any convection only part of a dual storage/convection heater though. There are some other very detailed threads about storage heaters and electricity usage that might be worth searching for.

Thanks, I came across the other posts after I started this! I just dont' know anyone that has them and have never had them at home so its fairly new to me, and everytime I tell people thats what I'm getting I get oh they're soooo expensive ..!! Do new homes with storage heating usually come with a night meter or do you have to get it from the esb yourself?

Our apartment has storage heating; it is on the night meter (ESB would have arranged this). Our apartment is on the second floor and it is really warm and cosy in winter. There are convector heaters (also electric) in the bedrooms and living room if you want a quick boost of heat. I think it's a pretty economical system. Our hot water is off the immersion; separate system to the actual storage heating. We turn off the storage heating once mild weather comes in since the apartment seems to be quite well insulated. Hope this helps

Lin83 said:

Do new homes with storage heating usually come with a night meter or do you have to get it from the esb yourself?

Click to expand...

I think that storage heaters and the night meter go hand in hand in most cases. I think it'd be mad to run storage heaters off full price electricity myself. They're expensive enough on the half rate! Check your meter box and if there are two meters (day and night) then you are on Nightsaver. Check the ESB website and the other threads on this issue for tips on optimising your electricity usage.

We're similar to MulberrySt. We also have storage heaters in the main room, there were a lot of complaints by new residents when we moved in who were shocked at the price of the ESB bills they were recieving.
I'm not a big fan of a hot apartment in the winter so we had turned ours off. I found that the strage heaters kept the apartment warm during the day when no one was home and by the time we got in at the end of the day there was no more heat left in them.
Therefore in the winter we use them only on weekends when we know we'll be home during the day and want the heat and just heat the rest of the place with the electric heaters as needed.
Just because they're there doesn't me you have to use them. Just make sure theres convector heathers in the bedroom and that you have a storage and convector heater combined in the main room.
The bills for the two beds that were using the storage heaters were all over €300.00 as far as I can remember.

addob

Oil filled electric radiators might be more efficient/effective than the convection panel heaters. On the other hand you'd need to monitor each to compare.