What are Storage heaters?
Storage heaters look like radiators, but aren’t connected to a boiler. Instead, they’re plugged into your home's electricity. At night, they use cheaper electricity to store heat. This is gradually released the following day.
They can be a good option if you have a day/night meter and use electricity to heat your house. When set up correctly, they use the cheaper night rate to heat your house during the day.
Storage Heater Controls
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Storage heaters use Input & Output dials. Controlling the balance between the input and output will determine how much energy they use; how efficient they are and how good they are at heating your room.
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Input Dial: This controls how much electricity is stored by the heater at night, ready to warm your home the next day. The higher the input setting the more heat stored and the more electricity used. If you set it too high for the size of the room it has to heat, or for the time of year, you will be wasting money.
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Output Dial: This setting controls the level of heat released. Typically, this should be set to the lowest possible level during the day when not much heat is needed, then turned up in the evening if required. Turning the output dial up will release more heat. This should be at its lowest setting when you go to bed.
Troubleshooting Issues
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What happens if I set both dials to maximum overnight? You would have maximum heat in the early part of the day, but you’d have a lot less heat in the evening and may need to “boost” the storage heaters, which means using electricity at the higher day rate.
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How do I know if I’m on a day/night Meter? You can see further details on ESB Networks here. You can also contact us here in PrepayPower and we can help you check too.
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Not warm enough? If you haven’t been warm enough, and the storage heater isn’t releasing any heat towards the end of the day, check the output is turned down to its lowest settings overnight and turn the input control up slightly. Test again the following evening to see if any further adjustment is needed and you’ve reached a comfortable temperature.
When should I change the input settings?
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The input settings control how much electricity your storage heaters take in at night.
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Around September, you should start with a low-middle input setting and gradually increase as winter starts until you reach a level, you’re comfortable with.
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In Spring, start to reduce the input level gradually, depending on your comfort levels.
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During summer and hopefully warm weather, you should switch off the storage heaters entirely at the wall.
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If you do need some heating during the summer, you may only want to charge them every other night and keep the input setting low.
When should I change the output settings?
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The output settings control how much heat your storage heaters give out during the day/night.
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You always need to make sure that the output dial is turned/timed to the lowest level at night, whatever the time of year. This stops the storage heaters from heating empty rooms and saving you money.
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During the day, adjust the output to suit your needs, but make sure it’s at its very lowest level if you’re not in the room/house. The more heat you use during the day, the less you’ll have at night.
Top Tips for Storage Heaters
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At night, make sure the output control is turned down to the lowest setting.
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If it is not particularly cold, or you will be out of the house for most of the next day, you don’t need to set the input to maximum because you won’t need to store as much heat.
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If you’re warm enough, keep the output low during the day, so you have enough heat banked if the temperature drops in the evening.
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As you can control storage heaters individually, you can choose different heat settings for different rooms, depending on how often or when they are in use.
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Make sure you have the correct settings on your storage heaters before using any additional heating sources. If you are on a day/night rate, then electricity will be more expensive for you to use during the day.
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Keep furniture and curtains away from the heaters to make sure the heat gets into the room and never cover the surface of the heaters.
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When the weather gets too warm to need any heating, switch off your heaters at the wall.
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