spur for storage heaters

[aepe]

At the moment i have a ring circuit, and am supplied with a single electricity rate. i want to add new sockets for storage heaters.
Could anyone tell me whether it is possible to add a spur onto an existing ring circuit to power a storage heater, or do i need to run a whole circuit for them?

(Of course, once I've installed the heaters, I intend to call up the electricity company to install a two rate meter!)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

At the moment i have a ring circuit, and am supplied with a single electricity rate. i want to add new sockets for storage heaters.

You might well want to, but many (most??) NSHs are too big a load to be plugged in.

Could anyone tell me whether it is possible to add a spur onto an existing ring circuit to power a storage heater,

Possible? Maybe. Advisable? No.

or do i need to run a whole circuit for them?

Yes.

(Of course, once I've installed the heaters, I intend to call up the electricity company to install a two rate meter!)

AAF. You should work out the costs of this first, and the costs of NSHs, and work out how long it will be before you start to save money..

Also, have you ever had NSHs? Do you like them?

 

[HDRW]

At the moment i have a ring circuit, and am supplied with a single electricity rate. i want to add new sockets for storage heaters.
Could anyone tell me whether it is possible to add a spur onto an existing ring circuit to power a storage heater, or do i need to run a whole circuit for them?

(Of course, once I've installed the heaters, I intend to call up the electricity company to install a two rate meter!)

Leaving aside that some NSHs take more than 13A and can't run from sockets if so...

The usual arrangement is that the ElCo's timeswitch that controls the meter-rate also supplies the NSHs, so you run a dedicated circuit from there and you know that they can only use "cheap" electricity. If you wire from a ring or whatever, you'll need to supply your own timeswitch (or one for each heater) and make sure it/they are synchronised with the ElCo's one, otherwise you may be using expensive electricity at one end of the night and blow any savings you might have made.

ElCos' timeswitches aren't necessarily that accurate, by the way - mine is currently an hour and a quarter fast. (Funnily enough, in the summer it's only a quarter of an hour fast! )

Cheers,

Howard

 

[plugwash]

iirc with teleswitches as long as they give you the correct number of hours per day they can give you them at any time of day they like.

which gives them another tool to help them keep the grid balanced.