Anyone used Rointe heaters?

Ben84

Cardew wrote: »

Oh dear, you really shouldn’t have gone there.

I can just see the claim.


'Experiments with our own version of the Hadron Collider, in one of our test rooms, has shown that the Laws of Thermodynamics do not apply to our heaters etc! This is our own opinion.'

They could just move the particle detector closer to the particle producer and create a unit like "period of space not travelled" to mislead people in to thinking their hadron collider is faster.

LittleVermin

Ben84 wrote: »

I'm still optimistic about the higgs boson. The testing range it's allegedly most likely to be found was saved till last so the not finding it yet isn't too worrying. Also, as of last week reports were that a lot of activity showed up roughly in the middle of this likely range, but that's still waiting for further announcements. We will see.

However, what I don't think we'll discover is that domestic electric heaters are breaking the first law of thermodynamics in thousands of sitting rooms! Even if the man at the very successful heater company thinks we're all poorly qualified to suggest this

My tongue was very firmly in my cheek!

I had read the reports ...

dickllewellyn

But the Higgs has now officially gone from being rumoured to have been glimpsed, to almost certain to have been glimpsed. They said so on the wireless last night!

Ben84

LittleVermin wrote: »

My tongue was very firmly in my cheek!

I had read the reports ...

So was mine

However, we seem to be missing a few posts in this thread for no obvious reason? Yours and mine are now gone.

Sparky757

Rointe misleading brochure, check out ASA website
Very interesting reading!!

LittleVermin

Sparky757 wrote: »

Rointe misleading brochure, check out ASA website
Very interesting reading!!

Welcome to the forum! Useful post - here's the link:

http://asa.org.uk/ASA-action/Adjudications/2011/1/Rointe/TF_ADJ_49624.aspx

but this dates from JANUARY 2011 - and has already been covered by earlier posts.

Rointe were told their claims - in a brochure - must not appear again.

These claims were for 1) energy saving 2) no production of CO2 3) no risk of explosions.... so Rointe were claiming their heaters were 1) economical 2) green and 3) safe compared to other heaters and/or heating systems.

Advertising Standards Authority upheld all the complaints against Rointe

- in a formal adjudication (i.e. it gets published on-line), and

ASA said Rointe's claims were unsubstantiated, misleading and exaggerated.

Rointe produced NO evidence to back up its claims.

It needs to be mentioned that many other makers of electrical heaters make related claims. These heaters are often tied in with words describing their origin - European, continental, Germany / German, etc - and often make reference to very cold and/or severe winters, and sometimes refer to old-fashioned / uneconomical / uncontrollable / expensive / banned / illegal night-store heaters / heating / Economy 7 / E7, etc. Sometimes the ads claim the heaters have almost magical ingredients and components (e.g. ceramic /ceramics / aluminium / gel / etc, and thermostats which are special / digital / electronic / intelligent ...) and it is these which make them so much more efficient than old fashioned heaters (but of course:

ALL electrical heating is 100% efficient

- as has been mentioned time and time again on this and other threads by many people e.g. Cardew, who claims to be a chartered electrical engineer ... and I've absolutely no reason to doubt him, especially as other posters saying similar things claim to have science / engineering degrees, to have worked in senior management on the technical side for the National Grid, taught science in secondary schools (and quoted the National Curriculum for Science!), etc. Is there a massive conspiracy against this company and other similar companies?).

Some firms also make claims about the "quality" of the heat produced - bit like Goldilocks ('not too moist, not too dry'), lack of smells, cold spots, convection, radiation, ... and all sorts of sciencey stuff. With some strange sciencey diagrams.

Supporters of other companies with so-called "economical" or "efficient" heaters have posted on the MSE forums e.g. makers / distributors such as Economy Radiator Company (Economical Radiator Company), Suka, Redwell, ELTI, Calortec, Ducasa, Farho, intelliheat, Easy-Heat .. We've also been told that councils buy them (so they must be good!), that they have very long guarantees (huh, on the parts which don't usually fail!), etc, etc. There are just too many posts to link to but a related thread is about the Economy Radiator Company (see here).

..

john625

Yes, 1 kw of power consumption will produce 1 kw of heat, no matter what the system is. However, it is how that power consumption, heat retention, and heat release is managed that makes all the difference.
The ceramic heating tiles in ELTI Electric Radiators are quite different. Their special manufacturing process, combined with a fully embedded heating element, produce a much higher energy management efficiency.
If you don't believe me, ask for a demonstration. This will tell you all you want to know. I have installed hundreds of storage heaters, under floor and electric ducted heating installations in my time, none of which are a patch on ELTI radiators.
Their claim that the ELTI radiators, once hot, only consumes electricity for approx. 15 to 20 minutes every hour is spot on.
The bottom line is - ask them for a demonstration, and then decide for yourself.

Cardew

john625 wrote: »

Yes, 1 kw of power consumption will produce 1 kw of heat, no matter what the system is. However, it is how that power consumption, heat retention, and heat release is managed that makes all the difference.
The ceramic heating tiles in ELTI Electric Radiators are quite different. Their special manufacturing process, combined with a fully embedded heating element, produce a much higher energy management efficiency.
If you don't believe me, ask for a demonstration. This will tell you all you want to know. I have installed hundreds of storage heaters, under floor and electric ducted heating installations in my time, none of which are a patch on ELTI radiators.
Their claim that the ELTI radiators, once hot, only consumes electricity for approx. 15 to 20 minutes every hour is spot on.
The bottom line is - ask them for a demonstration, and then decide for yourself.

