Best electric heaters for reasonable price - recommendations please

[M-Rod]

Hi

My mother has moved to an old country house that has no heating. She wants to install some electrical heaters temporarily until she can get permission to make some changes to the land and she will then fit underfloor heating. That will likely take a while, so we're looking for recommendations on the best type of electrical heating for a house that doesn't require her to sell her first born (me, but I'm not worth much!)

I've read that the blue energy heaters are good. Halogen too, but there are always naysayers who hate it. So, I thought I'd ask the experts for your advice please. There may be better ones you'd recommend. We would prefer something that could be fixed to a wall. Are air con units that heat up better than radiators?

I've read so much I'm so confused as to the best one. Can anyone help please?

Thanks in advance!

[Alan Ambrose]

By and large all electrical heaters are 100% efficient. That is, they produce the same amount of heat energy as electrical energy consumed. That's just life (and physics).

 

There's a bunch of bogus advertising around atm: world beating efficiency using new technology etc sometimes suffixed with they don't want you to know this etc etc etc.

 

Now you might feel different and have a different 'comfort rating' from different appliances and technologies. For instance blow heaters heat the air up and circulate it quickly, but they also create a bit of a breeze which feels a bit cooling. Temperature gradients across a room and draughts from leaky windows etc will make it feel chillier than it might be if you just looked at the thermometer.

 

Suggest any heater that she feels comfortable and safe with. Maybe a storage heater if she has economy 7. You may a good results also from addressing the obvious draughts.

 

Yes, 'air con units that heat up' i.e. heat pumps use different technology and can have an efficiency of 3-4x - look for SCOP i.e. average efficiency and/or COP i.e. max efficiency. They generally whirr a bit of course.

 

 

Edited February 19 by Alan Ambrose

[TonyT]

Air con can be 300% plus efficient in heating or cooling so can be a good option

 

storage heaters can provide a good constant background heat if you can get a cheap tariff.

 

a hybrid combination of different heating types can work well too.

 

get a heat loss calculation done on the property to see what is required first

[Originaltwist]

Good advice above on the mini-split aircon idea. You might benefit from making one as part of the future strategy. So you install something like the Mitsubishi SRK60ZSX-WF Heat Pump for about £2,000 and then add to the plot with the UFH and presumably another heat pump to run it.

It would be a shame to spend the same sort of money on expensive direct heating kit that then becomes redundant.

The mini-split can be had with more than one blower thingy.

[JohnMo]

"Which" has reviews of various heaters, you need to subscribe for a month to get at the reviews.

 

Things to watch for, some heaters have thermostats other don't, some measure the heater temperature and others the air temperature. Some have timers others don't.

 

For me you want

A timer

A thermostat that measures air temperature

A switchable output rating 

 

I bought a Dimplex heater from Screwfix which had all the above

 

Dimplex ECR20Tie Freestanding Oil-Free Radiator with Timer.

[Mike]

4 hours ago, JohnMo said:

"Which" has reviews of various heaters, you need to subscribe for a month to get at the reviews.

Or it may be available in yoir local library.

 

4 hours ago, JohnMo said:

A thermostat that measures air temperature

Preferably with a hysteresis of 0.5°C (rather than 1°C which armed to be standard last time I looked)

[M-Rod]

5 hours ago, JohnMo said:

Dimplex ECR20Tie Freestanding Oil-Free Radiator with Timer.

Thanks to everyone for the responses so far. I'm really interested in this radiator. Most people seem to like it, but the reviews don't give running costs. Is it economical to run, bearing in mind I'll have to buy about 4 of them for mum (although they won't all be on at the same time) The joy of these is that they are not fixed and they will have a resale value, as well as being able to be stored should any future heating conk out. So....

1. Could you give me some idea of heating costs per unit?

2. Someone mentioned (in a Screwfix review) that the heat rises but doesn't warm the room. They are the only person who says this, where most other people say that it works very well. Mum's cottage has thick stone walls that will keep the heat in the winter and keep it cool in the summer. It's relatively small - just a couple of bedrooms - but if we commit to paying £100 per heater, we need to know that it's economical and will heat a room up nicely.

