Fischer Storage Heaters

barry7376_2

Last week I came across a flyer for the Fischer Heating System for storage heating. It looked impressive (website and flyer and products) and I have been disappointed with my 10-15 year old storage heaters in my 2 bed flat!

I arranged for an "engineer" more like salesperson to come to my flat and quote me. He was extremely polite and friendly. He assessed my flat cubic area etc and wrote up a quote. I had a price in my mind and was horrified with his first quote. For replacing 4 storage heaters (2 large and 2 small) the price was circa £6000! Within a minute (or less!) it was down to £4200 approx. I said I thought it was still expensive and will think about it. He said he will consult management on a further reduction and 2 days later the price came down to £3900 approx. and said that is the final price and I will need to commit to that price very soon or it will be unavailable. He said the job would be part of a larger job nearby and hence the reason for discount as fitting can be done at the same time and also the heaters can be made up the same time. I said I was surprised they arent in stock and need to be made up for each job!

I generally think the product works and will save money on bills BUT not at the price they are looking for. Thanks to MSE website but I will politely decline when they next call (going by previous comments they'll call back in a week or two). I will try Aeroflow, at least their prices are realistic and visible on the website. The product and materials inside looks very similar to Fischer's too!

:beer:

Richie-from-the-Boro

barry7376 wrote: »

Last week I came across a flyer for the Fischer Heating System for storage heating. It looked impressive (website and flyer and products) and I have been disappointed with my 10-15 year old storage heaters in my 2 bed flat!

I arranged for an "engineer" more like salesperson to come to my flat and quote me. He was extremely polite and friendly. He assessed my flat cubic area etc and wrote up a quote. I had a price in my mind and was horrified with his first quote. For replacing 4 storage heaters (2 large and 2 small) the price was circa £6000! Within a minute (or less!) it was down to £4200 approx. I said I thought it was still expensive and will think about it. He said he will consult management on a further reduction and 2 days later the price came down to £3900 approx. and said that is the final price and I will need to commit to that price very soon or it will be unavailable. He said the job would be part of a larger job nearby and hence the reason for discount as fitting can be done at the same time and also the heaters can be made up the same time. I said I was surprised they arent in stock and need to be made up for each job!

I generally think the product works and will save money on bills BUT not at the price they are looking for. Thanks to MSE website but I will politely decline when they next call (going by previous comments they'll call back in a week or two). I will try Aeroflow, at least their prices are realistic and visible on the website. The product and materials inside looks very similar to Fischer's too!

:beer:

Thanks for your input barry7376 it helps people make better decisions, you time is appreciated by the group.

Owain_Moneysaver

barry7376 wrote: »

I generally think the product works and will save money on bills

Any peak rate electric heating using electricity at 12p / kWh is unlikely to save money compared to using storage heaters and off-peak electricity at about 4p / kWh.

about £800 will buy you 4 nice Dimplex oil-filled radiators with thermostats and timers which will do exactly the same job as any 'magic German heater' of the same kW rating. Or you can get convector heaters in Argos for about £25 each.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

barry7376 wrote: »

was horrified with his first quote.

barry7376 wrote: »

Within a minute (or less!) it was down to £4200

barry7376 wrote: »

will consult management on a further reduction

barry7376 wrote: »

the price came down to £3900 approx.

barry7376 wrote: »

part of a larger job nearby

Sounds like it's straight out of the Salesman's Handbook of Dodgy Strategies.

lstar337

barry7376 wrote: »

I generally think the product works and will save money on bills BUT not at the price they are looking for. Thanks to MSE website but I will politely decline when they next call (going by previous comments they'll call back in a week or two). I will try Aeroflow, at least their prices are realistic and visible on the website. The product and materials inside looks very similar to Fischer's too!

:beer:

Sorry, but you are wrong about that.

Unless you are ripping out all your E7 wiring and meter and switching to a single rate tariff, you will have sky high bills. Even on a single rate tariff you will probably be worse off.

This will be one of the poorest financial decisions you ever make.

Use your money to buy some modern Dimplex quantum heaters, they are the only thing likely to save you any money in the long run.

