Anyone used Rointe heaters?

dickllewellyn

I am a newbie

I am not affiliated with any company other than my own electrical contracting company

I do not believe the claims made by Rointe

I do however feel that electric heating has been mis understood on here.

A rointe heater uses oil as a storage source. Oil retains heat better than air. A £10 convector heater heats air. If we accept that the denser a material is, the better the heat storage capacity, we can agree that a cubic meter of oil heated by 1kW electricity for 1hour will retain heat for longer than a cubic meter of air heated under the same circumstances. At the end of the hour, the convector heater will rapidly cool along with the air temperature, whilst the oil filled radiator will keep releasing it's warmth for some time.

Electric underfloor heating can be effective as a primary heat source, provided it's designed properly. A good in-screed system with flag stones for example will also retain heat nicely and act to keep a house warm. A simple heating mat under ceramic tiles or vynil floor will be very comfortable to walk on bare foot, but will not effectively serve as a primary heat source in an economical manner. Under floor heating can be complimented with ceiling heating elements, effective insulation, and even a heat recovery unit feed lost warm air back into the building.

Airsource heat pumps are also worth looking at if you can cope with the set up expense, and replacing all your radiators with a wet underfloor heating system (a lot of upheaval), but you may want to consider complimenting with a solar PV set up to off set the electricity usage, possibly a solar hot water panel to reduce the heat pumps burdon. The renewable heat innitiative will come into play soon, and will work much like the current feed in tarrif for PV.

Cardew

dickllewellyn wrote: »

I am a newbie

I am not affiliated with any company other than my own electrical contracting company

I do not believe the claims made by Rointe

I do however feel that electric heating has been mis understood on here.

A rointe heater uses oil as a storage source. Oil retains heat better than air. A £10 convector heater heats air. If we accept that the denser a material is, the better the heat storage capacity, we can agree that a cubic meter of oil heated by 1kW electricity for 1hour will retain heat for longer than a cubic meter of air heated under the same circumstances. At the end of the hour, the convector heater will rapidly cool along with the air temperature, whilst the oil filled radiator will keep releasing it's warmth for some time.

Welcome to the forum.

I believe you have missed the point being made in this thread.

Any electrical heater using say 1kWh will give out EXACTLY the same warmth/heat/Btu/calories.

You can have say, a fan heater, that will give out almost ‘instant’ heat; but, as you say, have no residual heat.

OR

You can have something like an oil filled radiator which will take longer to get up to temperature and produce heat; but again as you point out, you have residual heat after power is switched off.

The most important point is, to repeat, they have both produced the same heat.

Which type is better suited to the property is up to the individual and their requirements..

You can buy a £10 fan heater or a £20 oil filled radiator(both with thermostats) at places like Argos.

The objection to firms like Rointe and others is that they imply that their heaters are filled with some magic ingredient, or coated with some special substance, or shaped in such a manner that they give out more heat for the same running cost than other electrical heaters. THEY DON’T

The charges for some of these radiators is astronomical – several hundred pounds each, One person on MSE paid over £1000 each for radiators(not Rointe)

There are several other threads that deal with ASHPs and solar heating solar PV and you might be better giving your views on those threads.

budokan

Hello,

I almost spend £3k on Rointe radiators, so thank you for saving me the money!

Am I right in summarising this very long thread like this?

- Storage heaters on Economy 7 are the cheapest way to heat a flat without gas, but problematic because you often have too little or too much heat, depending on the day, and your settings.

- If you want heat on demand, nothing is cheaper than an electric fan heater, so any additional investment is wasted.


Is that about right?


If so - please help! I live in a 1 bed flat with no gas. I don't want storage heaters because of the problems above, but I don't want fan heaters either.

I won't be here more than 5 years, so big investment isn't worth it for me.

What is the most sensible thing to do?

If I am right above, is switching AWAY from economy 7 to a standard tariff, and getting any old cheap but attractive electric radiators?

Cardew

budokan wrote: »

Hello,

I almost spend £3k on Rointe radiators, so thank you for saving me the money!

Am I right in summarising this very long thread like this?

- Storage heaters on Economy 7 are the cheapest way to heat a flat without gas, but problematic because you often have too little or too much heat, depending on the day, and your settings.

- If you want heat on demand, nothing is cheaper than an electric fan heater, so any additional investment is wasted.


Is that about right?


If so - please help! I live in a 1 bed flat with no gas. I don't want storage heaters because of the problems above, but I don't want fan heaters either.

