Heating -again!

[maude]

At the moment we have back up heating to our wood burning insert which consists of wall mounted electric convectors.These are  plugged into the local  wall sockets.Has anyone experience of the all singing and dancing,but very expensive,French heaters,either "cored" similar to the old fashioned storage heaters,or the fluid filled, chaleur douce type.could they be also plugged into the local sokets without the expence, and damage to the walls by installing dedicated heating supplies.The cost of installing oil heating,and the ever increasing hike in oil prices,coupled with our ongoing decision on wether to stay in our present house,rules this out.Would be interested in any members comments regarding this type of electric heating.Many thanks-Maude 

[Gyn_Paul]

Maude,

In our previous French house (no space for an oil or gas tank and m-i-l-e-s away from the gaz de ville) we opted for a poele + electric heaters.

I had a demo from one of the companies who widly advertise electric semi-storage heaters (the ones about the size and shape of the Italian CH rads). I was less than impressed with their claims to their being more economical than ordinary radiant or convection heaters. The gist of it was that because the element heats up the core which slowly then gives up the heat. On balance the element is on for a shorter period: hence the supposed savings.

The part I couldn't get my head round (nor could I get a straight response from the representative) was that if a room needs 2kw/h to heat it to 20C, then no matter how slow or fast the heat is released, it's only coming from one place: the electric element. So I really couldn't see the value of paying about 5 x more than a traditional electric rad.

In the end we opted for the UK-type storage heaters running on HP/HC. I had such difficulty sourcing them in France that I bought them from the UK. The company were quite prepared to organise a carrier from Southampton to Nantes but in the end they went in a van. Easy to install, but - of course - expensive to run no matter what tariff.

p