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Sunflow Electric Heating Systems

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  • rogerblack
    rogerblack Posts: 9,446 Forumite
    edited 9 May 2012 at 11:22AM
    Graham1962 wrote: »
    Does anyone know if a reseller is legally obliged to supply this information on price or manufacturer when asked? If so, I will go back to them and demand it!

    No.
    Try this with a tesco own-brand item, for example.
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,060 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Rampant Recycler
    edited 9 May 2012 at 11:19AM
    Graham1962 wrote: »

    Fishybusiness, I do agree with what you say about differences in heaters and I will be buying some good quality heating, but I would like to know what the price was for your Sunflow radiators?

    I take it you have read post #13 in this thread.

    Someone claims to have had a visit by this company and the price for a single radiator was £1,442!!

    If they divulged the name of the manufacturer then you could find out what they would cost in other countries - even Germany - and that wouldn't do!!
  • fishybusiness
    fishybusiness Posts: 1,263 Forumite
    Sunflow say this question is impossible to answer

    I'd walk away from them. All companies know the buy in cost of their products, and their profit margin. They should be able to give you an idea of size and cost based on your room size and insulation standard.

    If you take the info Cardew has posted - £1442 for one, what is your payback time, and does that additional cost equate to efficiency and easy of use? I doubt it.

    If you found a really nice system, at say £300 per radiator, with a clear pricing structure, you would probably have that 'feel good factor' before committing. I bet you haven't got that Sunflow.

    I didn't buy Sunflow - I wouldn't. I'm considering the infrared panel market, which is another debate entirely, see the thread I started.....

    I do think the whole electric radiator market is a mess. Some people here advocate cheap heaters, they are great for secondary heating, but when looking at how to heat a whole house conveniently, relatively cheaply and maybe from a central controller, I haven't found a solution yet :cry:
  • Graham1962
    Graham1962 Posts: 2 Newbie
    edited 18 June 2012 at 11:42AM
    Cardew wrote: »
    I take it you have read post #13 in this thread.

    Someone claims to have had a visit by this company and the price for a single radiator was £1,442!!

    If they divulged the name of the manufacturer then you could find out what they would cost in other countries - even Germany - and that wouldn't do!!


    WOW! no I missed that post Cardew. Thanks for this.

    I have walked away from Sunflow. They were [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] abrupt and quick to dismiss others. I thought they were hiding the price because it was expensive, but that is THREE TIMES the price of the most expensive radiator on the price lists I have and the radiators are IDENTICAL!

    RogerBlack - Regrds to the Tesco own-brand heater - I see your point. But Tesco would give a 1 year warranty and replace it for me if it broke. Sunflow are a small unknown co. who sell high value goods on the point that they have a very long warranty from the best manufacturer in the world. A large part of what I pay for is this warranty.

    If Sunflow disappeared [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] in the next 10 years, I would have to deal with the manufacturer if there was a problem. I don't know who this is or even if they still exist.
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,060 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Rampant Recycler
    I'd walk away from them. All companies know the buy in cost of their products, and their profit margin. They should be able to give you an idea of size and cost based on your room size and insulation standard.

    If you take the info Cardew has posted - £1442 for one, what is your payback time, and does that additional cost equate to efficiency and easy of use? I doubt it.

    If you found a really nice system, at say £300 per radiator, with a clear pricing structure, you would probably have that 'feel good factor' before committing. I bet you haven't got that Sunflow.

    I didn't buy Sunflow - I wouldn't. I'm considering the infrared panel market, which is another debate entirely, see the thread I started.....

    I do think the whole electric radiator market is a mess. Some people here advocate cheap heaters, they are great for secondary heating, but when looking at how to heat a whole house conveniently, relatively cheaply and maybe from a central controller, I haven't found a solution yet :cry:

    Firstly I didn't actually post info about the prices - just pointed to post #13.

    I don't think people are advocating 'cheap heaters', merely pointing out that even cheap electrical heaters give out exactly the same heat, for the same running costs, as the most expensive on the market.
  • fishybusiness
    fishybusiness Posts: 1,263 Forumite
    Firstly I didn't actually post info about the prices - just pointed to post #13.

    I don't think people are advocating 'cheap heaters', merely pointing out that even cheap electrical heaters give out exactly the same heat, for the same running costs, as the most expensive on the market.

    No worries :)

    I do wish that when looking at saving money the automatic reaction isn't to compare the outlandish claims of expensive products to Tesco's own brand........there is a whole world of in between compromise.

