Fischer Storage Heaters

weelizzie_2 · 8 October 2011 at 6:28PM

Hi all - I got a quote for my (small 1 bed flat) from Fischer the other night, was just under £2k for supply and fitting of 2 heaters. They don't do supply only.

I think it is a good product, but I was put off by the dogmatism of the seller who refused to countenance the idea that modern storage heaters might possibly be OK in some situations for some people. They repeatedly quote the 40% cheaper figure but couldn't say what it was 40% cheaper than. I was also unconvinced by the diagrams in their leaflet and think their claims of the heating properties are a bit selective.

Will have to read the comments above in a bit more detail, but would be interested to hear people's experiences of modern storage heaters. Such a shame all these heating engineers have a product to push!!

chris1973 · 8 October 2011 at 6:59PM

Sorry but i'd never take unbiased advice from any person involved with selling the particular product. I blame this on a childhood being brought up on constantly hearing Victor Kiam on the tv telling his customers how he liked the product he was selling so much he bought the company!.

Hotspot44 · 12 October 2011 at 5:33PM

Thanks for all the info. All very interesting Have just seen one of these radiators on eBay! The seller bought it Oct 2010 for £1040.00!

Ben84 · 12 October 2011 at 10:06PM

Hotspot44 wrote: »

Thanks for all the info. All very interesting Have just seen one of these radiators on eBay! The seller bought it Oct 2010 for £1040.00!

Alternatively, you could spend about £40 on a good oil filled radiator and the spare £1000 could be used to power it for a long time. I really wonder who buys such expensive heaters and how they can believe it makes sense. Even someone who doesn't do the maths must spot that the heater alone costs as much as the average whole house combined yearly gas+electric bill!

RachelD · 15 February 2012 at 4:35PM

I'm looking to replace my electric storage heaters with something more efficient and controllable. I have a 3 storey house which is northeast facing and when the winds blow thet come straight from Siberia.

I've read this thread with interest [text deleted by MSE Forum Team]. Gas isn't available to me.

I've had a local reputable electrician quote around £2K to replace the rads but he says they would be updated radiators of a similar size and controls would be on the individual radiator. He advised against radiators with a fan which tops up during the day as the running cost would be high and a portable heater would be less costly if it needed a top up..

My electricty costs app £1200 pa and that includes cooking etc.

Can anyone tell me if E7 heaters are available with some sort of room thermostat and what they would advise me to buy? Thank you.

john1 · 15 February 2012 at 11:15PM

RachelD

[FONT=&quot]Re “Can anyone tell me if E7 heaters are available with some sort of room thermostat and what they would advise me to buy? Thank you.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]A Storage heater from a reputable UK manufacturer, with “automatic” in its title will normally automatically adjusts the level of input charge to compensate for changing room temperature ie thermostatically controlled.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I had a mix of manual and automatic up to last year and found the automatic to be best. And now have replaced / modified to all automatic. Acording to e-on energy tracker, my electric consumption has reduced over the last 13 months by 20% based upon actual meter readings.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The Southampton based GDC Group, I have found to be a reputable manufacture /supply of storage heaters under the Dimplex, Unidar and Creda brands. They also supply electrical wholesalers under the Sector and Newelec brands.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The Sector and Newlec models may differ outwardly cosmetically from the others but have many identical components and are less costly. I replaced my manual Dimplex with Sector automatics. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Incidentally all new build dwellings with electric storage heating, must be automatic to conform with building regulations [/FONT]

Richie-from-the-Boro · 16 February 2012 at 12:33AM

All night store heaters on E7 have two knobs [usually] on the top -

They are INPUT and OUTPUT

- input - a thermostat level set by you heats [charges] the internal bricks to that set storage level
- output - set by you by means of the other knob simply raises or lowers a metal flap on inside allowing more or less heat to escape
- the heater will charge up during the night according to the level you manually set the input to in line with seasonal changes in weather

The efficient way to use storage heaters in the winter is to have the storage set to maximum, and the damper [flap] set to closed. If you don't have enough stored heat you have insufficient storage - simple - put in extra storage of the cheap stuff.

The benefit of automatic as john1 says is you don't have to guess what you need for the next day, usually a 'weather watcher' [bog standard thermometer] is put on an outside wall in the elements and your INPUT is adjusted during the night temperature according to its best guess.

