[TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] Economy Radiators

tahrey · 13 September 2011 at 1:37PM

I could dissect this at great length, but who knows, maybe I'm having a brainfart and, on some planet in this great galaxy of ours, this is actually legit and a good idea?

http://www.economy-radiators.com/

I'ma just let y'all soak in the delightful prose on that site's many pages for a while and see if you're with me in a joint display of :rotfl: and :mad: or not.

Note, if you can bear it, that their brochures bear the logo of EnergyUK, who are BBC Watchdog's go-to guys for energy bill advice. Something tells me they don't know that it's been cut 'n' pasted on there.

I fear going to visit my nan one week and finding she's had this stuff put in...

I'm sure the technology's very good, but at the end of the day, it's little more than an oil filled radiator (or maybe filled with that liquid-crystal stuff you get in those funky reusable hillwalker's hand-warmers) and I doubt worth £234 per unit, or £300+ once fitting is included.... or £3200 for the whole house. (£66 to measure and drill four holes, insert rawl plugs and screws, then hang a radiator on them and plug it into a socket? I'll have that job...)

Hands up here anyone who thinks they'll save enough on their energy bill - assuming this product does save even a single kWh, or a penny if you're on economy 7 / 10 - to make a £3200 install which isn't solar with a steep feed-in bonus deliver a worthwhile return on investment in anything like a sensible time scale?

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Squire_Fulwood · 13 September 2011 at 5:38PM

If you want expensive electric radiators then I suppose it is not a scam but unless you buy a lot of electricity you will not warm your house. Watts are the measurement of heat output so it is not possible to have a low wattage radiator with a high heat output. That would be nonsense.

I would use one of them for emergency heating if the gas central heating broke but only the very rich can afford the running costs of a house full of them.

Squire_Fulwood · 13 September 2011 at 5:42PM

The use of the term central heating might be a bit dubious also. But the local electric power station is pretty central I suppose.

tahrey · 15 September 2011 at 11:02PM

Funny, that's pretty much what I was thinking...

There are things you can do to make the watts you put into your house go further, but i can't see how a "gel filled" radiator with a probably not particularly complicated microcontroller* whacked on the side of it will have a 2 or 3 fold effect (what you need to make it "as cheap as gas").
(*I'm thinking a scaled up version of the multi-level controller for my bike's (£30) hotgrips, just with a thermistor (50p at maplins) thrown in to monitor the temperature... a routine that generates a particular pulsewidth modulated control signal in response to how the set level corresponds to the observed temperature/temp change rate, that controls a solid-state high current relay (£10?), doing that exact same "turning on and off all the time" that they themselves decry, just several times a second rather than every few minutes)

Their claims that it's cheaper than a storage heater and that Economy 7 is a pricey myth seem utter nonsense to me - unless you're like my somewhat scatterbrained and techno-incompatible nan who signs up for economy 10 then seems to only run her 2-bar fire and immersion heater during the peak hours, leaving the storage heaters off entirely because they "got cold in the evening" (she couldn't understand the instructions, but instead of either leaving it on the default setting - which included a cheap booster period maybe 5 minutes after where she thought it was a little cold - or asking someone competent to do it, she fiddled with the timer and ballsed it all up). And that "it burns the air, making more carbon" stuff (what?!), or "you can't stop the heat coming out" (it's a heavily insulated lump of firebrick, with a closeable vent)... jeez.

Surely central heating requires some kind of central... um... heat-producing... thing, which then distributes the warmth via pipes, ducting, or magic fairy beams?

And how long, really, would it take to pay off a £3200 investment? Or even the £1200+ [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] if I wanted a quote for my 2-bed flat?

I just hope no-one gets taken in by this or other similar adverts... and if they have them on the web, then they probably have them on the TV... in old people's magazines... on leaflets in the hands of pushy salespeople who come to the door. Just one more fear or general impoverishment for them to take advantage of the ill informed or easily led by claiming to solve the problem.

Have actually submitted it to watchdog... Maybe it's a one-off and the company won't go anywhere (or will stay in the corporate arena where this kind of price gouging, empty promise filled pitching - and terrible delivery of end product - is bizarrely more accepted, so far as I've seen), but if it's going to be a growing sector like double glaziers, insulation hawks, loan sharks, PPI claims / accident management companies we may need to warn people to look out

Squire_Fulwood · 16 September 2011 at 9:25AM

tahrey wrote: »

(*I'm thinking a scaled up version of the multi-level controller for my bike's (£30) hotgrips, just with a thermistor (50p at maplins) thrown in to monitor the temperature... a routine that generates a particular pulsewidth modulated control signal in response to how the set level corresponds to the observed temperature/temp change rate, that controls a solid-state high current relay (£10?), doing that exact same "turning on and off all the time" that they themselves decry, just several times a second rather than every few minutes):(

Yes, good luck with that .....Do let us know how you get on.

tahrey wrote: »

Their claims that it's cheaper than a storage heater and that Economy 7 is a pricey myth seem utter nonsense to me - unless you're like my somewhat scatterbrained and techno-incompatible nan who signs up for economy 10 then seems to only run her 2-bar fire and immersion heater during the peak hours, leaving the storage heaters off entirely because they "got cold in the evening" (she couldn't understand the instructions, but instead of either leaving it on the default setting - which included a cheap booster period maybe 5 minutes after where she thought it was a little cold - or asking someone competent to do it, she fiddled with the timer and ballsed it all up). And that "it burns the air, making more carbon" stuff (what?!), or "you can't stop the heat coming out" (it's a heavily insulated lump of firebrick, with a closeable vent)... jeez.(

Yay ...........go Nanny .....I like her already.

tahrey wrote: »

Surely central heating requires some kind of central... um... heat-producing... thing, which then distributes the warmth via pipes, ducting, or magic fairy beams?

