tim.... wrote:

wrote in message ...
We live out in the sticks and our central heating (which we rarely
turn on nowadays) runs on locally stored gas which is becoming
steadily more expensive.

We have a large multi-fuel stove which we keep alight through the
coldest weather and we have a good supply of wood for that.

We *were* thinking of adding a small solid fuel stove at the other end
of the house in the breakfast room where we do spend quite a lot of
our time but the costs are just silly - like £6000 for a fairly small
installation (it does include some hot water with the space heating,
but that's all).

So we are looking at alternatives, we are already on an Economy 7
tariff for electricity, thus storage heaters would seem to be
something to explore. How good are they nowadays? I.e. are they
really able to not output much heat unless the fan runs? What other
pros and cons do they have? They're not particularly cheap (start at
around £450 as far as I can see) so one wants to be sure they really
do the job reasonably well. Also are there any particularly to be
recommended (or the opposite) and is there anywhere I can get some
sort of independent review and comparison?

The type without a fan start at 150 pounds.

Can you point me at some examples please.

I would try getting one SR and sighting it in a strategic central position
in the house where it provides some "base" heating and see how it affects
your other fuel use.

Hmm, that's going to be quite difficult to quantify! :-)


Yes, it will (probably) discharge most of its heat during the day and be
cold(ish) by the evening, but I think that you will find that the SR will
have kept the house warmer overall and the costs of heating the house in the
evening will be less than if you didn't have it.

Note that its installation needs to be "part P-ed". If you think about
where you might want to put a second and third SR if you like them and get
the electrician to run those circuits at the same time, this might not cost
you much more. Connecting an SR into an already supplied circuit does not
need to be certified and can be done as a DIY job later.

Do they actually need new circuits? There won't be a separate meter
or anything like that. I suppose though that the load is such that
separate feeds might make sense.

--
Chris Green