Why Electric Radiators Are Ideal for Student Accommodations

Landlords must provide tenants with heating facilities for every room in a property. They must also ensure that the tenant has uninterrupted access to hot water. Modern landlords generally prefer to use electric heating. It is particularly useful in student accommodation.

What the law says

Each room in a property has to be able to be heated to a minimum standard. This minimum standard varies according to the room. When temperatures drop below freezing (i.e. -1°C or below) bedrooms must be able to be heated to +18°C. Living rooms must be heated to +21°C.

Landlords can use whatever form of heating they see fit as long as it meets these standards. It also needs to meet any applicable safety standards. This means that it needs to be certified by a qualified professional before it is installed. It also needs to be reinspected periodically to ensure that it continues to be safe.

Electric heating is safe

Probably the single, biggest reason why landlords are going electric in general is that it is safe. There is simply no possibility that it will leak toxic carbon monoxide the way gas can. It also doesn’t produce naked flames. There is therefore much less opportunity for a tenant to cause a fire accidentally.

Electric heating is low-maintenance

Gas heating requires pipes. These are typically run under floors. This means that inspecting, maintaining and, when necessary, repairing gas heating is a major undertaking.

Electricity, by contrast, runs through regular cables. These are generally routed around the edges of walls. They can, however, be routed in other ways if it’s more convenient. Inspecting, maintaining and, when necessary, repairing cabling is generally a job for a professional. It is, however, much less disruptive than working with gas piping.

Electric heating is flexible

The fact that electric heaters work off standard household infrastructure means that you have a lot more flexibility about how to deploy them. In particular, you can choose whether or not to have them hardwired into the mains.

Hardwiring minimises the need for visible cables but it does mean that heaters are fixed to one place. Some people prefer the flexibility of plug-in heaters. Many people like to use a combination of both. Typically this means using hardwired radiators as the main heating source and boosting with plug-in heaters when necessary.

Electric heating is highly controllable

This is often a huge selling point for landlords dealing with student accommodation. Students just starting at university are literally just learning how to be independent adults. They are highly unlikely ever to have handled tasks such as budgeting and managing bills.

Understandably, therefore, they tend to have a strong preference for making their life as simple as possible. In particular, they want accommodation with bills included. Older students may be happy to pay their bills as they go. Even they, however, may prefer to pay a fixed amount each month as this makes it easier for them to manage their money.

Of course, the problem with including bills with rent is that it can leave the landlord very exposed. This is particularly true with gas bills at the moment. Tenants may not be deliberately malicious. In fact, they rarely are. They just don’t necessarily think about managing their use of heating.

With electric radiators, landlords can opt to control the heating remotely. Alternatively, they can give the students a heating allowance and require them to pay for anything on top of this.

Electric radiators will provide usage statistics so landlords can alert the students if they are getting into paying territory. Landlords can even provide statistics per radiator (and hence per room) so the students who use the most energy pay the most.

This article was written by David Tyrer, who is the Director of Rio Heating and has over 30 years’ experience in creating smart heating & technology, designed to be enjoyed with smart home devices.