There are approximately 7,200 homes on the Isle of Wightthat are heated by electricity, that’s 10% of local homes or 14,000 residents who might like to know a bit more about their heating options.
Electric heating is associated with high heating costs, that's because units of electric are around four times the price of units of gas. Electric heating runs at 100% efficiency, whereas gas is typically around 85% efficient at converting units to warmth, but that still means that electric heating can be about three and a half times the cost of gas.
Given that, it is all the more important that occupants of electrically heated homes pay extra attention to the basics of energy efficiency in the home, that is: making sure that draughts are excluded and ensuring that at least the basics of insulation are in good shape, meaning a foot of insulation in the loft and having a filled cavity.
As for electric heaters it is important to note that all electric heaters have the same efficiency, that is: one Watt in and one Watt out, that remains the same whether the heater is a cheap little fan heater or a top of the range wall heater and everything in between. Adverts and the language used in them that suggest otherwise are misleading.
That is not to say that all heaters are the same, some might respond very quickly – like fan heaters – and others might produce a steadier warmth that is more comfortable – such as an oil filled radiator. Additionally electric heaters may have different qualities of thermostat and programmers that enable week long scheduling of heating times.
But ultimately – with the exception of heat pumps – they all operate with the same efficiency and costs.
A deeper dive into electric heaters:
Fan Heaters Compact, cheap and portable, fan heaters quickly warm small spaces by blowing air over a heating element. Pros: Fast heat-up, lightweight. Cons: Noisy, dries air, less energy-efficientfor large areas.
Storage Heaters Use off-peak electricity to storeheat in bricks, releasing it gradually.
Storage Heaters do not have a great reputation as many people first encountered them decades ago when they just weren’t that good at…. storing heat… Things have come on a long way since the days when the heat charged overnight but was incapable of putting out any more heat after ten in the morning. Newer ‘high heat retention’ models using modern ‘phase change’ materials rather than bricks are known to be significantly better and do represent a good way to cut heating costs – assuming that they have charged on a cheaper overnight tariff. Lastly newer models are often included as an option in grant funding schemes.
Convection Heaters Warm air naturally rises, circulating heat throughout the room. These are the standard type wall hung electric heater that have the advantage of heating up almost instantly,but the disadvantage of not being able to retain any heat and therefore being unable to carry over any energy from periods of cheaper rates.
Infrared Heaters Emit radiant heat/ IR heaters can be a great option when heat needs to be delivered to a specific area rapidly, the ideal use case being in bathrooms. These heaters – unlike others – do not heat the air but just the objects (or people) in their output area, just right for jumping in and out of the shower using no more energy than needed.
Oil-Filled Radiators Use electric-heated oil to radiate warmth. These heaters are slower to warm up and slower to release their heat, and often have a wide range of output levels resulting in a steadier and more comfortable heat as opposed to fan and panel heaters that tend to be more on/off. But the heat storage capability is not good enough to carry any significant heat over from cheap rate times.
Lastly what we would consider the most important of all the electric heaters – the heat pump – you can read our guide to heat pumps here, but the short story is that they can run at four times the efficiency of all the other electric heaters mentioned in this blog, because they do not use their electrical input to heat anything, but rather they use it to perform someclever tricks with refrigerant gases that go on to harvest heat from thesurrounding space.
Heat pumps come in two flavours, air to water that can replace conventional boiler and radiator systems, and air to air that can be ideal for electric homes that do not already have radiators installed.