And how long, really, would it take to pay off a £3200 investment? Or even the £1200+ they'd try to take me for if I wanted a quote for my 2-bed flat?:(

Couple of problems here. First of all the term "Investment" may need an explanation. In this case the capital investment will be followed by some punishing negative dividends so any thought of it becoming economic in time can safely be dismissed.

Secondly I find fairy beams to be a problem. It's not the installation or the after sales service but the fitting of the insulation which causes frustration.

tahrey · 20 September 2011 at 3:56PM

I... I don't know what to make of that. Thanks. I think?

NB. The electrospodular ruminations were nothing more than a thought exercise about how little cost probably goes into their amazing microprocessor control system.
My nan is indeed awesome, but does have a diamond-hard time coming to terms with anything that uses electricity for some reason. The world is a safer place for her never having learnt to drive, too.
And can't we just call up Peter Pan for some advice on the best kind of lagging to put around a fairy beam?

moonrakerz · 20 September 2011 at 4:03PM

This is sheer rubbish:

"Using the thermodynamic principal of the European radiator market"

what has the principal (sic) of the radiator market got to do with "best value for money"

This is bunkum and untrue:

"Running costs to rival the rest of the UK heating products, no longer is electric expensive "Affordable Electric Heating""

Very reliable source of information too:

"All statements made are our “own opinion”"

Squire_Fulwood · 20 September 2011 at 6:23PM

Still we can all console ourselves that at the very least the aluminium the radiators are made from is 100% Italian. So reassuring.

tahrey · 26 September 2011 at 6:51PM

Is that anything like the 100% Italian steel that Fiats were made out of in the 70s and early 80s?

TimAllcot22 · 16 November 2011 at 6:40PM

Hello!

Well to counter all of your arguments, this kind of product is sold all over the continent - mainly France and Spain. We have Farho radiators in our property in the UK and they work fantastically, if a little on the expensive side. I have found the following companies offering this kind of service/product - Farho, Rointe, intelliheat, Economy Rads, Ducasa and a few smaller ones. If theres so many then it must be a pretty massive con! Ask yourself this, who are these people commenting on this Forum? I could be a 6 year old Indian boy for all you know, as could others.......

LittleVermin · 16 November 2011 at 11:38PM

TimAllcot22 wrote: »

Hello!

Well to counter all of your arguments, this kind of product is sold all over the continent - mainly France and Spain. We have Farho radiators in our property in the UK and they work fantastically, if a little on the expensive side. I have found the following companies offering this kind of service/product - Farho, Rointe, intelliheat, Economy Rads, Ducasa and a few smaller ones. If theres so many then it must be a pretty massive con! Ask yourself this, who are these people commenting on this Forum? I could be a 6 year old Indian boy for all you know, as could others.......

Hello TimAllcot22! And many thanks for this useful post!

Yes, useful because you mentioned a range of "companies offering this kind of service/product - Farho, Rointe, intelliheat, Economy Rads, Ducasa .." (I assume "Economy Rads" are made by the Economy Radiator Company?).

So maybe ALL these companies are like Rointe and produce misleading adverts? Complaints about Rointe to the Advertising Standards Authority were upheld (see here, or a post on the Rointe thread here).

Interesting point that "this kind of product is sold all over the continent - mainly France and Spain".

NO ONE, I believe, has posted that these heaters are a "pretty massive con". Indeed several posters have commented on the good build quality, good design, etc, etc.

It's the ADVERTISING which is the CON. I expect lots of people in France and Spain are taking in by the advertising too.

I don't know about 6 year old Indian boys but a 12 year old boy or girl in England will have been taught about the CONSERVATION OF ENERGY in the National Curriculum ("energy can be transferred usefully, stored, or dissipated, but cannot be created or destroyed" Science Key Stage 3, from here) - so they should know that you get the same amount of heat from a given amount of electricity no matter what sort of electrical heater you use. This is true no matter how much you pay for the heater - whether it is made by Farho, Rointe, Economy Radiator Company, Ducasa, Myson, Dimplex, etc etc. NONE of these electrical heaters are any more economical in their energy use than any other electrical heater: the laws of physics apply just as much in the 'real world' as in the lab - whether it's conservation of energy or the law of gravity.

You write "I could be a 6 yr old Indian boy" - indeed! - "as could others ...". Yes, indeed. But the Advertising Standards Authority is not, I believe, staffed by 6 year old Indian boys, or even 12 year old English boys or girls.

Finally (a long post - apologies) it's about time that the ASA had more complaints about so-called economical electrical heaters. Not just about Rointe but also - you'd suggest? - "Farho, intelliheat, Economy Rads, Ducasa" ... Unfortunately after a complaint is upheld, the copywriters often produce a slightly different ad, often with weasel words such as "in our opinion".

..

[TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] Economy Radiators

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