Thorpe85

hello everybody, yes i know first post, but i have been looking at this forum for a while and direct quite a few customers to these posts as i work for a pretty big UK based heating company (not going to say who) but we have to deal with customers who have spoken to many of the company's mentioned above, and have to try and debunk some of the more questionable claims, i would always advise caution about any claims, especially if they are not prepared to send you a copy of the BISRA test

also when we work out a heating scheme for a building we require a lot of data and some pretty good software, this can take some time to work out a heat loss for a room....and even after all this it is still a "best guess" i would be very worried if someone managed to turn up my house and with a couple of measurements managed to work out the heat loss to any degree of success (you can work out a general kw needed by L x W X H x watts per sqm ) but this is massively inaccurate and should only ever be used as a rough guide, unless the companies named are employing mathematical geniuses who can do the scheme calculations that quickly ?

Thorpe85

i would also like to mention that these view are my own and in no way represent the views of any company i may work for (should stop me getting told off)

Richie-from-the-Boro

Thorpe85 wrote: »

hello everybody, yes i know first post, but i have been looking at this forum for a while and direct quite a few customers to these posts as i work for a pretty big UK based heating company (not going to say who) but we have to deal with customers who have spoken to many of the company's mentioned above, and have to try and debunk some of the more questionable claims, i would always advise caution about any claims, especially if they are not prepared to send you a copy of the BISRA test

also when we work out a heating scheme for a building we require a lot of data and some pretty good software, this can take some time to work out a heat loss for a room....and even after all this it is still a "best guess" i would be very worried if someone managed to turn up my house and with a couple of measurements managed to work out the heat loss to any degree of success (you can work out a general kw needed by L x W X H x watts per sqm ) but this is massively inaccurate and should only ever be used as a rough guide, unless the companies named are employing mathematical geniuses who can do the scheme calculations that quickly ? I would also like to mention that these view are my own and in no way represent the views of any company i may work for (should stop me getting told off)

Thanks for your input on this Thorpe85, what they call engineers are I suspect just speciality salesmen who would I agree would not have any idea how to even take adequate notes.

Cardew

Thorpe85 wrote: »

hello everybody, yes i know first post, but i have been looking at this forum for a while and direct quite a few customers to these posts as i work for a pretty big UK based heating company (not going to say who) but we have to deal with customers who have spoken to many of the company's mentioned above, and have to try and debunk some of the more questionable claims, i would always advise caution about any claims, especially if they are not prepared to send you a copy of the BISRA test

also when we work out a heating scheme for a building we require a lot of data and some pretty good software, this can take some time to work out a heat loss for a room....and even after all this it is still a "best guess" i would be very worried if someone managed to turn up my house and with a couple of measurements managed to work out the heat loss to any degree of success (you can work out a general kw needed by L x W X H x watts per sqm ) but this is massively inaccurate and should only ever be used as a rough guide, unless the companies named are employing mathematical geniuses who can do the scheme calculations that quickly ?

The BISRA test of electrical heaters will tell us????


Also what is wrong with a 'rough guide'? I suggest the heat loss in a domestic situation is not critical when it comes to working out EXACTLY what electrical heaters to install. e.g. if a room will need 5.287kW to maintain a temperature of xxC when the outside temperature is yyC then 6kW will do the job. Even 9kW installed will not be a problem as a thermostat will regulate the output of the heaters.


The point several of us have been making -at length;) is that all electrical heaters are 100% efficient. Thus a 2kW electrical heater costing £10 from Aldi etc will produce EXACTLY the same amount of heat/warmth as a much hyped 2kW electrical heater costing well in excess of £1,000

Thorpe85

Hi Cardew, BISRA testing will show that company has actually undertaken this quite extensive test, some company's may say this on their website but might not have gone through the expense of this test which explains how well the heaters work and would back up some of the more questionable claims,

the problem with a rough guide, is that its fine if you have put 6 kw into a 5.287 room as you suggested...but if you put 4 kw into that room because you have based the rough calc on a say reasonably well insulated property but have not bothered to measure the insulation, check with the window manufacturer for the U vales of the windows installed or many of the things we have to do, what will happen is that that heater will never achieve the temp required, so instead of your 6 in a 5.25 which will achieve temp and may be on 60% of the hour (which the BISRA test will usually give a figure) the 4 in the 6 will be on for 100% of the time (this is where most of the company's get their "magical" savings from,


so if you have a 2 kw heater installed correctly then you may use only 1.2kw per hour, but if it is installed incorrectly then you will be using the full 2kw per hour

and yes you are right all direct acting electric heaters convert 100% of power to %100 of heat output...the saving comes from how long these heaters are on per hour which then comes down to the accuracy of the thermostat to maintain a level temp (which the BISRA test will also tell you )

and again these views are my own, and in no way reflect the views of any company i may work for