I won't be here more than 5 years, so big investment isn't worth it for me.

What is the most sensible thing to do?

If I am right above, is switching AWAY from economy 7 to a standard tariff, and getting any old cheap but attractive electric radiators?

I think you have summed up the situation very well!

The only other thing I would suggest is that you get some plug in adapters with timers for your radiators so you can have them to come on when you require - make sure you they can handle 3kW. You can even get some with a remote for a few pounds.

A 3kW £10 fan heater is useful to use for a few minutes when the room is really cold - until the radiators take over. Then put the fan heater out of sight.

dickllewellyn

Anyone considered electric boilers?

That should provoke some interesting views!

Cardew

dickllewellyn wrote: »

Anyone considered electric boilers?

That should provoke some interesting views!

Lots of people on MSE have them and there have been several threads.

Personally I cannot see the advantage of an electric boiler over plug in radiators.

The running costs for any given amount of heat will be the same, and the installation cost of a boiler, pump, plumbing and radiators will be much higher.

The exception would be if you have a big thermal store(a very large hot water tank) and heat that uses Economy 7.

grahamc2003

I thought people might be interested in this totally bizarre article from 'low carbon economy.com' (no connection, obviously!).

It's bizarre in several ways. Ignoring they think watts is a measure of energy, this 'green' form of heating claims to have 110w input (so it would struggle to heat the bathroom), yet only 75w of heat output! It contains, as per normal in these things, some special fluid (very special - it appears to destroy energy!). I've heard of these types of heaters claiming more heat output than energy input, but claiming less seems totally odd. And it's promoted at some sort of design conference, and a low carbon website.

Probably the most bizarre claim from the font of bizarre claims - 'green' electric heaters. It seems perverse to me that these claims are allowed to be aired at all - don't they, or the audience, have anyone working for them with a smidgen of scientific knowledge?

A new heating system was displayed to audiences at the recent Grand Designs Live conference.

The product works by converting thermal fluid into high-energy output, which had led its manufacturer FARHO to believe that it will help households cut fuel bills and reduce their carbon footprints.

Gareth Bishop, sales manager for FARHO UK, said that the system has many advantages and has been perfected through 15 years of design.

"It's eco friendly, doesn't consume much, doesn't burn. It's non-toxic, non-corrosive. The actual unit is completely eco friendly," he commented.

Mr Bishop added that the system "maintains a very efficient way of transmitting input and output. We're having 110 watts of input and we're having an equivalent of 150 kilocalories of output, which roughly works out to 74.7 watts of energy."

According to recent data from AMA Research, the domestic heating market in the UK is valued at around £1.3 billion.






http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/profile/the_low_carbon_economy_ltd/_low_carbon_blog/green_heating_system_unveiled/7517

Cardew

I am totally lost also!

1kilocalorie = 4.2kilojoules

So '150 kilocalories of output' is 630 kilojoules which is 175 watt hours. (could '74.7 watts' be a misprint?)

However what is the input? 110 watts is meaningless.

Could they be trying to say that 110 watt hours input gives 175 watt hours output?

Ben84

dickllewellyn wrote: »

Anyone considered electric boilers?

That should provoke some interesting views!

Personally I don't see the advantage to these. Having a boiler that burns fuel and distributes the heat around the building makes sense as it's safer and allows greater flexibility in the placement of radiators, but with electric there's no fuel burning in the house and you can already place the heaters almost anywhere you want by running a cable to them (probably more flexible than running pipes). Having individual electric heaters is also more flexible as you can control them individually. Electric boilers just seem much more complex and costly to install. There's also a small efficiency penalty as the pump needed consumes electric too.

pc134

Hi all,

Thanks for teh very interesting info. So basically i should get any electrical radiator with a built in thermostat and programmer? Is that all there is to it. DOesnt matter what it is made of or what teh quality is its all going to cost the same either way?

Have a 1 bed flat to warm up sperate living room (9m2 floor size) bedroom 8m2 floor size) and height of ceiling in 2.5 metres ish. The bathroom has no heating othe rthan underfloor heating but is very small.

Apprecaite any sugestions on what i shoudl be purchasing for the bedroom and living room. I was just told to get a 1000mm for the living room and 1200mm for the bedroom. Seems to simple. What are reliable electric radiators taht people would reccomend for low maintenance and costs overall including running if there is any difference?

Thanks alot