4 POTENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR AN ALL-ELECTRIC HOME

INFRARED PANELS

Over recent years heating systems’ controls have become more sophisticated, allowing different timing and temperatures to be selected in every room. Small changes like increasing the temperature in a particular room by a degree or two remain a problem for conventional heating systems. Firing up a boiler or heat pump for such a task is inefficient and will take time to be effective. By comparison, switching on an infrared heating panel in a room has an almost immediate effect and allows the rest of the house to be run at a lower, more efficient, temperature.

Infrared panels work by radiating energy rather than relying on convection to warm the air in the room, as radiators and underfloor heating (UFH) do. This means they can make people warm while the air in the room remains cool. However, the room will quickly feel cold again when the panel is switched off. It’s like standing in a sunny spot on a cold day; you feel warm until you move out of the sun.

Prices vary with size and quality, from around £100 for an 80W panel to almost £400 for a top-of-therange 800W panel. Installation is easy and cheap – DIY level – and they are now available as mirrors and decorative panels. As a top-up heating option infrared panels have a lot going for them.

NIGHT STORAGE HEATERS

Storage heaters use low-cost, low-carbon overnight electricity to heat ceramic blocks in insulated containers, then release the heat as needed. Modern versions can control when they emit heat, and temperatures can be specified for the room they’re in. Some even have fans and resistance heaters to speed up heating.

At £300 to £500 each, storage heaters are quite costly to buy, but installation costs are very low, resulting in overall costs very similar to radiator systems.

Where there is not too much daytime heat demand, night storage heaters can be an effective, eco-sensitive, option. Their big drawback is that, if the stored heat gets used up during the day, keeping the house warm through the evening can be expensive.

ELECTRIC BOILERS

An electric boiler is essentially a big immersion heater that can be considered a direct replacement for a gas or oil boiler. At £200 to £600 they are cheaper than gas boilers and easier to install, as there is no gas connection or flue. They are expensive to run but as a backup, or for a small property like a single bedroom flat, using one to heat a tank of water at an overnight tariff could be a decent option.

ELECTRIC UFH

Electric underfloor heating (UFH) has been with us for a long time, but has always suffered from high running costs and relatively slow warm-up time. Its principal advantage over wet UFH is its low installation cost, so it generally ends up being used for extensions and room changes where using wet UFH is not practical.

The new kid on the block is Laminaheat Comfortfilm which is a carbon fibre mesh less than 2mm thick that goes directly below the floor finish. This is a very new product at the early adopter stage, and at the time of writing prices were not available, but it seems like it might be a game changer for low heat demand houses (Passivhaus builds, for instance). Where heat demand is small, running costs would be more than offset by this product’s easy installation, speedy warm-up time and long, maintenance-free lifespan.