Anyone used Rointe heaters?

babyj3

I am new to this thread - thank you to all posters for your advice/information - and have just read all through it hoping to learn what sort of electrical heating will be best for me - at least I know now what not to buy although considering the cost of some of these electical radiators I would not have bought anyway
I have looked in Argos and thought about oil filled but then saw the Dimplex oil free radiators and it says they are eco-friendly/light/easily moved and it implies cheaper to use.It looks as if you just buy and plug them in. They seem to be fairly new to the market and I wondered if any of you especially the experts have an opinion on them or any advice
I have an old style gas boiler which is on it's last legs and the only reason I have not replaced it is that I have been told that to have a newer style gas boiler I need to have new radiators too as I have a single pipe system??? which I have been told means the radiatiors will 'blow' and 'leak' unless I have new rads and new pipework and I am not prepared to have my floor boards up and all of the subsequent disruption as I plan to move within the next few years - perhaps sooner.
I thought that to get electric rads would be easier and cheaper in the short terms compared with the cost of a new boiler/pipework etc
Any advice would be very much appreciated

grahamc2003

Easy_Heat wrote: »

Hello Cardew and LittleVermin

The reason for my original post was to answer a question which had been posted about our product. I did not want it to seem that our radiators are bought from abroad and simply ‘badged’ as if we had made them when a lot of time and effort goes into manufacturing our product here in the UK.
brush as some of our competitors for the claims that they make.[/SIZE][/FONT]

Thanks.

Hello Easy heat,

(Sorry, but your avatar is not allowed on mse - as soon as anyone complains - I won't - I expect your post will be deleted. Best to save it and repost under an acceptable (to mse) username).

I agree with most of what you say - you do seem to be upfront and factual, and deserve to be differentiated from other heater manufacturers.

However ...

google 'easy heat'

get home page
first thing on home page 'Electric Radiators and Heaters :: Perfect as Conservatory Heaters :: Cheaper to Run than Storage Heaters'

hmmm.

Really?

I'm sure it's possible for your radiators to be cheaper to run than storage heaters (e.g., turn storage heater on, turn your heater oiff, and yours will be cheaper to run).

But, if you use 20kWh in a storage heater, and 20kWh in your heaters (plugged into a ring main), then it's likely to cost between 2 and 3 times the storage heater (E7) cost for exactly the same amount of heat. (I know the profile of heating will be different, but rarely under normal circumstances, sufficient to heat the room using less than something between 50 and 66% electricity than a storage heater).

Stating they are cheaper to run than storage heaters is misleading at best. They may be, but they are much more likley to be much more expensive than storage heaters imo.

Off to read line 2 now.

Cardew

babyj3 wrote: »

I am new to this thread - thank you to all posters for your advice/information - and have just read all through it hoping to learn what sort of electrical heating will be best for me - at least I know now what not to buy although considering the cost of some of these electical radiators I would not have bought anyway
I have looked in Argos and thought about oil filled but then saw the Dimplex oil free radiators and it says they are eco-friendly/light/easily moved and it implies cheaper to use.It looks as if you just buy and plug them in. They seem to be fairly new to the market and I wondered if any of you especially the experts have an opinion on them or any advice
I have an old style gas boiler which is on it's last legs and the only reason I have not replaced it is that I have been told that to have a newer style gas boiler I need to have new radiators too as I have a single pipe system??? which I have been told means the radiatiors will 'blow' and 'leak' unless I have new rads and new pipework and I am not prepared to have my floor boards up and all of the subsequent disruption as I plan to move within the next few years - perhaps sooner.
I thought that to get electric rads would be easier and cheaper in the short terms compared with the cost of a new boiler/pipework etc
Any advice would be very much appreciated

Hi,
The start point when considering electric radiators or any other electrical heater is the inescapable fact that for any given running cost they all give out the same amount of heat. That applies equally to a £10 fan heater or a radiator costing over £1,000.

So the Dimplex oil free radiator is no cheaper to use than any other heater.

It is also a fact that straight electrical heating on a daytime tariff is the most expensive way to produce heat. The advantage of electrical heating is there is no annual maintenance costs, and it is easily controlled.

Your gas CH with a new boiler will produce heat at approx one third of the cost of electrical heating.

If you are moving soon, you need to consider that having no gas CH will reflect in the price you obtain for your property; so IMO it would be a false economy to use electric radiators instead of gas.

babyj3

Your reply is very helpful

te20008

Has anyone used an electrical radiator called Fischer-Future heat

Cardew

te20008 wrote: »

Has anyone used an electrical radiator called Fischer-Future heat

Not I, but this 'logic' from their brochure is enough to discredit !

An average sitting room of 4.5m x 3.5m with a ceiling height of 2.5m would require a 3.5kw night storage heater. Yet in the same room, only a 1.5kw Fischer storage heater would be needed. This is approximately a 40% reduction in energy
consumed.

A 3.5kw night storage heater running for 1 hour @ 6p per unit would cost 21p per hour. A Fischer heater of 1.5kw running for 1 hour (using a combination of a day rate of 12p and a night rate of 6p on a 50:50 split) would cost 1.5kw @ 9p per unit = 14p per hour. Thereby bringing in a potential saving of 7p per hour which is a massive 40% saving on your bills.