3. One person mentioned the clicking of the element when it heats up, cool down. That doesn't really bother me as elements do that, but is it particularly noisy or just like any other element?

 

Thanks in advance

[Iceverge]

9 minutes ago, M-Rod said:

they will have a resale value,

 Very little I'm afraid.

 

10 minutes ago, M-Rod said:

Could you give me some idea of heating costs per unit

 

All electric resistance heaters will be identical if they use a thermostat to turn on when the room cools and off when the room heats up. Both of these will cost exactly the same to run and provide exactly the same amount of heat. 

 

 

 

Running one of these would be about 60p/hr so not the cheapest. Its impossible to say how much it'd cost to heat the house though.

 

Do you have any old gas bills to look at for reference?

 

Bear in mind electric heating will-be the most expensive form of heating. 

 

If you do want to buy something I'd get this. 

 

 

It'll do the same job as a fan heater but won't make a racket. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

I am a fan of fan heaters, they can heat a room up very quickly, but I do dislike the noise they make.

Any convection heater lets the hot air rise to ceiling level, then as it cools, starts to heat the room.

Having a stone place will not help any, the mean air temperature inside the house will be set by the wall temperature to a certain extent.  Stone conducts heat quickly.  It is why we insulate houses.  I am currently sitting in my kitchen (3:30 AM with an OAT of 8°C) which is at 20°C and I turned the storage heater off 2 days ago, my house is lightweight timber construction, but well insulated.

 

If there are any damp problems, or the place has high humidity, it may be worth using a dehumidifier, they dry the air, recovering some of the latent heat and add heat to the tune of their power draw i.e. 1 kW.

 

Storage heaters are a good option if you can get on a time of use tariff, but they are just convection heater.  They supply heat exactly the same as any other heater, the term 'background' heat is a bit of a nonsense term for 'too small'.  It would be better to say that if they are undersized you will need supplementary heaters, if they are over sized you will need to turn them down.  They can often be picked up for nothing though, and with some digital timers that switch them on and off to coincide with the cheap period, no rewiring would be needed (except maybe change an outlet to a double pole switch, you can't run a large one from a 13A plug and socket).

 

If you really are going to put in UFH in the future, remember that you do need a lot of insulation under it, ideally 200mm+.  You don't want to he heating the ground up, unless you really want to believe that, like thick stone walls, it stores energy for a later date.

 

Identify and fix any obvious air leaks and put in lots of loft insulation of you can.

 

Running costs are easy to work out.

 

Price of energy [£/kWH] x sum of power [kW] x sum of runtimes [h]

 

My energy prices are currently £0.3672/kWh during the day and £0.1468/kWh during the night.

The last two week I have used 21 kWh during the day, 130 kWh during the cheaper night period.  So 14% is day rate and 86% is night rate, makes the mean rate £0.24/kWh including VAT and meter rental (£0.6246/day). If you can get a fixed tariff below that, then no need to change supply.

That included hot water at night, what is your Mother doing for hot water?  Hot water is the greatest part of my annual bill because it is needed every day, and I use way too much.

 

Edited February 20 by SteamyTea

[ProDave]

I dislike fan heaters because of the noise and unreliability and potentially dangerous.  I have seen the melted mess of plastic resulting from a fan heater fan failing and then the thermal oveload trip failing to trip.  DO NOT EVER leave a fan heater unattended is my advice.

 

That cheap convector heater linked a few posts above is probably best value for money, and similar things are available under loads of different makes.  They are essentially free standing but usually come with brackets for wall mounting.

 

The problem with most "wall mounting" panel heaters is LOT20.  That's an EU directive to make things more efficient that imposes some electronic controls to control temperature, detect an "open window" etc.  The result is a little control panel that almost every customer I have met just cannot understand and they hate the things.  Quite why we are seemingly only selling LOT20 panel heaters in the UK after Brexit beats me.  The ability to avoid all that nonsense should be a benefit but we are not taking the opportunity.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

why we are seemingly only selling LOT20 panel heaters in the UK after Brexit beats me.  The ability to avoid all that nonsense should be a benefit but we are not taking the opportunity.

