Anyone used Rointe heaters?

daveyjp

"Half the time, twice as long" etc are empty statements without figures and the type of heaters being compared.

Cardew

Swipe said:

Paulb_2 said:

Reed_Richards said:

All electric heaters convert 100% of their electricity into heat so they are all equally efficient in that sense.  When you switch on a heater it will heat up the room and itself.  Some heaters deliberately store heat whilst with others it is just a facet of the design.  When you switch the heater off again that stored heat is dissipated into the room.  In some scenarios you will benefit from this stored heat, in other you will not.      

Some of the heaters on the Which report are fan heaters so don't store heat but still heat up the room at different rates for the same power input suggesting some are more efficient at heating than others?

The only way an electrical heater can not be the same efficiency as another is loss through a turning fan, noise or light. Other than that they are all equal, regardless of the type.

Not so! Without getting into a discussion on the laws of physics, regardless of the light, noise, or turning fan, ANY heater using power is 100% efficient.

A noise generator, using say 10Wh will produce the same amount of heat :

As a light source using 10Wh.

As a fan using using 10Wh

As a electrical element using 10Wh

i.e all electrical energy used will be converted to heat. So a noisy fan heater( with bright lights!) will be as efficient in producing heat as any other heater.

Reed_Richards

Paulb_2 said:

Reed_Richards said:

All electric heaters convert 100% of their electricity into heat so they are all equally efficient in that sense.  When you switch on a heater it will heat up the room and itself.  Some heaters deliberately store heat whilst with others it is just a facet of the design.  When you switch the heater off again that stored heat is dissipated into the room.  In some scenarios you will benefit from this stored heat, in other you will not.      

Some of the heaters on the Which report are fan heaters so don't store heat but still heat up the room at different rates for the same power input suggesting some are more efficient at heating than others?

It depends on how you define "heat up the room".  The more powerful the fan then (I imagine) the more evenly the heat is distributed around the room.  So one fan heater might achieve a room that is evenly warm whilst another might give you a hot area near the heater but colder at the other side of the room.  Nonetheless, 2 kW of electrical power will always give you 2 kW of heat.

I have an invention which is an electric heater attached to a drone which is programmed to follow you around but to just maintain a safe distance.  This is super efficient because it keeps you warm wherever you are, even though the rest of the house is cold.  I just have to solve the problem of how to cope with the cable supplying power to the heater. 

Paulb_2

Jokes aside, this is not what firms are stating this is independent tests by Which. So regardless of the efficiency argument of Kw in equal Kw out, some heaters appear to warm a room to thermostat temperature quicker than others so will consume less electricity and cost less to run.

QrizB

Paulb_2 said:

Jokes aside, this is not what firms are stating this is independent tests by Which. So regardless of the efficiency argument of Kw in equal Kw out, some heaters appear to warm a room to thermostat temperature quicker than others so will consume less electricity and cost less to run.

The two parts of your statement are not equivalent, however.

• "some heaters appear to warm a room to thermostat temperature quicker than others" - yes, as mentioned above heaters with a high heat capacity (oil filled, water filled, pixie dust filled) will show a delay in heat output and compared to low heat capacity ones (fan heaters, copnvenctor heaters) and the latter will heat a room faster.
  
• "so will consume less electricity and cost less to run"  - no, the speed of heating a room is unrelated to the total amount of energy required to maintain that temperature. Running costs will be equivalent.

An exception might be rooms with low occupancy (bathrooms, say) where an oil-etc-filled radiator might not get up to working temperature before the occupant leaves. In these cases a faster-acting heater will be more effective (although it still might not use any less energy).

coffeehound

Air warms up quickly due to its low heat capacity, so blown warm air heating gives the sensation that the room is warm more quickly.  The flip side is that it takes longer to warm up the objects and structure in the room, which remain unpleasantly cold for a while.  Also the warm air can end up rising to the ceiling if it isn’t being agitated.

Radiated heat warms up objects, walls etc. directly which in turn begin to radiate warmth. Meanwhile the air may take a while to feel warm.

Two different modes of heating and a personal preference which is best. Perhaps a mixture of the two. 

Reed_Richards

Paulb_2 said:

Jokes aside, this is not what firms are stating this is independent tests by Which. So regardless of the efficiency argument of Kw in equal Kw out, some heaters appear to warm a room to thermostat temperature quicker than others so will consume less electricity and cost less to run.

The truth in my jest is that it is how warm you feel that counts.  But if you are measuring the temperature in a room, as Which must have done, then where the thermometer is situated is important.  I strongly suspect that what Which was measuring was the the strength of the fan and how quickly a thermometer sited at some distance from the heater achieved a particular temperature increase. 

You mentioned a thermostat but the fan heaters I own are not thermostatically controlled and if they were you would still need to rely on an independent thermometer when testing one against another in order to guard against different thermostats measuring differently.    

Paulb_2

Which say they use 16 temperature probes in the test room and measure how quickly the whole room is up to temperature. Again, setting electrical efficiency aside, if I'm sitting in a room and one heater switches the thermostat off sooner for the same power rating, yet still makes me feel warm and cosy then it will cost me less, so it is more efficient at heating the room.

QrizB

Paulb_2 said:

Which say they use 16 temperature probes in the test room and measure how quickly the whole room is up to temperature. Again, setting electrical efficiency aside, if I'm sitting in a room and one heater switches the thermostat off sooner for the same power rating, yet still makes me feel warm and cosy then it will cost me less, so it is more efficient at heating the room.

It might be quicker at getting the room to temperature but, unlesss you're in the habit of heating rooms and then immediately leaving them once they're warm, it won't be any more efficient and it won't cost you less.

Paulb_2

QrizB said:

Paulb_2 said:

Which say they use 16 temperature probes in the test room and measure how quickly the whole room is up to temperature. Again, setting electrical efficiency aside, if I'm sitting in a room and one heater switches the thermostat off sooner for the same power rating, yet still makes me feel warm and cosy then it will cost me less, so it is more efficient at heating the room.

It might be quicker at getting the room to temperature but, unlesss you're in the habit of heating rooms and then immediately leaving them once they're warm, it won't be any more efficient and it won't cost you less.

it will heat back to the thermostat temperature quicker the next time as well so won't be used as much as a comparable heater.