Installing storage heaters in Austria

[skiman]

I have a large apartment house in Austria which has very old storage heaters, they are huge compared to todays modern heaters. My heating bill is very high and I wanted to know if I replace these with more modern heaters, will it reduce my electricity bill.

Also can anyone tell me where I can get a good deal on price as I need to purchase 25 storage heaters in total.

 

[ericmark]

The only way to improve storage heaters is to better retain the heat so it is only released when required.
There are some firms who claim their storage heaters can better control the release of heat but as to if their claim is justified I couldn't say.
Also there are central heating units that instead of heating individual radiators heat a central heat store and each room has radiators like any gas or oil fired central heating this system also delivers domestic hot water and will store the heat for weeks where old storage radiators had a problem storing the heat for one day.
There are two types of water storage systems one where the cylinder is at mains water pressure and in UK has to be tested every year and one with an open vent which does not need testing.
Main problem is cost and by time one includes the interest lost on the money spent to upgrade it is very hard to justify the expense. It does have the advantage that other heat sources can be added like solar power.
http://www.glendaleheating.com/ is one site to look at and http://www.heatraesadia.com/hs/heatraes.nsf another and last http://www.kalirel.co.uk/index.html the latter I know nothing about and I am not sure if they do all that is claimed but make your own mind up.
Of course you would most likely need to source local and there may be better systems I will watch with interest to see what others have to say.
Eric

 

[skiman]

Thanks for getting back to me, my problem with the heating is that I have 8 separate self-catering apartments of various sizes which I rent out over the winter and summer periods. In winter the temperature rages on average from 0 to -15 and can occasionally go down as far as -25. I cannot control the heating as the apartments are rented out to holiday makers who will not care about the settings as long as they are comfortable.

In the main the heating works quite well and maybe only when the temperature really drops does it feel like a bit more heat would be good. However when the outside temperature is not that cold outside it can be a bit warm and of course the guests will open the windows and let the heat out.

The heating is controlled by thermostats in each of the apartments and these cannot be changed by the renter, the output dial is hidden behind a plastic blanking cap, so this controls the output effectively. I cannot see how the input is regulated and I am assuming this may be manually set and cannot be adjusted. I cannot think it would be automatic due to the age of the heaters.

To install a water based heating system would be a massive job as all the floors and ceilings are concrete and the apartment house is on 4 floors. Not only would it involve a large amount of disruption but the cost would be very high.

My object therefore is to try and minimize the installation costs by sticking with electric heating and buying in new storage heaters if they really are more efficient. I have had a suggestion from a local heating company in Austria, that electric oil fired heaters would be less to run as they are easier to control, I am not sure about this as I would then be running on daytime electric. The storage heating system in Austria is similar to the economy 7 over here in that it is much cheaper at night.

I have been thinking of maybe just changing my large apartment as I get a separate electricity bill for this as it used to be the owners apartment, whereas the rest of the building is treated as business, both bills are using the same tariff. I can then see if due to the upgrade I am making a saving on the monthly bill. However this is still a costly exercise as I have to change 8 storage heaters and they are all over 3 kw, and I am not sure if I would be doing it for nothing or maybe only for a very small saving.

Last week a friend suggested looking into warm air heating, but I have yet to do this.

John

 

[ericmark]

I do see your problem I looked at http://www.kalirel.co.uk/index.html which uses oil but is still economy 7 may be it is these that the local heating company in Austria is referring to? I am not convinced they control any better though but was not going to ring them when I had no intention of using them.
On the storage heaters I have used there is a max temp setting and once bricks reach the max they turn off heaters so if you can stop heat getting out then next day it will require less to top up.
But only control for heat output was flaps on radiators which although gave some control they were not really much good.
I used them as we were on limit to power use in daytime and to use normal electric heaters may have blown the three 350 amp incoming fuses.
Only other option is heat pumps and back in 1980 in Algeria in Atlas mountains we had problems with ice and they were not very good.
All best Eric