Can you put a plug on a storage heater and plug it in?

The legislation that covers what can have a plug and what needs to be hardwired is BS 7671.

Basically anything that can draw more the 3Kw needs to be hardwired on it's own dedicated circuit.

That's generally talked about online with regard to appliances like ovens and cooktops, electric showers, and immersion or instant water heaters.

With your storage heaters you would need to get an electrician to assess the existing circuits that you intend to plug the heaters into.
The plug circuit will not have been intended to carry the loads needed for the heaters and the wiring may not be of a sufficient gauge to carry that load.
The Circuit Breakers (and other protection devices) may also not be rated sufficently for the load.

In other words there is a good reason for them currently being hardwired like they are.

PS. Don't rely on AI, they can be handy for a quick overview of what is there online - However we all know that there is a lot of incorrect and outdated info online.
If an AI finds mostly the junk then it will very confidently tell you that the junk information is correct.

I was looking at hardwiring in a new cooker a year or two ago, (before AI invaded browsers), and it's amazing how much incorrect advice about when it's needed and just who can do it that there is online. Most of it well meaning but still incorrect.

The basic part of the question about any appliance connecting via a plug and socket is around the length of time the appliance will be drawing power. 
Of course a kettle and portable electric heater can easily draw 2 or 3kW or so but the point is that they are only generally drawing max power for a relatively short duration (a few minutes). 
The appliance will usually detail how it should be connected in the installation instructions

Beware of rating numbers for storage heaters. There are often two kW figures quoted; one for the power needed to charge the heater core, the other for the delivered power. The 2000W you quote could be either. If it’s the charging rating, then you should be able to run it on an ordinary circuit, so long as the total load on the circuit remains within normal bounds. If it’s the delivered power, then no, because the required charging power will be much more than an ordinary circuit can support. 

The storage heater in question is rated at 1,600w and when running, does not draw more than 1,600w at any time.

The downstairs house circuit is rated at some 7,000w, if just one 1,600w storage heater is plugged into that along with a few other things, and doesn’t exceed that max rating by a fair bit, then no real risk ?

I can plug in a portable 2kw and run that for hours, so why not a storage heater instread if I have one to hand ?

 

Technically, I think you can plug anything into a ring final circuit that doesn't overload it. 2kW through a three pin plug is fine. 3kW is a bit iffy because the live pin gets very hot. The resistance of a 13A fuse makes it get quite hot (even though its running at 12A) which then tends to oxidise the contact mating area quicker than it would do, eventually leading to a high resistance and a thermal runaway scenario with a burnt out socket and possibly a fire. I believe 13A plugs are only rated for 10A continuous current. You might have noticed that can't buy 3kW heaters any more.

The difficulty arises when you have a fire and the fire brigade say that a storage radiator was plugged into a ring final (because they are looking for the ignition source) instead of being wired into its own circuit and then your insurance company may have grounds to disallow your claim whether or not it was the cause of the fire. Basically, insurance companies look at any way they can get out if a claim if that is possible. It would be up to you to have to prove it wasn't the source of the fire which may be impossible.

This is why I want to be sure there will be no issues with insurance companies/etc.

Yes I’d heard the 10A continous thing mentioned before a few times.

So if I have 2kw bar electric fire with a plug on it, which in my mind is more hazardious than a 1,600w storage heater both plugged in, and the house burns down, the insurance company will point to the storage heater as a get out cause, and not the 2kw bar electric fire !

But only if you aren’t allowed to put a plug on it, which so far, only AI has said you can’t do due to regulations, but no human has yet quoted any specific regulations/etc. that says you can’t.

Since AI’s can be unreliable, I want to be really sure, before I spend thousands trying to solve a problem that might not need solving !

Thousands I might not have, which means I’d be stuck with that 2kw electric fire sitting on the floor waiting for someone to stand too near, or triip over and burn the house down. :-)

Whilst the storage heater sits in the garage being unused.

I’m sure I could pay a few hundred to an electrican to come out and tell me the answer, hopefully not like doctors where each one comes out with a different answer !

They might also be prone to the kind of thing you see with garages, find lots of expensive things that don’t really need to be done to your car, but they say do !
 

Long story short… You’ll be better off hardwiring. You can take that from me as I do have fire service experience.

Yes! You have to understand that insurance companies are looking for a reason not to pay out. Not the reason why the fire started.

Example. If you are burgled and the loss adjuster turns up the first thing they will do is look at the door locks and if they do not meet the specification laid out in the policy then they will disallow the claim because you didn't do what was specified you would do in the policy. You didn't do your part in minimising the risk to the insurer.

In your case if you can get a qualified electrician to wire a storage heater to a plug and get a certificate to that effect that it met the current wiring regs at the time then you are covered.  You can put a plug on a 2kW heater that was meant to have a plug on it and it would be fine even if it did cause a fire because the policy allows for the risk of you puting a plug on an item that can have a plug attached by a non qualified person.

