Calortec heaters??

clf86ha

Hi,

I have a small business and my premises are only 23 sq mtrs in size.
My building is detached, concrete floored, flat roofed and cold.
I do not have gas to the building, so it rules out a boiler and radiator set up and I cannot afford to alter the fabric of the building to install any system, so I am looking for a 'plug n play' heater.

I have seen many ranging from £30 up over!
I have looked at convector, radiant, oil filled, fan and am now so confused as to which to choose
I need something that will heat the room up quickly after arriving at work, so I'm not just feeling any benefit when its time to leave!

I have seen some heaters on a shopping channel, which claim to give 24 hrs at 21 degrees for just 7 hours switched on using electric!! so claiming to be cheaper to run in the long term, but are £500:eek: each.

Does anyone rate these heaters and is the cost justifiable? as I don't want to make a very expensive mistake!!

Any other suggestions would be gratefully received too.

Peat_2

Was this the Calortec heater advertised on Ideal World, filled with some sort of ceramic stone with special heat retaining powers mined from a mythical quarry in France.
I saw this too. The demonstration was very interesting. The stone appeared to continue to increase in temperature long after the electricity supply has been removed.
Calortec have either found a way to defy the laws of physics or have engaged with Ideal World in an elaborate con trick.
Either way I would prefer to hear from several satisfied customers before I parted with £500 for something which may be no more cost effective that a £50 Dimplex panel heater.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

They are a complete and utter con!

There are firm after firm entering the market with clever(but totally misleading adverts) implying they give more heat for your running costs - and they don't.

All electrical heaters are 100% efficient* in converting electricity to heat. So a £30 oil filled radiator, fan heater or Granny's old 1/2/3 bar fire will produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat for the money as these expensive radiators.

That is an indisputable fact, as said above, to do otherwise would defy the laws of physics.

The only difference between heaters is the way they deliver the heat. Either 'instant' like a fan heater but with no residual heat, or slow to deliver warmth like an oil filled radiator but with residual heat. Either way the total heat delivered for your bucks is the same.

I have lost count of the number of firms who claim to have discovered a 'magic' ingredient to put in their radiators - all with adverts designed to convey they somehow have discovered a way to produce more heat for lower running costs.

Getting back to your heating problem. Possibly the best solution is get a halogen heater. These are cheap(and give no more heat for running costs) but 'direct' heat toward you - they are ideal for someone say sitting at a bench in a garage in that they heat the person but not the surrounding area(straight away)

* The exception is a Air Source Heat Pump.(ASHP) These can produce heat at about a third of the cost of plug in heaters. You can get a simple one fitted that just blows warm air. Not cheap, but a better bet than spending £500 a time on 'magic' radiators!!

Peat_2

Cardew,
Thanks for re-inforcing my suspicions. I only found the original thread after searching for Calortec. I'm afraid to say I was actually considering the purchase of two of these radiators. However, I was searching for some genuine customer feedback, as they sounded too good to be true.
I would now be reluctant to buy ANYTHING from Ideal World, knowing they are prepared to mis-lead the public on television.
I'm sure the Trading Standards Institute or some other agency must be able to stop this type of blatent mis-selling. Maybe that's for another forum.
Apologies if I have digressed from the original post.

Cardew

Peat,
The problem is that they 'imply' rather state that they give more heat for your money. They use terms like 'up to' and 'as little as' which are meaningless. Deposit your money with me and I will give you a return of 'up to' 25%!! - 0.001% is covered by that description!!

These firms can normally phrase their adverts so they stay 'legal'. They can on occasion be pulled up by the Advertising Standards Authority and have a rap on the knuckles, but so what?

For instance they state correctly they retain heat for a long while after switching off - but so do oil filled radiators. However they take longer to give out heat.

Heat output is measured in British Thermal Units(Btu) or joules(J) and for a given amount of electricity used, all plug in heaters produce the same amount of Btus.

Kalirel(now out of business) and Wibo sell similar radiators at outrageous prices - do a search. The owners can just start up again and sell similar.

Steve17

Hi all
I thought about these heaters last winter as an alternative from lpg (was being ripped off by Calor at the time).
You can buy these from Argos and getting information on them is near impossible.
They are nothing more than a storage heater that uses the tariff at the time of usage. My living room is 42 cubic metres and would keep at 22c using 500w per hour, I would therfore need a 1500w Calortec heater on for one hours charge which gives 3 hours heat = 500w per hour exactly the same, but as Cardew says why spend £300+ when a £20 oil filled panel heater will do.
Regards