Welcome to the forum.

It is always good to see first time posters, promoting their products with more meaningless ‘techno –babble’. The reason such posts are welcomed is that any prospective purchaser who ‘Googles - ELTI’ will find this thread.

So let us hope the Moderators do not delete such obvious spam and allow them to score an own goal.

Without repeating what has been stated time and again by lots of technically qualified posters(well we claim we are!) on MSE, all electrical heaters are 100% efficient at producing heat, and heat output is measured in BTU, joules or Calories.

Therefore it doesn’t matter if electrical heaters are filled with clay, or any ingredient known to Mankind and/or coated with any ingredient known to Mankind, they will produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat for the same electrical consumption – and hence same cost.

You can chose the manner in which the heat is delivered – fast acting with little residual heat e.g a convector fan heater or slower to produce heat but retaining heat e.g an oil filled radiator. However the total amount of heat delivered will be exactly the same, for the same running cost.

The ELTI website is yet another example of the genre and should make even a physics O level student smile – or shudder. Take this gem!

A room held for 16 hours at 70°C(sic) needed electricity for just 28% of the time. The temperature was then reduced to 61° (16°C) for the remaining 8 hours and at this setting, power was only needed for 17% of the time.

Based on 7p per kw that’s just over 1p an hr per kilowatt, compared to up to 7p an hour for a standard gas fired radiator.

We will forgive the 70C temperature! and of course it is perfectly possible for the first paragraph to be accurate. Mind you it would have helped if they had given:

a.The size of the room.

b. The insulation properties of the room

c. The size of the Elti heater(s)

d. The outside temperature.

e. How much electricity was used.

The important point is however much electricity was used – and hence heat produced - to keep their room at those temperatures, it is absolutely certain that £10 fan heater(s) or £20 oil filled radiator(s) would have done exactly the same for the same running cost.


The second paragraph is even better, indeed a masterpiece – read it carefully: in fact it is so good it bears repeating:

'Based on 7p per kw that’s just over 1p an hr per kilowatt, compared to up to 7p an hour for a standard gas fired radiator.'

Who could possible dispute that it is an accurate statement. Could it possibly be they are implying that an Elti heater costs 1p an hour and a gas fired radiator up to 7p an hour? Surely not!

The whole website is littered with such gems.

One can only sympathise with the Advertising Standards Authority in having to deal with this nonsense.

toecutter2001

I must admit, ELTI almost had me. I've got a huge living room with high ceilings and 2 large windows in a house with only electric panel heaters in NE Scotland. We bought a DeLonghi 3kw plug-in oil filled job with a timer from B&Q (it has a remote too, but using it feels a bit Boycie...), which has been ok, but struggled with the really cold spells (-14 was our record). We were looking at investing in a CH system before next winter, but the cost and upheaval put us off. Without looking at the unit prices ELTI looked to be a reasonable option. Having read this thread, I think the sensible thing to do is to stick with the DeLonghi and use the money to cut down on the amount of heat the room loses rather than increase the amount of heat we put into it.

Buckers74

Hi All,

I've been watching this thread for quite a while and being an electrician, it has been interesting.
I live in the NW in an old victorian house with high ceilings and heating the house it a nightmare from October through to March. The main living rooms have log stoves, one at 17KW and the other a 9KW. The house has a gas central heating system. But when the fires are lit, this is turned off.
The CH is on a 2 Timer mode, 6-8AM, 4PM-10PM.

The lowest temp recrd in the house was 15C, unlike a friends house it was -3C.(Gable end terrace)

Last year (Nov-2011) I purchased 2 2KW Delonghi Dragon 3 Heaters with ECC for £80 ea. One went into the main bedroom and the other is still in the box.
I also bought a power monitoring unit which I set the cost/KWh to 15 pence.

Last weekend I unplugged the heater and the current cost is £105.41p, this has been plugged in for the last 3 months and was set to 18C. This has been left on for 24/7. The bedroom radiator was turned off.
The total units used display reads 702.76KW/hr.

According to Rointe calculation for the bedroom, I would need a 17 panel radiator system or 2 9's which would set me back the best part of £700+ for one room.
Since I deal a lot with CEF, I asked the local manager if I could borrow for a trial period 2 9 panel radiators to conduct a test against the Delonghi.
I don't think I need to write the reply. But after a lot of arguing, I stated that if one room with the Delonghi heater cost £100 for 3 months, then the cost just to buy the Rointe heaters, would mean that I could heat the said room for the next 21 months (or 7 years if using for just the winter period).

I have asked for trial or demo, but to no avail.

Electrical heating is getting better, but not in the leap and bounds Rointe are trying to push.

Insulation plays a big part, but if you want cheap heating- Get a Log Stove, a decent axe and plenty of elbow grease.

I am in no way promoting products, just stating what I have at hand and the results.

PS. Its the wife who complains about the cold, I wear an extra jumper