Home  5  Books  5  GBEzine  5  News  5  HelpDesk  5  Register  5  GreenBuilding.co.uk
Not signed in (Sign In)

Categories



Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

PLEASE NOTE: A download link for Volume 1 will be sent to you by email and Volume 2 will be sent to you by post as a book.
Buy individually or both books together. Delivery is free!


powered by Surfing Waves




Vanilla 1.0.3 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.

Welcome to new Forum Visitors
 Join the forum now and benefit from discussions with thousands of other green building fans and discounts on Green Building Press publications: Apply now.

The AECB accepts no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this site. Views given in posts are not necessarily the views of the AECB.



Heating and cooling: Electric radiators

Bottom of Page

1 to 13 of 13

  1.  
    • CommentAuthorjwd
    • CommentTimeMar 26th 2010
     
    I run an office which is currently heated by storage heaters and is costing us a small fortune mainly due to a) electriciy is very expensive and b) we have very little control so we have to heat the office at the weekends when thereis no one here. We are a charity so we arent flush with cash and cant afford to look at putting in a gas central heating system. Solar is out (roof faces the wrong way), as is GSHP (no ground), Wood fuel and oil. Not sure about ASHP but i reckon it will be too costly.

    One of our directors mentioned this product: http://www.royale-radiators.com/ as an alternative. Its a high tech electric radiator that claims to rduce heating costs to the level of gas systems.

    Im not sure if this is the real deal or another gimmick. Does any one have any thoughts?

    In the meantime we try to improve our insulation and draft proofing but we have a big problem with very poor air quality. There isnt much in the way of controllable ventilation. If the plce was more airtight i would look at MHRV as a solution but its an old stone building with suspended floors and strapped walls.

    Any help most welcome

    Jwd
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMar 26th 2010 edited
     
    All electric rads are 100% efficient - in that all the electricity used is turned into heat. So changing from one type of electric rad to another will make little difference. At the end of the day what matters is how well insulated the building is, how warm you have it and for how long.

    i'd look at:

    1) If your existing heaters are proper storage heaters check they are set up to use economy 7 (cheap night rate).

    2) Get the time controls improved so that you don't charge them up on a friday or saturday night unless the building is going to be used Saturday and Sunday.

    3) Use the comparison sites to check you are on the cheapest electricity tarrif. Do that at least every 6 months.

    4) Ask the electric co if they have a special tariff for charities?

    Edit:Having said that they are 100% efficient this ignores loss from the night storage heaters heating the building at night when nobody is there. However those losses should be outweighed by the cheaper night tariff.
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMar 26th 2010
     
    what electricity tariff are you on?

    storage heaters are designed to be on economy 7 type tarrifs to heat up overnight on cheaper rate electricity, if you're not on one of these style tariffs then you should be able to at least half your energy bills just by switching tariff. Even if you're on economy 7, it's worth checking the potential to switch to a weather compensated version of the tariff, which if I understand it correctly would mean the energy company would automatically control the amount of time the heating circuit was on for overnight depending on the predicted outside air temperature for that coming day, which in theory ought to reduce bills again, and I'd have thought there'd be an option with that set up for setting a reduced level for weekends.

    Standard electric radiators (even of the magic low energy kind in our link), may use less electricty overall because they're more controllable, but they also use the electricity when it's at peak rate, so could easily end up at least as expensive if not more so than storage heaters... which is why storage heaters were popular in the first place.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010 edited
     
    Could you insulate the offices? for sure it will pay you to sort out and eradicate all draughts.

    Then you could consider ASHP as this will offer better than 100% efficiency -- like 350% efficient --- what charity could turn its nose up at that?
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    Good comparison here..

    http://www.nottenergy.com/energy-costs-comparison3

    Pence per KWH after "boiler" efficiency is considered..

    Mains gas 4.24p
    ASHP 4.09p
    Electric (online rate) 11.2p
    Electric (standard) 12.69p

    For some reason they assume that ASHP is only 250% efficient on average. As a result they also say ASHP emits more CO2 than mains gas. Last time I wrote to them they were quite responsive so feel free to contact them for their reasoning. The notes say they use SAP data.
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    250% is a pretty realistic figure for average ASHP COP through the year isn't it?

    not sure why they don't include an economy 7 night storage option for electricity though.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    Even so ASHP wins.
    • CommentAuthorGavin_A
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    Posted By: tonyEven so ASHP wins.

    not on CO2 emissions, and only marginally on cost over gas.

    ashp 0.216 kg of CO2 per kWh
    Condensing gas boiler 0.204 kg of CO2 per kWh

    worth pointing out to the RHI people as they seem to have missed this point.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    My 'night rate' is £0.049/kWh
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeMar 27th 2010
     
    and ASHP was assumed at 250% when it could well be higher than this.
  11.  
    And if run with rads it could be lower.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2010
     
    I'd certainly like to know how ASHP is working out for people who used it to replace an oid oil boiler. I met a heating engineer who told me he was replacing 6 a year. He tried to sell me one even though the boiler was less than a year old (he was there for it's first service).
    • CommentAuthorjemhayward
    • CommentTimeMar 28th 2010
     
    The EST (I think) have done some research on ASHP COP in the real world and 2.5 is a pretty realistic figure. The CO2 really depends on how you buy your electricity. If you have a deep green tariff then your CO2 could be "zero" but your cost would be greater.

1 to 13 of 13

  1.  
Add your comments

    Username Password
  • Format comments as
 
Back to Discussions Top of Page
   
The Ecobuilding Buzz
Site Map    |   Home    |   View Cart    |   Pressroom   |   Business   |   Links   
Logout    

© Green Building Press