Anyone used Rointe heaters?

Spinneyman

Hi everyone,

Firstly thank you to the main contributors to this post. Their logic has stopped me buying expensive convection electric rads.

We have a building that we intend to convert to holiday lets and it needs work to get it warm and retain the heat, as well as hot water.

So far ive insulated the valulted roof and clad it. Installed four roof windows with blinds. We currently have a large (12kw wood burner with 4 back up oil filled rads. The building is biggish (12m X 7m) including two bedrooms. I was considering changing the rads to the 'new' expensive ones, but after scanning this thread am now educated in the benefits of radiated heat particullarly re our vaulted ceiling. So considering Aeroflow rads.

The building is made of re claimed wood and hasn't any insulation in the stud partition walls. But the two gable ends are joining to other unheated rooms so there's a bit of help re insulation.

My questions are:

1. Is it worth putting external insulation on the other two walls. By external I mean planting hard insulation boards onto the outside wall and them a waterproof barrier?
2. Are the oil rads sufficiently effective or is there a better solution?
3. The current small instantaneous water heaters in bathroom and kitchen maybe need to be bigger. (We have an electric shower).

That's it. Thanks in anticipation.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

A 12 kW wood burner and 4 oil filled radiators means a huge output.

Whilst more insulation is normally cost effective in the long run, I would have thought the capital cost of insulating those walls would take a long time to recoup?? Especially as holiday lets tend to be in the warmer periods and not in the dead of winter??

P.S It might be better to post on subjects like this in a new thread

mimicat_2

Wish I'd read this before I installed in 2011. This company are absolutely useless if they were a doctor they'd be struck off. I have been without hot water for over a month three times now had a new boiler because the first was a real mess thanks to the installers. I am now awaiting a boiler report following the last month of cold water it has been promised side August but despite verbal and written reminders nothing so far. These people are jokers walk away. Worst company I've ever had to deal with they will surely go bust.

matelodave

I doubt they will go bust - there are too many gullible people out there who believe their claims.

Sorry you got bitten but there's plenty of info out there which should make everyone wary.

bxboards

dogsgonads wrote: »

New to this, have had a good read over the past few hours then jumped to the end.. not sure if anyone is still on this thread but could do with some advice from the experts please. We're soon to move to a detached bungalow in Cumbria, which has an old smelly oil boiler and a poorly installed oil tank The rads, water tank and pipework are maybe 30 years old. A heating engineer had a look an condemned the whole system. At our current home we have mains gas CH on a combi boiler and use this for hot water but very rarely use the CH side. We have a wood burning stove in the lounge so don't mind a cold house apart from really cold days and we like a cold bedroom.


We are going to make the living area in Cumbria (lounge, kitchen and dining room) open plan = half the floor area of the bungalow and to heat this with a double sided log burner, which we will keep going 24 hours if needs be (we have 21m3 of logs!). This leaves 3 bedrooms and a bathroom/wc. So we're thinking of taking out and not replacing the boiler, but doing the following:


Hot water - electric shower and similar local on-demand electric heaters for the bathroom sink and kitchen sink


Bathroom - electrically heated towel rad on a thermostat


Bedrooms - cheap wall mounted electric fan assisted convector heaters with simple thermostat to switch on for some instant heat if really required, or if we have a visitor.


I guess we will have a higher than usual electric bill but will not have to pay for oil and boiler maintenance. We are looking into insulation improvements and solar PV.


Anyone's thoughts on our course of action and on suitable elec on-demand heaters and elec showers that deliver a good rate of flow, as well as fan assisted convector heaters would be appreciated.

Removing the oil system would be a serious mistake.

Much of Cumbria is off-grid for mains gas, so coal fired backboilers, LPG or oil is still widely used. Removing that system wholesale will seriously devalue the house and make it much harder to heat cost effectively. If the boiler needs to be replaced, replace it, but do not strip out everything else. Oil is a cheap way of heating.

Your electricity bill is going to be sky high if you do what you propose, and you will make the house much less comfortable to live in.

