How to Replace Your Old Storage Heaters with Wall Mounted Electric Radiators

By Dynamic Heaters

Replace Storage Heaters with Electric Radiators
When we suggest our electric radiators, we hear numerous people who don’t know what to do with their old storage heaters. With us, you are safe. We will help you with your transaction and make it as easy as we can, as part of our service! But, how does the transaction work? In this article, we’ll give you a complete guide for switching from your old storage heaters to wall-mounted electric heaters.

Removing your old storage heaters

First of all, it is not a DIY job, if you would like to remove your storage heaters you will need the help of an electrician. This means, it is the most expensive part of the whole transaction but positively, installing the electric heaters is easy and quick.

Cost of removing storage heaters

The cost of removing storage heaters could be between £500 and £1000, even more, if the electrician is paid hourly. This is because the overall process of ONLY removing the storage heaters takes about 1 or 2 days for the whole house. Why? Because behind the huge box and simple face, it is not only a fact of disconnecting the heater from the wall. The storage heaters come hardwired into the wall, allowing the two-tariff meter to work properly and communicate to your energy provider when to charge you for your lower rate and when for the standard rate.
This happens through to electric circuits, one for the daily rate (Standard Rate) and one for the overnight rate (Lower Rate). When you are having your storage heater removed, your electrician will need to go through the following steps:

  1. Remove the lower rare circuits;
  2. Convert back the storage heater socket into a traditional socket;
  3. Earth the electricity and/or install circuits breakers when necessary;
  4. Test the functionality, certificate it and write down a report.

Coming back to the breakdown of the cost of removing the storage heaters, this process should take about 1 or 2 hours for each heater.
Finally, the whole process, for the whole house – obviously it also depends on how many you have – will come to a cost between £500 and £1000.

When looking for an electrician you might be charged by the hour or by the task.

How to dispose of storage heaters

Storage Heaters disposal might be tricky. If they do not contain Asbestos, you should be able to bring them to the local tip and dispose of them in the small electrical container.

Note: if you want to dispose of the storage heaters by yourself, we recommend always checking with your local recycling center what the policies are and where it is more suitable for you to dispose of your heaters. You might be charged a fee for disposing of your heaters.

If the storage heater’s bricks contain asbestos it would be good to call the council and check how you could take care of it.

What is asbestos?

Asbestos is a highly heat-resistant fibrous silicate mineral. If you have owned your storage heaters since before 1973, you might have asbestos insulation. After that, asbestos has been banned due to frequent illness and respiratory issues. BEFORE calling your electrician, please check if your storage heater model contains asbestos. Here you can find an updated list created by the Asbestos Information Center (AIC).

Anyway, once the storage heaters a disconnected from the wall, the process to dismantle them is not complicated.

How to dismantle your old storage heaters

  • Step 1: Remove the front panel of the heater.
  • Step 2: Take off the internal panel (Just screwed in – dust might be in).
  • Step 3: Remove the first layer of bricks. (These are very heavy and large storage heaters will have many bricks.)
  • Step 4: Pull the heating elements out and remove the bricks at the back.
  • Step 5: Release the screws on the side and remove the carcass from the wall (It might be underneath the carpet too).
  • Step 6: Unscrew the wall bracket and remove it.

Your electrician might be able to dispose of them for you, especially considering that the bricks inside the heaters weigh between 40 and 400kg. At Dynamic Heaters, we have specific lifting equipment to remove it safely from your home and would like to help you with this.

Other plausible options to dispose of the heavy bricks could be:

  • Option 1:  if you don’t want our help and you are transitioning the entire house, you can hire a Skip, this option would make the whole process easier and you wouldn’t risk damaging your vehicle.
  • Option 2: get in touch with local farmers and builders and check if they need the bricks for their daily job. They might thank you and even come to pick them up (It is free raw material for them!). You could either show a sign outside your house or even post on your local Facebook group.

Coming off your double-tariff electricity bill (Or Economy 7)

Before using or installing your new electric radiators, you should come off your Economy 7 bill. Indeed, this might not seem the smartest solution but it is when we considered the energy efficiency of the german electric heaters. With a double-tariff bill, the provider would charge you 2 standard tariffs for the day and night. However, the electric radiators consume energy just when they need to pump it in to warm up the radiator. Thanks to their retention heat system, they won’t need electricity all the time. Switching to a standard single-tariff would also allow you to use your electric devices more cheaply.

Changing your plan is easy: just phone your supplier and they will come to your house to get a new electricity meter. Bear in mind: most of the suppliers do it for free!

Installing your new electric heaters

Good news! Your bulky storage heater is gone. And now you can install your electric heaters. It is normally really easy to mount them on the wall. However, there is always the risk to ruin your wall or create an electrical overload. For this, we always advise to sick the assistant of a professional and do not DIY.
Another good news: with Dynamic Heaters, the installation would be complimentary, we want to ensure that our product is perfectly working.

How we would install your wall mounted electric radiators:

  • Step 1: Take the measure of your electric radiator and draw its figure on the wall with a pencil
  • Step 2: Sign where we should drill the holes
  • Step 3: Drill the holes on the 4 corners
  • Step 4: Secure the mounting brackets in the wall with 4 screws. We would use a screwdriver here.
  • Step 5: Hang the radiators on the wall using the mountain brackets
  • Step 6: Screw in the safety screws on the top of the mountain brackets. This is important for your safety.
  • Step 7: Plug it in and see if everything is working properly. We need to check if your smart functions work fine, if the thermostat is ok and if the radiators are all perfectly secured!

Overall, it might sound like a long process, but it can be worth it in the long term. Plus, with Dynamic Heaters, everything you have to think about is coming off your double tariff! We’ll do all the rest included in the electric radiator’s price.

Are you interested? Contact us! Book a free survey or give us a call.