In the case of RachelD, I fail to see how replacing for £2,000 what I assume are old but efficient night store with new night store auto or manual will achieve much if any savings. More storage of the cheap stuff is the cost effective solution, others are :

- better insulating
- better KwH tariff / electronic bill / meter readings / direct debit / etc

RachelD's consumption for a 3 bed 3 storey on all electric at £100pm month is high, but not overly excessive. £80pm for an all electric small two bed flat or house is not overly excessive. Overly excessive is determined by :

- lifestyle
- two baths per day + other stuff
- lousy insulation
- poor double glazing
- lack of storage
- excessive washing machine use during the day
- poor lagging and cylinder size
- retirement
- illness and extra heat water acquirements
- running a 'home bakery'

etc

Bottom Line - sufficient cheap STORED heat without the need to open a any damper is optimum - you don't have to use it all 365 days in the cycle, but you sure as heck need to have it there if you need it.

Makus · 22 February 2012 at 4:54PM

I've just had a visit from a Fischer salesman... I have to say he wasn't pushy at all and quoted a straight price without any messing around... So, I'm asking if anyone can help out with the claims made by the salesman.

Currently we have an oil fired central heating system and it costs us approx. £2000 per year to run (and getting more expensive every time we fill up on oil), so we allocate £160 per month to cover the cost of oil but obviously we 90% of that between Oct - March. As it's so expensive the house is always colder than we would like so we are looking at alternatives.

The Fischer salesman surveyed the house and reckoned that we'd need a 13.5KW system in total to heat the whole house (1 heater in each room essentially). He suggested that the Fischer heaters are only using electricity for about 15mins in every hour (because of the way they store and discharge heat, once at temperature). Therefore to run all the heaters in our house for 8 hours a day at 0.12/KW Hr would cost us £3.24 per day, so about £22.68 per week which could save us a staggering 75% on our fuel bills!...

Okay, I'm not dumb and know that if something sounds too good to be true it usually is; but with oil prices going up and up and with a young family, we need a house that's warm at an affordable cost!

The Fischer heaters are not cheap and I reckon it would take about 8 years to pay for itself at these kind of figures, less than that if oil goes up (which it will do), plus the fact that we'll probably need a new oil boiler within the next 8 years anyway, so if the figures are about right it's probably going to more like 5 or 6 years to pay for itself.

So does anyone think that the claim of the heaters being on for 15mins in every hour is correct?... This seems to be the main saving and I'm a bit confused. I like the idea of controlling each room for its temperature and time of heating and I obviously love the saving if the claims are true. I realise that using oil we are comparing two completely different systems but if we save money on heating and are warmer in the process then great!

I read that there's some scepticism about newbie posts being salesmen but can assure that I am a genuine poster and every one has to make their first post right?!

Any thoughts anyone? Anyone had these heaters installed?

grahamc2003 · 23 February 2012 at 12:43AM

To maintain a temperature of a room at say 20C for a constant outside temp (say 5C) then you'll have to replace the heat lost by some form of heating. Say your room loses heat at a rate of 1kW. You'll have to supply heat at an average rate of 1kW. If you have a 1kW heater, then it will have to be on all the time. If you have a 2kW heater, controlled by a thermostat, it'll to be on 50% of the time - and likewise a 4kW heater will be on 25% of the time, a 10kW heater 10% of the time. So to answer your question, it's quite possible that a heater may be on just for 15 mins each hour. You can even arrange a heater being on for just 5 mins each hour, by having a more powerful heater.

Doesn't have to be an expensive heater, any old electric heater controlled by a therostat will do the same. The running costs to maintain a constant temperature will be the same whatever the size or make of heater. Any 1kW heater on constantly will cost about 12p per hour, a 2kw heater will cost 24p/hr when on, but will be on for 50% of the time, so the cost/hr will be 12p etc etc.

Any form of electric heating running on day rate electricity will be very expensive. If you want electric heating (and its zero maintenance) then go for storage heaters on economy 7, imo, the latter almost certainly cheaper than oil, especiallly if an old boiler.

Makus · 23 February 2012 at 11:17AM

Thanks for the reply, that's really useful and should help me calculate, if I only knew how!

Is there a way to calculate how much heat loss in KW there is from a room? I can measure the temperature inside and outside after say a one hour period or something? Then somehow work out how much heat has been lost from that?

The problem I have is that as oil is so expensive, we currently run our heating for 8 hours a day and it costs us over £2000 per year (£160 a month isn't quite covering it), so even if the Fischer system (13.5KW in total) ran for the same 8 hours a day and was on constantly (which I'm guessing it would not be) then at say £0.12/KWHr cost for electricity then that would cost £2358 which is about the same as the oil is currently! - Is that correct or am I missing something?

I know everyone says electricity is expensive but compared to what we are paying out in oil I'm not sure it is! Our oil has gone up 60% in two years! I'm sure if gas had gone up by the same there would be an uproar! At one point last year our oil had gone up 100% in a year (was 0.35/ltr two and a half years ago, peaked at 0.70 last year and is now 0.60/ltr).

Any help with calculating heat loss would be great.

:-(

Fischer Storage Heaters

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