They ignore the fact that a 3.5kW storage heater would produce more than twice the heat of their 1.5kW heater.

No prices given again!

pjcomp

As a sparky looking for a new revenue stream I have been looking at electric heating and the recent developments to improve on what has been, for a long time, a pretty poor choice. Night storage is inflexible and pretty ugly, panel heaters don't work very well. I was attracted by the Rointe offering, but I'm having doubts since reading this forum thread.

Cardew and others have been quite passionate about the amount of heat output per electrical input (1 = 1 and ever shall be) but appear to overlook the difference in how that heat is then handled.

This appeared in a recent post:

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.

And this is what's important about home space heating. A fan heater will belt out its heat and can't be beaten for a quick warm-up - but as soon as you switch it off the heat source is gone and everything starts to feel colder. Night storage may generate the same heat per kilowatt, but by storing it and letting it out slowly the ambient room temperature is brought to comfort level and maintained there (but with little or no control).

Panel heaters don't warm up as quickly as fan heaters, but having warmed up they provide ambient comfort warmth - but as they have no storage capacity and do have inefficient heat circulation they tend to give a room hot and cold spots.

Something that combines the effectiveness of the storage heater with the flexibility of the panel heater and the circulatory qualities of the fan heater should be a good bet for making best use of that 1-for-1 heat equation. As I said, comfortable space heating isn't so much about generating heat as about managing it.

The claims made for the sort of radiators coming from the likes of ELTI, Rointe and others appear to go a long way to answering this storage-flexibility-circulatory issue. Has anyone here any comment/experience of them at this level?

PJ

Cardew

pjcomp wrote: »

As a sparky looking for a new revenue stream I have been looking at electric heating and the recent developments to improve on what has been, for a long time, a pretty poor choice. Night storage is inflexible and pretty ugly, panel heaters don't work very well. I was attracted by the Rointe offering, but I'm having doubts since reading this forum thread.

Cardew and others have been quite passionate about the amount of heat output per electrical input (1 = 1 and ever shall be) but appear to overlook the difference in how that heat is then handled.

This appeared in a recent post:

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.

And this is what's important about home space heating. A fan heater will belt out it's heat and can't be beaten for quick warm-up - but as soon as you switch it off the heat source is gone and everything starts to feel colder. Night storage generates the same heat per kilowatt, but by storing it and letting it out slowly the ambient room temperature is brought to comfort level and maintained there (but with little no control).

Panel heaters don't warm up as quickly as fan heaters, but having warmed up they provide ambient comfort warmth - but with no storage capacity and inefficient heat circulation they tend to give a room hot and cold spots.

Something that combines the effectiveness of the storage heater with the flexibility of the panel heater and the circulatory qualities of the fan heater should be a good bet for making best use of that 1-for-1 heat equation. As I said,, comfortable space heating isn't about generating heat, it's about managing it.

The claims made for the sort of radiators coming from the likes of ELTI, Rointe and others appear to answer the storage-flexibility-circulatory issue. Has anyone here and comment/experience of them at this level?

PJ

I also posted the quote in your post! So I hardly can be accused of 'overlooking the difference in how that heat is then handled.'!

The claims of many manufacturers imply that their heaters are endowed with special properties that make electrical heating cheap - and it ain't!

For instance they champion the heat retention properties of their heaters, yet neglect to mention that the longer they output heat after being switched off, the longer it takes to give out heat when initially switched on.

It doesn't matter if a steel/aluminium/cast iron/any material heater is filled with water/clay/oil/custard, and coated with any substance known to mankind, the heat output for a given consumption(and thus cost) will be the same.

Our objection to many of these firms is that they charge ludicrous prices of many £hundreds(even over £1,000) per radiator based on their equally ludicrous claims.

Also why do you state that there was a 'pretty poor choice'? Simple oil filled radiators - costing from £20 upwards - have been around 50 years or more. Fan heater - even cheaper - have been around longer. Convector/radiant/infrared heaters were around before the last world war(so my Granny tells me!)

If you do manage to sell some Rointe heaters, you certainly should enjoy an excellent income stream! Also I am pretty sure you will get posters who will join MSE in order to accept your invitation to give details of their experience of Rointe etc heaters.

Polemic

te20008 wrote: »

Has anyone used an electrical radiator called Fischer-Future heat

My mum (82 years) had signed a deal with a Fischer-Future Heat agent, which she has now cancelled.

She currently has night storage heaters in a very old stone built cottage with no mains gas.

Fischer-Future Heat were to supply and install three of their heaters; 1 x 2.2 Kw Lounge, 1 x 0.9 Kw Kitchen and 1 x .9 Kw Bathroom.

All for the sum of £3,566.25 (after a 25% discount).

Frightening.

Cardew

Polemic wrote: »

Fischer-Future Heat were to supply and install three of their heaters; 1 x 2.2 Kw Lounge, 1 x 0.9 Kw Kitchen and 1 x .9 Kw Bathroom.

All for the sum of £3,566.25 (after a 25% discount).

Frightening.

Welcome to the forum.

As you say - frightening. We hear of this time and again.

Less than £100 from Argos for that lot.

A few hundred from a top manufacturer.

Perhaps you should contact Anne Robinson on Watchdog!

The problem is that these firms can just close down and start up again under a new name.