storage heaters charge up over night when electricity on Economy 7 plans is cheaper. There is a dial on the heater for how hot it will get internally (input) and how much heat it should release externally (output). The electricity circuit, if properly installed economy 7, should have a dual meter with day and night rates. The meter switches between day and night rates via a radio signal on the mediumwave band. IN A PROPERLY INSTALLED STORAGE HEATING SETUP, when the meter is on the day rate, there is NO POWER going to your heater. Literally, you can cut the wire and stick your fingers on it and not get a shock. ONLY when the meter is on night rate will the electricity box actually activate and feed power to your heaters. Each heater also has a wall switch to deactivate them if a room is not in use.
Set your input to a medium temp and set your output to minimum. WAIT ONE WHOLE NIGHT. The heater will now be charged. Open the output when you want heat (when you come home in the evening), close it down when you dont want heat. I Tend to leave mine on a fixed output all the time, because there is a thermostat in the output too.. if the room is warm, the output closes down.. the heater doesnt carry on heating a hot room. As such you can consider that the "output" is "how hot you want the room to be" - a 3 on my heater corresponds to about 20 degrees. The input dial is how much heat you want to store overnight. In colder weather, when your heat losses are greater you bump up the input to ensure that you have enough reserve heat to do the next day.
People have differnet methods. some will close down the output in the morning and open it in the evening. This means your house is cold during the day and hot during the night, but I cant be bothered waiting for the tempaerature change, and I dont actually see much of a difference in terms of cost between leaving a house to go cold in the day, and blasting it with heat at night, versus getting it up to temperature and keeping it there ticking over at a low level.. I think on average, the blast-cool-blast-cool costs about the same as steady running.. and if we take it to a car anallogy.. would you get better miles per gallon, by accelerating hard to 70, then switching off the engine and coasting down to 30, then accelerating hard again.. or do you get better mpg just cruising at a steady 50. Your average speed is about the same.. but i bet the blast/coast uses more fuel..
Matt, April 2008
