More on night storage heaters
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The night storage heaters are comprised of varying metal casings with an inner collection of blocks. Some even have asbestos in them which get chipped away into the room as drafty air from convection. There large heating simple metal elements which bake the blocks over the night. A surrounding jacket helps contain the heat in the blocks.
By the method of its manufacture and its heating regime, coupled with the natural laws of physics, once the electric current ceases to heat the blocks, then the heat dissipates. By their very nature, within eight to ten hours they have given up most of their heat and therefore either need a boost, or else a subsidiary form of heating is then put to use; i.e. electric fire, coal fire et cetera.
Night storage heaters, as their name suggests, are giving their heat overnight, but because of their necessity to retain heat for a long period many kilowatts are used to produce that heat.
The advantages of night storage heaters are that they are charged up overnight at a cheaper rate of electricity; also, they give out their heat over a long period albeit waning one.
Their biggest disadvantage however, is that they are mostly uncontrollable. For instance, should they be operative during the night because of the previous evening's chilliness and then come the following morning and it's a gloriously sunny day, they will still emit their heat as normal because they can do nothing else. Also with Economy 7 night rates having risen dramatically in relation to 'normal' tariff rates, storage heating is not as an attractive proposition as it was even a couple of years ago.
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