Oni Electric Vertical Designer Flat Panel Radiator in pink with plant and pink elephant

Electric radiators vs central heating

Written by
Nick Duggan

A designer electric radiator will heat the room as efficiently as your central heating system does. Indeed, electric radiators work the same way as those that are part of your central heating.When the water inside the radiator heats up, the surrounding area heats up too.

Advantages of electric radiators

The main advantage of electric radiators is that they have no moving parts. This means there’s less to go wrong; therefore, they will need less maintenance – no bleeding, no balancing, and no flushing.

The cost of installing electric radiators is a lot less than the cost of installing gas central heating. If you’re building an extension or garden room, installing an electric radiator will be a lot cheaper than extending your central heating into the new space.

All you do is fix the radiator to the wall and plug it in! Extending your central heating will require a plumber to lay new piping, which will involve additional expense and a lot of disruption.

Although the running costs for an electric radiator may be greater than those for a radiator connected to central heating, the cost and inconvenience of extending the system may far outweigh the extra running costs.

Electric radiators are good for rooms that need extra warmth when you don’t need the rest of your central heating on, such as bathrooms, home offices or home-based treatment rooms.

In addition, many of our electric radiators are WiFi-enabled, which means you’ll be able to control every radiator from your computer or phone. In this way, you will be able to control the temperature in each particular room.

View our electric radiator collection

Decoral Electric radiator in Pure White under window — Decoral Electric

Tuba Electric Vertical Radiator in white in Living Room with underneath element — Tuba Vertical Electric

Beams Mono Aluminium Radiator in Blue and Grey in Hall — Beams Electric

Sustainability

Last year, the UK generated a record-breaking amount of renewable energy, with 40% of electricity being powered from renewable sources – up from 35% in 2021.

The climate crisis and high energy costs have brought with them the realisation that we need to break our reliance on fossil fuels and find more sustainable ways of heating our homes.

For households with the technology to generate their own electricity with solar or wind power, an electric heating system is by far the most sustainable solution.

If you are interested in using renewable electricity as a way of going green, then you’ll be interested in the Livingstone range, which has the most sustainable – and beautiful – radiators yet.

Many Livingstone models also come in electric models, so you can benefit from efficient heat output in addition to knowing that you’re being as sustainable as possible.

Energy saving

A further advantage of electric radiators is that they only heat the rooms they’re in. With a gas central heating system, hot water travels through pipes around the house, under the floors and through the walls, heating parts of the house that don’t need to be heated.

You could also be wasting energy through the fact that the thermostat that controls the temperature is kept in just one room. While the temperature may be perfect for that particular room, you may be overheating smaller rooms or under heating larger ones (which often leads to people turning up the thermostat in order to achieve a comfortable temperature in that room).

If you would like to find out more about designer electric radiators, talk to us about their efficiency, and see for yourself how attractive they are, visit one of our local radiator showrooms near you.