Installing Electric heating system

[cassidt]

Hi, I'm hoping to install 3 Storage Heaters and 3 Panel Heaters in a cottage.
I plan to run 4 radial circuits from a new Volex CU with 5 x 16A MCB's. The circuits will be connected to 20A DP switches. Does this setup look ok? Is it OK to connect more than one heater to a single radial circuit?

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[Lectrician]

It depends on the rading of the radial circuit and rating of the heater.

You would use fused connection units when you have more than one heater per circuit, assuming they do not exceed 13amp.

You do not want to put the storage rads on the same circuits as the panel heaters - You should keep the storage rads on different circuits, and have these fed from a completely different consumer unit. Leave a new pair of tails hanging from this new consumer unit (pick up an earth for the CU from a henley block or the other consumer unit). Ask your lecky supplier to change you to econ7, and request the tails to be connected.

Your storage rads will then do what they are designed to - heat up on the cheap off peak lecky, and let the heat out all day.

 

[flameport]

You can have more than one heater on a circuit, but this will depend on the rating of the heaters. Most storage heaters would go on their own circuit, as they are typically 3kW.

There is a fundamental flaw in your design. You don't want a panel heater on the same circuit as a storage heater, as there will be no power to the circuits in the daytime.

You can do much better than a Volex CU for only a small increase in cost.

 

[cassidt]

So, would it be ok to have the panel heaters just plugged into the normal ring mains circuits?

 

[ColJack]

what rating are they?

 

[Lectrician]

The regs do not allow a comprehensive heating system to be incorporated into the final socket circuits - they are meant to have their own circuit(s).

 

[Steve]

why the panel heaters anyway?

 

[cassidt]

The Panel heaters are 2kW and would be in rooms where they would only be used to boost the temperature in really cold spells.

 

[Chri5]

The Panel heaters are 2kW and would be in rooms where they would only be used to boost the temperature in really cold spells.

You need to look at the existing loads on the rings that you are considering adding the panel heaters on. The panel heaters draw 8-9 amps on full tilt and you have to keep the total load under the limits set bu the cable size, circuit type and fuse rating at the CU.

In general I'd imagine it's fine on most general ring circuits fused at 30/32 amp- the kitchen (if that's a location for a panel) may be the ring circuit that would have issues with the extra load.

Having looked at your diagram, is a storage heater for the small (2nd from left end) sensible ?

 

[dunloadin]

Regards metering.

If your in Stirlingshire your sorted...assuming your on the Scottish Hydro DNO area the metering you require is Total Heating Total Control. If your DNO is Scottish Power then you will need Comfort Plus.

These are two-meter systems;

Meter1 is a bog standard single rate for your Domestic supply.

Meter 2 is a radio telemeter which has 3 outgoing lives, a 24 hr supply for your panel heaters, a 7-hour switched supply for your storage heaters and hot water, and a smaller switched supply to the second immersion heater to give an automatic boost to the second immersion through the day. The switched supply to the second immersion is not always needed as the immersion can be put on the unswitched supply.

The Domestic supply does not switch to cheap rate, however ALL heating is metered at the cheaper rate.

Hope this helps.