Selling a Property with No Central Heating

[notsodizzyblonde]

Question ... our house is up for sale and its an old property (over 100 years old). When we bought it, it just had a working coal fire which heated up the water etc (quite a while ago!). This didn't bother us. Many years later and the house STILL has a working coal fire but we've also had storage heaters installed which obviously heat up the water instead. The couple of viewers we've had seemed quite surprised there was no central heating (don't know why as its shown in the particulars!). We've explained that storage heaters do the same thing, ie there's heat all day and constant hot water - plus the fact that it uses a different electricity tariff (cheap electricity). To be honest we've found it cheaper than where we used to live which DID have central heating!

Do you think people just are so used to central heating that they don't understand what storage heaters actually do? Is there anything we can say to make them realise its not actually a bad thing NOT having central heating? Its not like the house is freezing either!!

What do you think?

[Arksided]

This not an answer to your question, but totally agree. I used to live in a flat that had storage heaters and found them much more efficient than the central heating I have now.

[notsodizzyblonde]

Thank you! Nice to know there's at least one person who agrees there's nothing wrong with them!!

[coccinelle]

Couldn't you say: ask anybody who has had both and they'll tell you which they prefer?
My parents had storage heaters and what I found was the house got cool at night and too warm in the morning but they were the old variety. They certainly didn't heat their water.

[tonyav]

We used to have those type years ago coccinelle, they were bloody useless. I expect they are a lot different these days though.

[237SJ]

I had a flat many years ago with storage heaters. I didn`t like them at all. They would be hot in the morning and cool by the time it got to evening and I needed heat. They took a while to heat up too so I couldn`t just put them on at any time of the year. If I was buying a house it would put me off a bit if there were storage heaters. My house had storage heaters when I bought it but I took them out and had gas central heating installed. I didn`t mind because there were a few things that needed doing and that was reflected in the price.

[notsodizzyblonde]

These are slimline ones, definitely the newer version. You control what heat you want. You can set it to gather lots of heat and then decide if you want it blasting out or just to have a little bit of heat (and anything in between too). The water heating is all part of that system. If you need to give it a boost then there's ability for that too.

[Old_Geezer]

First thing to do is change the particulars. Should be accurate.

Perfectly possible folk are familiar with one thing and not another, and may well not to risk purchasing something they may find they don't like.

Unsure what else you can do. If the particulars are corrected folk coming to see won't be fazed by the unexpected. But you can not force someone to like what you have to offer.

[Kiki-frog]

Storage heaters just don't have a very good reputation. I must admit I was surprised when you said yours heat water as well. Cheap electricity ought to be a selling point, though, so perhaps you could labour that point a bit more.

[notsodizzyblonde]

237SJ - sounds like you might have had the old style heaters too. These don't take time to heat up because there's heat constantly coming from it. If they were switched off then fair enough, that would happen - but otherwise the heat is constant and its never colder or warmer unless we decide to change the dials to make it that way.

[237SJ]

There were old style heaters when I bought the flat but I replaced them. It was a long time ago though. If I really wanted a place, I would still buy it with the storage heaters but I`d change to gas radiators. When I did that here, I still kept the cheaper overnight electricity.

[tonyav]

Economy 7 in those days,

[The Builder]

Modern slim-lines are considerably better than the older heaters. The upside is that they're a lot less troublesome than boilers can be.
It's a perfectly good system IF you have plenty of insulation and draughtproofing.

[notsodizzyblonde]

The Builder - never thought about saying how less troublesome they are actually!! That's what I mean - there's no draughts, we've done everything we can to make it warm and comfortable and it has been for years now! I almost think people find out there's no gas central heating and just can't understand how there's any heat at all !!!

[Toureman]

Having storage heaters as central heating is just the same as having a boiler run running the central heating or underfloor central heating.

As far as I can see your property has Central Heating.

[notsodizzyblonde]

Well we've had another viewer round and the feedback given was the lack of central heating put her off!! Grrr!! This time I showed the viewer around and actually explained the whole thing, ie same as gas central heating in that you have constant heat, you control how much heat you want coming out and that it works off the cheap electricity rate. No boiler to go wrong etc etc. I just don't get it (or should I say its the other people not getting it!!). Think from now on I should say we have "electric central heating" as at the end of the day, I suppose that's what it is (kind of!!). Again though, the particulars say there's storage heaters so if that's a problem, why would someone still come round to see the house!! Rant over ...

[parkesquay]

I have to say that I had storage heaters and that is all they were. Definitely not capable of heating water for domestic use. For this one would need a type of immmersion heater which is normally situated in a cupboard somewhere and is a totally seperate system. Intriguing -not surpised you get a few raised eyebrows.

[diddlydo]

I wouldn't even consider a house that had storage radiators rather than proper central heating - at least unless it was reflected in the price, leaving me enough money to rip them out and have full central heating installed.