Ok since i’m freshly moved into my own flat and its slowly becoming colder i have 2 things to face. Everyone has told me that stroage heaters will use loads of electricity and not produce much heat and no one can really give me a definetive awnser as to how much they use or cost to run.

On my over night meter i tend to use around 5-6Kwh which is usually the water tank warming back up to 40 OC and usual stuff like fridge and freezer. I thought a Oil heater / radiator might be cheaper to run so i just got an Argos own brand one for around £29.99 it only has 4 spines on it but it does get bloody hot, so on the night that i used that i had it running on a timer plug so that it wasnt on all night, all in it and for 6 30minute blocks on the lowest heat setting out of the 3 and i had the thermostat in the middle. To be honest the room wasnt that warm but equally it wasnt that cold but that chill from the room didnt seem as bad to me. The oil heater used around 3 extra Kwh which works out around 15p i think if you pay 5p for your night time rate per Kwh.

I had the storage heater set on the charge of 4 which is right in the middle as it ranges from 0-8. i thought this was kind of the only fair way to test. i’m trying to not release the heat until i go to bed tonight and i’ll let it  out slowly (hopefully). When i checked the meter it had used around 5-6Kwh which is the same as the oil heater. my methods arent that scientific but i have a rough guide to go on.
Tonight will be the test as this is when i’ll find out how long and how much heat the storage heater will give out.

I hope that someone will find this post useful as i found it bit of a mine field to storage heaters and how much electricity they will use.

Ok last night was the night where i’d use the heat from the storage heaters and they where ok on a low output setting but the heat didnt last that long and it wasnt that hot from them either.

*UPDATE*

I’ve now got one storage heater on in my hall way which i leave on all the time. its always got its output set to 0 which means the flap is closed but it still radiates heat. this keeps that nasty chill out of the hall way and my bedroom, and its only a small heater maybe 3 ft long. Also i have a another similar sized heater turned on both are on a charge of 5 out of 6, and last night 27 KHw was used.

I’d guess that the water heater will use a few units and other thing i have on like  fridge freezer and stuff. so even at 25KHw at say a high 7p per KHw, thats £1.75 for the cost of running my storage heaters  each night, which doesnt sound a lot but over a 30 day period thats £52