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Electric central heating

(8 Posts)
watermeadow Sat 25-Apr-26 05:23:57

I don’t think you have any option but electricity. My house is old, draughty and only has insulation in the roof space. I have gas central heating and the moment the heat goes off I feel the temperature plummet. New well-insulted houses retain their heat butI need it on all day for seven months of the year.

David49 Fri 24-Apr-26 19:12:23

The ONLY time electricity is efficient is a modern well insulated flat which will warm up quickly when heating is switched on. A cheap radiant or convector heater with a timer that turns on and off according to need, not a system on all day.

The reason is air is cheap to heat and insulated walls do not take heat away, it suits singles or couples who work all day.

Modern storage heaters are more efficient than old ones but are quite expensive to install and run.

dalrymple23 Fri 24-Apr-26 15:36:28

Thank you all. I do appreciate that electricity will be quite expensive to run but as long as we can heat on a room by room basis, it should be manageable. I hope! This is a very old house and someone advised that it is better to have low level heat everywhere, so that the walls effectively become the storage heater. That is one of my conundrums. I just do not know if that is fact or fiction.

There is no natural gas within a radius of about 20 miles.

Over the winter I ended up in hospital with hypothermia! Not clever. I should quite like to prevent that happening again!

We are getting some extra insulation installed - that which is already here is of quite a high standard, apparently.

Thank you Gym - I will.

ethanglenwood Fri 24-Apr-26 05:52:33

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PaperMonster2 Fri 10-Apr-26 15:39:40

In my last home we had Dimplex Quantum storage heaters - these are not like storage heaters of old. They were programmable and more economical. We’re now in a similar sized house but with gch and we pay about £20 a month less than when we had the storage heaters do not bad at all. They were much cheaper and better than the electric radiators we had previously.

Soozikinzi Fri 10-Apr-26 15:32:53

The only experience I have is that my Brother in law has electric heating and I know his bills are double ours in a smaller property..

Gymstagran Fri 10-Apr-26 15:25:57

I undertook a complete refurbishment on my home. It is all electric. The cost of getting gas installed was prohibitive due to the distance to a main gas pipe and because it would have to cross land belonging to the council.
I researched electric heaters and like you found some were very expensive and very pushy. The new heaters I have are all programmable individually and can be controlled by my mobile phone. They are very effective and warm very quickly. They are not storage radiators as my electrician advised against them. I also have an electric boiler but it is not a combi boiler.
I relied on my electrician/ heating engineer/plumber to scope how many heaters were needed and their sizes for each room.
It isnt cheap to run but then I dont think any form of heating is now.
I don't want to advertise but am happy to chat further if you would like to direct message me.

dalrymple23 Fri 10-Apr-26 14:58:59

Does anyone have any advice/experience of this? We currently have an oil CH system which (apart from the costs) is utterly ineffective.

I have been trying to find unbiased information about this but all c ompanies just want to sell me something! The new storage radiators seem slimline and efficient, not like the old cumbersome things. There also appear to be electric combi boilers - googling information is not helping in terms of installation and running costs, the latter being most important.

Any advice/observations would be gratefully received.