    It would be really good to hear from people that have paid for electric radiators that are perhaps mid price range, and that are used as a primary heat source due to necessity.

    Certainly for me, and from reading the forums, for a good number of other people, those good experiences would be useful.
  • pint6x
    pint6x Posts: 16 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Well I am glad I read this thread - On the back cover of the last edition of Private Eye, Sunflow are advertising their wares.

    Now, living in an area without mains gas and not having oil-fired central heating, we've always had electrical storage heaters. We put these things in when we bought the place 20 years ago because it had ancient storage heaters which were vast and very ugly.

    So, 20 years on, we're potentially selling the house, the heaters look fairly clunky and not very attractive, and we like the look of these Sunflow heaters because they're slimmer and much nicer to look at then the rather unattractive Dimplex jobbies.

    If they heat up quicker, that's an advantage 'cos these Dimplex things take a few hours to get warm, though they do retain the heat fairly well.

    Now all elements and compounds have different heat retention properties, and absorb/give out heat in different timescales/rates, so I wondered whether perhaps the elements in these heaters may be more efficient (tungsten, which if I remember my O level physics is the element with the highest melting temperature, meaning it could be heated to a greater temperature without degrading or melting). I also wondered whether the clay these heaters contain might absorb the heat and disperse it in a more efficient manner than the bricks inside our current heaters.

    So - while all heaters may be 100% efficient, what they actually do with the heat is critical and will depend on the materials used for the heating element and the material used for retaining the heat.

    At £1300 a pop, I won't be buying them from Sunflow, but I might still consider this technology, not least because they're slimmer and a lot more attractive than the Dimplex monsters I have currently.

    Whether it'll save me any money will depend on whether they're powered on daytime rate electricity or overnight Economy 7, which is what the Dimplex units use, and (I guess) the efficiency of the materials used in their construction.
  • Richie-from-the-Boro
    Richie-from-the-Boro Posts: 6,945 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 18 June 2012 at 11:44AM
    pint6x - what you say is true [ish]

    """slimmer and a lot more attractive than the Dimplex monsters"""

    The truth of all of these systems is you cant get 5 quarts into a pint pot! There is no way on gods earth that a little ground up fireclay can hold more than a rapidly decreasing .5kWh. And there we have it, the very impressive home demo can and does prove to the unbeliever that the radiator will 'stay hot' whilst unplugged from the 13a socket for the 45-60 minutes duration of the home visit.

    """what they actually do with the heat is critical"""

    What heat ?, they quickly have no heat left to distribute, the only reason the Dimplex et-al are big and ugly is their storage capacity, there is no workaround .. .. .. size / capacity / adequate storage is essential anything else is snake~oil, you cant distribute anything that does not exist.

    It's essential that the heating [ storage ] system is correctly sized with with sufficient high capacity storage units to provide acceptable comfort conditions no one has yet invented anything better than the not yet improved upon Dimplex et-al big ugly storage heaters.

    [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]
    Disclaimer : Everything I write on this forum is my opinion. I try to be an even-handed poster and accept that you at times may not agree with these opinions or how I choose to express them, this is not my problem. The Disabled : If years cannot be added to their lives, at least life can be added to their years - Alf Morris - ℜ
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,060 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Rampant Recycler
    pint6x wrote: »

    So - while all heaters may be 100% efficient, what they actually do with the heat is critical and will depend on the materials used for the heating element and the material used for retaining the heat.

    Although I understand the point you are making, you are only talking about the way that heat is released.

    I think, from your post, you agree that as all electrical heaters are 100% efficient the amount of heat they produce for a set cost is exactly the same.

    How they disperse that heat varies, from virtually instantly(but with no residual heat) to slowly(but retaining heat for longer) The important point is the amount of heat dispersed is exactly the same.

    We could make an analogy with buying a liquid to put in a tank. We agree that the cost to buy, say, 10 litres of the liquid is the same. So we now have the choice of how fast to drain that liquid from the tank. If the tap is just opened slightly it will take a long while to drain, or the tap opened fully and it will drain quickly. In either case you are only going to get 10 litres from the tank.

    Exactly the same with an electrical heater. The heat(measured in BTu/calories) costs the same, and the type of heater determines how fast that heat will be dispersed. However the end result is that you will get out exactly the same amount of heat.
  • U~value tables Oct 2011
    Disclaimer : Everything I write on this forum is my opinion. I try to be an even-handed poster and accept that you at times may not agree with these opinions or how I choose to express them, this is not my problem. The Disabled : If years cannot be added to their lives, at least life can be added to their years - Alf Morris - ℜ
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