Because deluded people voted to be better off, not worse off.  Not going to work out that way.

The controls are down to the manufacturer's interpretation, not the secretive, bullying EU commission that has only one purpose, which is to put the British in their place.

[Iceverge]

On 20/02/2024 at 08:17, ProDave said:

The problem with most "wall mounting" panel heaters is LOT20.  That's an EU directive to make things more efficient that imposes some electronic controls to control temperature, detect an "open window" etc.  The result is a little control panel that almost every customer I have met just cannot understand and they hate the things.  

 

Absolutely infuriating. 

 

I tackled one of an evening, manual in hand. I have a fairly technically complex job and I was determined to beat it. After 2 very frustrating hours I gave up and just used a plug-in time switch. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TonyT]

On 20/02/2024 at 00:00, M-Rod said:

Thanks to everyone for the responses so far. I'm really interested in this radiator. Most people seem to like it, but the reviews don't give running costs. Is it economical to run, bearing in mind I'll have to buy about 4 of them for mum (although they won't all be on at the same time) The joy of these is that they are not fixed and they will have a resale value, as well as being able to be stored should any future heating conk out. So....

1. Could you give me some idea of heating costs per unit?

2. Someone mentioned (in a Screwfix review) that the heat rises but doesn't warm the room. They are the only person who says this, where most other people say that it works very well. Mum's cottage has thick stone walls that will keep the heat in the winter and keep it cool in the summer. It's relatively small - just a couple of bedrooms - but if we commit to paying £100 per heater, we need to know that it's economical and will heat a room up nicely.

3. One person mentioned the clicking of the element when it heats up, cool down. That doesn't really bother me as elements do that, but is it particularly noisy or just like any other element?

 

Thanks in advance

You need to know how much you pay for a unit of electricity.

 

if you had a 1kW heater on for 1 hour it would consume 1units worth of electricity.

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, TonyT said:

1kW heater on for 1 hour it would consume 1units worth of electricity.

Or 3.6 MJ.

[TonyT]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Or 3.6 MJ.

Yes I’m sure that will help the OP.

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Yes I’m sure that will help the OP.

Education always helps.

[Tony t]

On 20/02/2024 at 00:25, Iceverge said:

 Very little I'm afraid.

 

 

All electric resistance heaters will be identical if they use a thermostat to turn on when the room cools and off when the room heats up. Both of these will cost exactly the same to run and provide exactly the same amount of heat. 

 

 

 

Running one of these would be about 60p/hr so not the cheapest. Its impossible to say how much it'd cost to heat the house though.

 

Do you have any old gas bills to look at for reference?

 

Bear in mind electric heating will-be the most expensive form of heating. 

 

If you do want to buy something I'd get this. 

 

 

It'll do the same job as a fan heater but won't make a racket. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't like electric heaters because of the cost. However we were stuck last month on the coldest days with no central heating, the boiler packed up so we decided to take n the jump into a new system driven by a heat pump. So we had to find some emergency heating for the house , we had a portable gas heater and a couple of fan heaters but the firm installing the heat pump bought us some to use. We had a couple of portable oil filled radiators and some of these fan assisted connectors. These cheap ones works best, were quiet, heated the rooms fast and had an efficient thermostat. More stable heat than our fan heaters and quicker response than the oil filled ones, not as noisy as the fan heaters either. Light to move about as a bonus. Of course it electricity bills for the month were dramatically more.

[JohnMo]

I was in a garden centre the other day they were selling calor gas internal gas heaters, like the old gas fires, but on wheels. That would be cheaper than electric heater to run.

[Iceverge]

21 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

I was in a garden centre the other day they were selling calor gas internal gas heaters, like the old gas fires, but on wheels. That would be cheaper than electric heater to run.

 

Yes but they release a lot of moisture in combustion which can make a house feel damp and cold when not in use. 

 

Anyway I think @M-Rod has gone on hiatus.