Night Storage Heaters

On these, when powered during the night, do they give out a little bit of heat at night or is there a mechanism so they only start to release heat when the power is switched off ?

it depends on how you have the vents set..
they do emit a little heat even with the vents closed.

it's basically a series of elements similar to what you see in an electric grill.
they heat up special bricks inside that store the heat and release it later when the elements are switched off..

Before you go to bed you should really turn the output dial to the lowest setting.. this will allow the storage heater to store as much heat as possible for the evening..then open it up when you need it

as ColJack says, it will still radiate some heat.

We have three storage heaters in the house. They're about 15 years old I guess. The come on automatically at night (about midnight I think) and the elements heat up the bricks inside. They are quite poorly insulated so they DO give off heat during the night - even when the "output" control is set to zero. Obviously, if the output is set higher, they will give off even more heat, but the amount they give off at night is significant. We only have them downstairs - having one in a bedroom would (for me!) make it unpleasantly hot at night.

During the day, they gradually cool down. You can get more heat out of them by gradually opening up the outpt control during the day, but I find that in cold weather, by about 5 or 6 in the evening, they've pretty much given up most of their useful heat. By about 9.00 or 10.00 at night they're barely lukewarm. To be honest, I find them fairly useless. In very cold weather and when the kids are off school, we use them as "background" to help the central heating out, but when they're at school, storage heaters do most of their "useful" heating when nobody is at home!

If you have central heating, why even bother with the storage heaters?

Gas is far cheaper to run.

It depends on what tariff you have as to how long and when your heaters operate.

Economy 7 is the most popular tariff and other off peak tariffs are often confused as being Economy 7.

Horstmann also make a timer for the water heater that has Economy 7 stamped all over it even if the setup isn't Economy 7.

It can become confusing and I see it daily were a customer is being charged Economy 7 prices yet they are on a different tariff.

As I've said in another post E7 times in my area are normally 00.00-07.00 GMT give or take 1hr plus my eye sight setting the timer.

I fit many tariffs in my area including...
Twinheat A
Low rate, 4hrs between 03.00hrs and 07.00hrs & 3hrs
between 13.30hrs and 16.30hrs
Peak means at all other times.

Twinheat B
Low rate, 4hrs between 21.00hrs and 01.00hrs & 3hrs
between 12.00hrs and 15.00hrs
Peak means at all other times.

Option 14
This tariff has a Daily Service Charge, which applies
regardless of usage. It is a two-rate tariff designed for
customers who use electricity during the Night and
Afternoon and is designed specifi cally for use with
electric storage heating. The customer is charged at
two rates defined as low and peak. This tariff provides
14 hrs of off peak electricity (defined as low rate) and
10 hrs on peak electricity (defined as peak rate) in each
24 hr period.
The off peak (low) period is split into two
segments, one overnight and the other during the
afternoon.
At suppliers discretion the times are
defined as: 3hrs between 1300hrs and 1600hrs (GMT)
11hrs between 2100hrs and 0800hrs (GMT)

Economy 10

3 hours in the afternoon (1pm - 4pm)
2 hours in the evening (8pm - 10pm)
5 hours overnight (Midnight - 5am)[/b]

Maybe one of the above would suit you better.

I do agree with Aragorn84 in that if you have Gas why do you still use your storage heaters?

We don't have gas in our area. I could probably get bottled gas but probably not worth the hassle until our existing oil boiler dies. It's a fairly big house in a rather windy, exposed spot. A couple of times in the coldest days of winter, the boiler couldn't quite generate enough heat to keep the house warm enough when the kids were babies. It's not so bad now they're at school / nursery during the day. I should probably add that the storage heaters were here when we moved in - otherwise I probably wouldn't bother at all!

So its what? an oil fired boiler? A big electric boiler?

If its oil fired i'd still imagine its much cheaper running it hotter/longer than using electric storage heaters.

If its an electric boiler then i'm glad i dont have your electricity bills

My mother-in-law has electric storage heating and her house is permanently freezing and she still pays a LOT more than we do for energy. I would imagine if she fitted GCH it would pay for itself inside a year maybe two tops.

Ah didnt notice you said oil.

A friend of mine lives "oop norf" near Oban in scotland. As you say no gas, but they have oil fired central heating and their house is usually like an oven.

Perhaps if you fitted a more efficient/powerful oil boiler, then ditched the storage heaters all together, you'd save yourself some money in the long term?