I hope that's clearer.

Peter

Would an electrican for a fee, issue such a certificate to put a plug on a storage heater ?

Without requiring an upgrade of the consumer unit to meet current code ?

As my understand is, no electrican work can be done on a property that has a below standard consumer it, it must be upgraded.

So the AI was right then !

Which is a shame, since storage heaters are wonderfully cheap, or even free second hand, whilst other electric heating devices are not so cheap to buy, and don’t store their heat for hours, making them less suitable for using off peak electricity rates, unless you pay a small fortune to have an electrican come and wire up a special circuit for them.

For those interested, or concerned, I’m currently in the progress of fitting several heated towel rails, that came with fitted plugs, so I can sure there will be no issues, other than making sure their combined use doesn’t overload any specific circuit when in use.

Meanwhile I shall stare at the 7 non-working storage heaters here and hope I will have enough heating capacity come next winter if need be via the electric towel ralis.

If the wiring instalation does not meet current legislation then such a certifiacte could not be legally issued..

PS. There are going to be a lot of storage heaters going for scrap prices following the RTS switch off and subsequent tariff changes.

Hi ​@shetland, you could ask an electrician to advise you on hardwiring your 1600 Watt into an existing circuit, as has been suggested, via a metal double pole switched spur (with its own familiar plug-top type fuse), rather unlovely of the type you might see in a garage or workshop, or via a more domestic-looking white switched Fused Connector Unit: your electrician could advise on perhaps fitting a 10 Amp fuse rather than a 13 Amp one, which wouldn’t prevent the fuse running hot but might give some assurance about total load on your chosen circuit.  Above all, though, a fixed outlet like that would offer  permanently-wired tightly-installed cabling to your storage heater, much better than an ordinary plug. 
 

However, for optimum safety, though, as has been suggested, your electrician would probably advise installing the storage heater on its very own circuit, which would no doubt be protected by a 16 Amp fuse (either from your existing consumer unit (CU) if there’s space for a new MCB or a new RCBO, otherwise space might be available for a small additional unit near the CU) and be run in reassuringly thick cable for your 1600 Watt requirement (4mm squared) which might be stronger than your existing cabling “in the wall”?  
 

But advice and assessment by two (or, better, three) electricians could well be free, they might not charge you, especially if you find ones that friends, colleagues or family have previously used and would recommend.  I can understand your natural apprehension about your having to pay what you describe as “thousands” for a completely new circuit, but please be assured that would only be the case if the new circuit was to be challenged by complicated logistics: extraordinarily long run, three foot thick walls, hidden in plaster rather than over the surface with aesthetically acceptable trunking perhaps, or some awful electrical problems associated with existing dodgy earthing or wiring or whatever.  I would cautiously suggest a more likely figure of the low hundreds (depending, I stress, on dozens of unknowable factors only your electrician(s) can quote you for.  Very good luck, we would be definitely interested in hearing how you get on and what choices you find are presented to you? 

All the best…..

Our walls are only 2ft thick. :-)

A plug is better when your heating unit stops working and you need to plug in a spare unit, at some point I will age enough that I won’t  be able to wire in a replacement, and a plug in option would be better.

I could even have 2 side by side fitted on the wall, so I don’t even need to move one into place, and just swap over plugs !

Family have all died, and we don’t have any friends here, so no one to ask a favour of for advice.

A recent quote we had was £5,500 I’d be amazed if another quote was less than £1,000, and probably cost us £500 just to get a second quote !
 

Hi ​@shetland, so be it, sounds like your mind’s been made up for you…all the very best and take care, and at least we’ve got longer days at the moment, even for folk up in beautiful Shetland!  
 

Walls two feet thick, sounds wonderful:  that house is going nowhere!  And a quote of £5,500 for one circuit, wow! I’d want a total house re-wire for that! 
 

EDIT….Ah, apologies, on looking back I see you’re actually talking about 7 storage heaters?  Still, if they’re all around the 1.6 kW size, two circuits might suffice? And if your CU is below par, a separate smaller CU mounted nearby (space permitting) could be possible rather than messing about too much with the existing CU.  But if the house electrics are indeed “below standard” as you intimate, I’d get that sorted if I were you! And as a side note, maybe take advice on where your heated towel rails are being plugged in?
 

All the very best, Walt

The heated towel rails are to be plugged into wall sockets so as not to overload a specific cicruit, eg. the downstairs one rated at 7,000w will have 3 x 500w towel rails, and also run them not all at the same time, eg. one runs for 8 hours, another runs for 8 hours, and another for the rest, alternatiing very hour between each.

Upstairs similar.

A circuit has already been tested with a 1kw and 2kw electric fire without any issues appearing, no wiring appearing to get even slightly warm, no trip switches doing their thing, as such I’m not expecting any issues with less wattage apread around 3 heaters of 500w on alternating times.

