Replacement for a Night Storage Heater

[Triassic]

My father tells me one of his night storage heaters is broken, he’s had it in bits and found the fault and fixed it, however, the insulation board to the front of the heater has crumbled and we can’t find any spares to replace it.

 

So the question is, what to replace the old night storage heater with? As he’s 87 I’m minded to replace it like for like. It’s a 2.2kw Creda. Any night storage heater experts  out there who can recommend a  replacement?

Edited October 8, 2018 by Triassic

[Jeremy Harris]

Just a note of caution.  Some older storage heaters contain asbestos, and your description of crumbling insulation is a bit worrying.  Do you know how old it is?  I believe they stopped using asbestos in them back in the 70s, but also know that these things can carry on working for decades, so it's possible that there may still be some around with asbestos in.

[Triassic]

It's about 10 years old, so no asbestos!

 

At the age of 87 my father has a bit of a devil may care attitude to life!!

[ProDave]

The fact he exposed the insulation board probably means one of the elements had failed and you remove the front of the internal box and take out the front row of bricks to get at the element.

 

The slab of insulation is encases in some form of woven material that goes very brittle and cracks.  As long as you have not been careless and crumbled the insulation inside, then just carefully put it back and it will be fine. It's not going anywhere once it is all re assembled.  There is no risk as it's not asbestos in a heater that recent.

 

[Triassic]

He fixed the problem element, but the slab of insulation is in very poor condition, the woven material is falling apart and the internal slab all cracked and in bits. This is the part he needs a replacement for?

[ProDave]

I would keep en eye out on freecycle for someone scrapping a similar heater.

 

In a flat we used to own, I needed a "new" storage heater because the case was looking very tatty and rusty and I wanted it to look better (for sale of the property)  I ended up buying an identical heater from ebay for £10 and getting the seller to post the heater, but not the bricks and I just used the bricks from the old one.

 

If you can't buy that insulation as a spare part, that is probably your best hope.

 

But I still maintain if you can get the insulation slab to hold together long enough to get the front on, it will be fine, it won't go anywhere once sandwiched between the bricks and the front part of the casing.