storage heaters

[alfoody]

Hi Guys

Is there an good alternatives to storage heaters?
I've had a look on the net & I cant really see anything that can replace them other than panel heaters.
any reccomendations?

alfoody

[shambles]

Isn't the thing about storage heaters that they store heat? They make sense because night-time electricity is cheaper (if you are on economy 7), so a comparison with panel heaters doesn't work.

You could use a thermal store, radiators, woodburner, solar panel thing...

I think conventional night-storage heaters would be quite good if there was better control on how the heat is released...

[Ivan]

a heat pump plus big thermal store is a good alternaive

[KenB]

The flat I had in the 1990s started out with electric storage heaters.

It was costing me a fortune to heat - even at 1990 cheap rate electricity prices, about £1 per day if I recall correctly. That was when cheap power was about 2p per kWh.

It quickly got replaced with a gas combi and conventional radiators in my own personal "dash for gas".   

I kept the white meter because cheap rate power was great for running the washing machine at night, and recharging my electric commuter car that I had back then.

Storage heaters were really just a convenience for the electricity company. It gave them a night time load which allowed them to keep their inefficient coal fired power stations running slightly more efficiently at night which helped to keep their fuel costs down.

As a form of practical domestic heating they were almost useless - scalding hot at 7am and nearly cold at 5pm when you got home from work. - Doh!  As you say - lack of controlability.

That said,  I have recently acquired some modern storage heaters, which I intend to use for localised room heating, and as a heat store to use up some of the excess electricity from my veg-oil Lister genset. - Effectively load balancing -just like what the power stations need to do.

As my battery bank starts to recharge and not need so much power, I will switch in some electrical storage heater elements in my office. This will keep the load on the engine fairly constant, so that it continues to produce 5kW of hot water, and will help to heat my office up in the late morning, early afternoon, and hopefully keep it warm into the evening.

Storage heater bricks are rated to store heat at about 650 C.  I have often wondered whether they would make a compact local heat store,and air pre-heater for a wood stove.




Ken

 

[Flamethrower_]

Ken,

I also wonder how you manage all your load balancing is it all manual switching or is it semi automated I'm intrigued otherwise how do you remember to turn what on and what off.

Surely you could use a set up like Dick Strawbridge green house heatsink but instead of glass blocks use the storage blocks and even utilise a computer cooling fan to suppliy pre heated air to your stove?

Rob

[KenB]

Rob,

I hope to have it automated.  I'm an electronic engineer, so I really ought to be able to come up with a system for switching in various numbers of heating elements with power relays, depending on how much excess load I have.

The standard storage heater element is 850W sandwiched between 4 bricks.  Storage heaters are arranged as either 2 element, 3 element or 4 element units.

I have about 75 of the storage heater bricks so I can make up quite a large thermal pile.

Whilst being able to generate one's own clean power, there is no point in wasting it unnecessarily. 

The aim of the project is to not only generate low carbon heat and power, but use less energy (total)  than I am currently using from the grid.

At 2500 kWh per year from the grid, and 12,000kWh of gas, I hope to get these figures down by about 20%, when I switch entirely to renewables.



Ken

[NickW]

Assuming electricity is your only viable supply what about an air source heat pump. A COP of 2 is still twice as good direct use and you get your heat when you want it. See the thread in the heat pump section.

My only experience of storage heaters was at uni. Very limited control. In the morning so hot I had to open windows to release the heat. By 7 no heat so the fan fan heaters had to go on