[set fair (OP)]

My new neighbour had a new electric meter fitted, she was told that the existing storage heaters where wasteful because "they were not as efficient at turning electricity into heat". I understand that using the reverse of an air conditioner can put more energy into a house than the electric energy used (because it cools the air or ground outside). But a more efficient storage heater, can it be true?

I thought that although there are differences between say a fan heater and a two bar heater (actually a radiator unlike what are commonly called radiators) they are all as near as dammit 100% efficient at turning electric energy to heat. I told her that her meter installer was talking cobblers, but I thought I'd check here.

Thanks.

[Halc]

Any non-heat-pump electric heater is pretty much 100% efficient at turning energy into heat.  A heat pump is more efficient since it takes additional heat from elsewhere (outside).
A non-electric heater (say gas) is less than 100% efficient because it needs to exhaust combustion gasses up the chimney, which is a waste if it isn't as cold as the outside.

Anyway, heat storage heaters are designed to give heat at high-rate times while using electricity at low rate times.  It is more efficient in terms of heat for the money, but not in terms of heat for the kilowatt-hour.

The quote "not as efficient at turning electricity into heat" doesn't mention money, so the comment seems 'talking cobblers'.

[alancalverd]

There are several disturbing advertising claims about "more efficient storage heaters". They are all bogus: all ohmic heaters convert electricity to heat at 100% efficiency.

Some are more convenient than others. If you can retain core heat (obtained from cheap "night-rate" electricity) and release it only as and when required, you have an efficient means of matching supply to demand, and a core with a high specific heat capacity will give you a very compact system, but the relationship "kWh in / calories out"  remains 100% for all direct-conversion electric heaters.

[hamdani yusuf]

My new neighbour had a new electric meter fitted, she was told that the existing storage heaters where wasteful because "they were not as efficient at turning electricity into heat". I understand that using the reverse of an air conditioner can put more energy into a house than the electric energy used (because it cools the air or ground outside). But a more efficient storage heater, can it be true?

One possibility is that the existing heater is not purely resistive. It might be somewhat reactive (either inductive or capacitive). In these cases, some of the electrical energy due to excess in alternating current would be dissipated on the wire, which is not where it's intended to be.