Richie-from-the-Boro

gogzee wrote: »

We've currently got storage heaters as we don't have gas but they are proving to be very expensive to use.
A friend has suggested these as a replacement and their sales blurb seems quite convincing but cannot find any real world reviews anywhere


Any advice would be appreciated as we're freezing our bits of!!!

Rionte A blast from the pre-Fischer past for Cardew !

peachespeaches

TPeople have said that a 1 kw electric fire a 1kw fan heater and a 1kw convector heater will all use the same electricity. I get that. Its a fact.

BUT... if you have a new style electric radiator on your wall like the Rointe Kyros, it has a thermostat and a timer.

Now the electric fire will belt out the 1kw non stop, but a thermostatically controlled heater during that "kilowatt hour" will heat the room up to the 20degrees then switch off. It will not run continuously. Therefore it is not using power all the time.

No one has discussed that.

daveyjp

My £30 Argos heater has a thermostat - a little wheel you turn. The bi-metallic strip clicks as it cycles on and off once the room temp has been reached.

A plug in timer is no more than £5.

£35 for a 1-3kw heater with timer and thermostat. Bargain

lstar337

peachespeaches wrote: »

TPeople have said that a 1 kw electric fire a 1kw fan heater and a 1kw convector heater will all use the same electricity. I get that. Its a fact.

BUT... if you have a new style electric radiator on your wall like the Rointe Kyros, it has a thermostat and a timer.

Now the electric fire will belt out the 1kw non stop, but a thermostatically controlled heater during that "kilowatt hour" will heat the room up to the 20degrees then switch off. It will not run continuously. Therefore it is not using power all the time.

No one has discussed that.

Actually they have, there is just no point saying it over and over.

Almost every electric heater has some form of thermostat these days anyway, no need to pay £100's of pounds for it.

Cardew

peachespeaches wrote: »

TPeople have said that a 1 kw electric fire a 1kw fan heater and a 1kw convector heater will all use the same electricity. I get that. Its a fact.

BUT... if you have a new style electric radiator on your wall like the Rointe Kyros, it has a thermostat and a timer.

Now the electric fire will belt out the 1kw non stop, but a thermostatically controlled heater during that "kilowatt hour" will heat the room up to the 20degrees then switch off. It will not run continuously. Therefore it is not using power all the time.

No one has discussed that.

It has been discussed many many times on MSE. The important point is that all electrical heaters give out exactly the same amount of heat, for the same consumption of electricity. Most also have thermostats(not a 1 bar fire). Your Rointe Kyros heater delivers no more, or no less, heat for the same cost as any electrical heater.

All a thermostat does switch off power once the desired room temperature has been achieved.

I have a fan heater that can output 1kW, 2kW or 3kW. It cost less than £10 and has a thermostat. I have an ancient oil filled radiator that has both a thermostat and timer.

If I want a timer, I can buy this posh job for £7.99 and plug in any heater, in any room.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maclean-MCE30GB-Digital-Timeswitch-Lightning/dp/B00VV6CVTK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1486125983&sr=8-3&keywords=plug+timer+heater

For £20 I can buy a timer with remote control and(Joy of Joys) it can be controlled from a phone(android or iOS) or tablet - a must for my kids!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LX5K8ZO?psc=1

There are literally hundreds of panel heaters with thermostats and timer, like this Dimplex model for £70

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Panel-Heaters/Dimplex-800-Wattage-Electric-Panel-Heater-Timer/B00011FW6A/ref=sr_1_3?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1486127071&sr=1-3&keywords=panel+heater+with+timer

P.S. On the subject of thermostats, the cheaper models have a simple bi-metal strip, while the more expensive models have a more accurate electronic digital thermostat. What this means is the temperature is better controlled. e.g. If you set a temperature to, say, 20C it will regulate the temperature between 19.9C to 20.1C. The bi-metal strip will be, say, 19.5C to 20.5C - (examples only)

Rointe have a digital thermostat.

PPS.

As far as I am aware nobody in this thread has questioned the quality of Rointe's products, and at least they publish a price list:

http://rointe.co.uk/downloads/Rointe-price-list-TOR15V1-UK.pdf