Is a combination of storage heater and oil filled radiator economical?
Single electric space heaters are almost always more economical than central heating inasmuch as one heats the entire house, the other only a single location within it. But you can calculate the costs as follows: The capacity of the oil heater in the bedroom in watts x the number of hours in operation divided by 1000 = Kilowatt Hours of use. KWh of use x cost/KWh (from your electric bill) = cost of operation. Storage Heater cost is done the same way. If it is a fuel-fired storage heater (gas or oil) you would measure its operating capacity x the cost-per-unit of fuel used x the number of hours in operation. Using our house as an example, it cost ~$2.40/hour to run our central boiler at full capacity. It costs ~$0.24/hour to run a 1500-watt electric space heater. So if we can reduce the use of the central boiler for 4 hours per day using one or two electric space heaters, we are way ahead of the game.
