German electric storage radiators

victor2

NowRetired wrote: »

Steam irons do produce some heat though.


When my daughter uses her steam iron in the room where the thermostat is situated the temperature rise caused by her increased body heat because of the hard work doing the ironing, according to her, causes the room temperature to rise switching off the thermostat therefor the heating.


This means that the rest of the house gets no heating while she irons.


She then uses this as an excuse not to do any ironing as her children upstairs complain that the heating is not on and they are getting cold.

Tell her to switch the heating off, do the ironing in the children's room and not only will they be warm, but the clothes will be ironed as well. A win-win situation! :rotfl:

vassa

What's the efficiency of them? ie, if it burns Xkw but is only 50% efficient it means you only get half the projected kw in actual heat to the room in question.

Not questioning your credentials, i know nothing of it but am interested in the heating system myself.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

vassa wrote: »

What's the efficiency of them? ie, if it burns Xkw but is only 50% efficient it means you only get half the projected kw in actual heat to the room in question.

Not questioning your credentials, i know nothing of it but am interested in the heating system myself.

For clarity, was that aimed at someone in particular or was it just a general question? Thanks.

Cardew

vassa wrote: »

What's the efficiency of them? ie, if it burns Xkw but is only 50% efficient it means you only get half the projected kw in actual heat to the room in question.

Not questioning your credentials, i know nothing of it but am interested in the heating system myself.

All heating devices are 100% efficient at turning electricity into heat. Energy cannot be destroyed.

A number of different units are used in heat measurement, e.g., the calorie, the British thermal unit (Btu), and the joule.

As stated above if a steam iron(or several steam irons) consumed, say, 1kWh, they would produce exactly the same amount of heat(using any of those measurements above) as any other heating device.

It is no different to an electric cooker; 1kWh consumed produces the same amount of heat as any other electrical heater - including heaters costing over £1000 each.

Before the heating salesmen jump in(again!) nobody is suggesting a steam iron be used for heating a room as the plate has too small an area to dissipate sufficient heat, and the thermostat works on the temperature of the plate and not the air temperature of the room.

vassa

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

For clarity, was that aimed at someone in particular or was it just a general question? Thanks.

Was to the OP.

vassa

Cardew wrote: »

All heating devices are 100% efficient at turning electricity into heat. Energy cannot be destroyed.

A number of different units are used in heat measurement, e.g., the calorie, the British thermal unit (Btu), and the joule.

As stated above if a steam iron(or several steam irons) consumed, say, 1kWh, they would produce exactly the same amount of heat(using any of those measurements above) as any other heating device.

It is no different to an electric cooker; 1kWh consumed produces the same amount of heat as any other electrical heater.

Before the heating salesmen jump in(again!) nobody is suggesting a steam iron be used for heating a room as the plate has too small an area to dissipate sufficient heat, and the thermostat works on the temperature of the plate and not the air temperature of the room.

Yes but a 5kw wood burner will be advertised at 75% efficiency which means that although it butns X amount, only Y amount is actually felt by the room it's in. A kettle boils at 100 degrees, doesn't mean it emits 100 degree heat into the room it's in.

Cardew

vassa wrote: »

Yes but a 5kw wood burner will be advertised at 75% efficiency which means that although it butns X amount, only Y amount is actually felt by the room it's in.

True.

Similarly gas/oil central heating boilers can have an efficiency of below 60%(for old boilers).

However they ain't electrical heaters!

The wood/gas/oil will have a calorific value, however for wood burner/boiler to be 100% efficient it would need to burn the fuel completely and stop any heat escaping up the flue.

Modern gas/oil boilers are 'condensing' and under the right conditions can achieve efficiencies of over 90%.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

vassa wrote: »

Was to the OP.

The OP hasn't posted for two years. Long gone, methinks.

vassa

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

The OP hasn't posted for two years. Long gone, methinks.

Ah, never noticed. Was a response to that post anyway.

McKendog

Hi all,
First time poster here. Calm down.

I have a 2 bed ground floor flat which is electric only. There are storage heaters but I'm not on E7 due to previous tenants/landlord. I'm here for the long haul so happy to invest in something good.

Was considering buying normal electric rads from the Economy Radiator Company but read a bad review about after sales service on another thread on here. I'm in touch with SE Heating Co with their German storage rads. Getting a demo on Monday from Tony.

I bought a £30 1KW oil-filled portable one from Homebase and it is useless. This experience along with the "all electric heaters emit the same heat" argument has put me off electric wall rads, but to be honest the "they turn off when they reach the right heat" and "they are bigger and more heat comes off them" arguments also make sense to my non-Einsteinian mind. I have double glazing and the building is relatively new so I'm not on the verge of freezing in my sleep, but the flat does get pretty cold.

If these products are bad I don't understand whey there aren't a lot of people who have bought them posting on here shouting about how bad they are. There must be thousands of people like me searching for genuine reviews from the people that have actually bought them. I don't trust the reviews on the websites, especially not on electric radiators direct - three reviews in a week, all 5 stars in all categories and actually just noticed that in the month I've been looking into this the titles of the reviews have changed because two of them used to be labelled 'Excellent'.

I seem to have so few options at the moment that the likely thing I will do is buy a German storage one rad for the lounge and see if it does well or not. If it doesn't then I'll get something else for my bedroom and see if it's any good.

I'll post my results, but in the meantime if anyone can tell me where some genuine reviews are that would be very helpful.

Thanks