Unless anyone can mention otherwise. :-)

I do now check with various AI’s about safety as well, rather than rely on forums where it is increasing difficult to get accurate answers to specific questions.

But since AI is not always right, it can be hard to check !

As such, I tend towards caution, hence the heated towel rails, you can’t get any more cautious than that, they are even water resistant !

I’m thinking for a storage heater house, I’d need at least 9 x 1.6kw models, though I was looking at 800w models, since they would be a lot lighter to lug around when you need to swap them out for repair/replacement, but I’d need 18 of them then, which could be quite a bit of wall space.

Though I guess no reason why you couldn’t have a bank of them two stacked on top of each other with enough of a gap.

Plus a garage to keep another dozen spare units in. :-)

But I might have decided for more than 18 if I have solar power, so that the house can be really warm, and not just a bit warm.

Since storage heaters would be a much cheaper solution than batteries for storing heat.

Though I did some see batteries for sale new the other day, £1,000 would give me 10,000wh of storage, so I’d only need £12,000 worth of batteries to power my house for 24 hours.

And what, about 2 acres of solar panels to charge it in the winter. :-)

But I could at least charge them up with off peak cheap rate electricity I imagine, though bound to be a heap load of regulations to worry about trying to do that !
 

I use ChatGPT which I find reliable in terms of answers. It can lack detail at times but it generally comes back with a broad answer and generally brings up points you have not already considered. You could start a conversation with each of you points in turn and see what it says.

As for solar panels, there is a very poor fit between the power required in the winter for heating and the power available from a solar array at that time. In the summer you will have the opposite situation. Plenty of power but no heating required. A large bank of batteries will not help.

I hope your project goes well but it will be best to get more answers to your ideas before committing to anything.

Peter

Google say it themselves:

The legal disclaimer. People make mistakes as well but they can walk away from those.

I generally find that the more sources you reference the better idea you have of what's going on (and what you actually want) and what needs to be done. In this instance there is no one right solution because we don't know all the facts. My suggestion is that you keep on asking questions from different sources (Gemini is another AI although it has lied to me in the past when it was called Bard) and there are different places that this issue can be aired. Eventually you might come to a consensus as to what the right solution is.

Peter

Hi ​@shetland, sounds like you’ve got yourself quite a plan there!  Expensive to run, though.  I’m guessing those lovely two foot thick (stone?) walls of yours will help as a type of energy storage device.

”Though I did some see batteries for sale new the other day, £1,000 would give me 10,000wh of storage, so I’d only need £12,000 worth of batteries to power my house for 24 hours.”   120 kWh (“units”) a day sounds a lot, though? Even assuming a discharge limited to 80% capacity, that’d be still around 100 units a day?  Plus there would be large additional outlay on associated systems for the batteries (installation costs, inverter(s), cabling, switchgear etc.)  

Nine 1.6 kW storage heaters, plus towel rails (good idea to stagger their usage, but depends I suppose on how you want to utilise their heat when they’re actually warm, for instance at night or whenever?) plus maybe an immersion heater for your domestic hot water, plus electric oven, all heavy items and then the more sporadic usage of other heavy items such as kettles and possibly electric shower, all make for a very hefty consumption, even without considering all the other usual more lightweight background stuff like ‘fridges and freezers etc.  The nine storage heaters alone, were they all to run together, are equivalent to charging two electric cars at once so maybe your figure of 100 kWh per day is indeed an accurate (winter) estimate, depending on how many hours a day you’ll be buying power for them. And if it was all at a very low tariff of 7 or 8 pence per kWh, then maybe £300 (including standing charge) or so per winter month is not perhaps a lot more than many folk in the UK find that they have to allow for over the winter to include heating costs.  But storage heaters are not very good at coping quickly with a cold snap in, say, September or April, so you might find that “winter” months might not be limited to the usual six suspects….certainly in Sunderland I’ve been (resentfully) running the heating for an hour or so on the occasional morning even in May.
 

Your DNO can come and check and possibly upgrade the fuse on their supply to your house, and that’s one safety check that shouldn’t cost you.  I’m assuming you have a single phase supply? 
 

Do keep us posted, sounds like an interesting project, and it’s great you have lots of time over the summer to plan everything out, all the very best with it….

EDIT Oh yes, and there are all kinds of sources of help and information such as the Energy Advice Helpline and well known national charities and initiatives plus loads of different forums (Martin Lewis’s forum is always worth a visit) and support groups.  ATB again…

Hey ​@shetland,

Some really helpful advice given here by our community members 😊

We have tons of useful resouces about staorage heaters on our website:
 

Here’s our in-depth guide to teach you everything you need to know about this smart, efficient way to heat your home. Read on to find out more about:
 

What storage heaters are and how they work

Storage heater advantages and disadvantages

Types of storage heaters

Costs of storage heaters

How to use your storage heater

How to make the most of your storage heater

Storage heaters and solar panels

Are storage heaters worth getting?

Are storage heaters right for my home?