There is an age-old question surrounding the use of your electric radiator and it rarely seems to have a satisfactory answer. The question is “how much does it cost to run an electric radiator?”
It would be nice to be able to answer this question with an exact figure, but things aren’t that easier. It would be just as easy to ask for a general figure that applies to all utility bills ubiquitously. This is simply not possible due to the many factors that can affect one household’s expenses. Therefore, it would therefore be impossible to predict exactly how much your electric radiator will cost. Taking a look at German radiators will give you a head start though.
It is easy to assume that your electric radiator is just another electrical appliance and will pull energy roughly in the same way. While there are similarities between the power of the radiator and your television, for example, they will use this power in different ways. The television will begin to use power when it is connected and switched on. However, this is not how the radiator works. The radiator will turn on to warm a room to a desired temperature than turn off to save energy then on again to maintain the temperature set by the thermostat.
What else can affect the running costs of electric radiators?
Figuring out what the exact costs of your radiator will be very difficult because there are so many different rooms and situations where radiators are used. So better than asking for the exact running costs of an electric radiator, a smart consumer might ask about the approximate running costs of the electric radiator for your home.
Of course, every home is different and has its own special needs and challenges for keeping it warm efficiently. This means it will be important to consider what the major factors that affect your heating and energy expenses are and how you can minimise the costs of each one. Following are some of the major factors that will affect your home’s heating.
Home and Room Insulation
If your property is an older one it may have been built before modern heat-saving architecture and thermal barriers were installed in all buildings. This means that newer home of the same size will cost less to warm. Newer properties have building designed to keep the heat inside. There are numerous building regulations in place in this modern day and age that require better insulation in an effort to reduce energy costs across the board.
These higher standards mean that an electric radiator will not have to work as hard to produce the same amount of heat and keep the interior warm. Period properties are lovely and have classic charm, but they lack the proper double-glazing and advanced insulation features. Therefore, they will very rapidly lose their warmth. Electric radiators will have to operate at higher temperatures and more often to maintain the heat and this could be a costly thing.
Room size
Just as homes can be very different in their dimensions, each room inside the home can also be very different in their size and capacity to retain heat. Hot air rises, so a room with a very high ceiling will take much longer to keep warm than a home with low ceiling. Rooms with large open spaces will also require more energy to heat as the convection will take longer to reach the other side of the room. In both these cases, an electric radiator with larger wattage will keep the space heated comfortably and efficiently.
Property location and exposure levels
In a terraced house that has other properties on either side, the house in the middle receives a warmth factor from the residual heat being passed from either side. Therefore, the most heat loss will exist from the front and back of the house. In a fully detached home, this is not the case. All sides of the home are exposed and release heat making a detached home harder to heat.