Sunflow Electric Heating Systems

Richie-from-the-Boro

Fembo wrote: »

Being one of the vulnerable and elderly visited by Sunflow but also with experience in building it took me 5 secs to work that £1441 for a new sunflow heater has a payback of 8 years. I off to Aldi for the programmable oil filled heater and can now contemplate a couple of winter trips to India instead of that huge outlay.

Thanks for the input ' Fembo ', welcome to the forum and your comments in defence of the "vulnerable and elderly" are aptly put !

Oap_confused_female

Seriously thinking of replacing old heaters in 2 bed flat, large rooms 6 heaters in total, but concerned about conflicting info on sites and cost!! No money has changed hands! Can anyone tell me if I can just change the bricks to improve efficiency or if there is any benefit going for new? Also the benefits of changing from E7 to E10.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Oap_confused_female wrote: »

Seriously thinking of replacing old heaters in 2 bed flat, large rooms 6 heaters in total, but concerned about conflicting info on sites and cost!! No money has changed hands! Can anyone tell me if I can just change the bricks to improve efficiency or if there is any benefit going for new? Also the benefits of changing from E7 to E10.

- no you can't just change bricks my friend, the newer night-store is more efficient because of new much more modern insulation & thermostatic controls
- heat is stored in the brick, each brick is 230mm X 190mm X 50mm and weighs 7.5Kg per single brick, the little heaters have 6 bricks and the big ones 16 bricks
- E10 gives 10 hours of cheap[er] electricity the extra 3 hours are a day time top up, it is as it were the luxury end of E7 that never gets a day time top up
- over the years your existing heaters 'damper' will have become worn, they will not have had rear insulation, and they will generally be less efficient than new ones

E10 was a tariff designed for underfloor heating, here the whole concrete floor itself is the radiator, this benefits from the extra 3 hours of day time top up heating. E7 stores enough heat for the next 17 hours comfort. modern night store heater have both storage of cheap heat plus an extra instant any time radiant heater built into the heater. This extra built in panel heater takes care of those spring / autumn odd days when heat is required at core rate but the 'storage' or night storage rate is switched off. It also takes care of those surprise bitterly bitterly cold spells when you get caught out and need extra heat now now ..... The insulation levels, glazing, etc will decide running costs. no amount of fancy pseudo science or manufacturing materials will have any influence whatsoever on running costs.

Your tariff :

All cheapest tariffs have common minimum trilogy requirements :

- an e-account on-line
- direct debit
- regular online submissions of meter readings

Your CAC ± discounts + VAT ÷ 12 = monthly payment plan, this amount [ish] is paid each month of the year, it smooths out payments and you would normally start the 5 winter months with a comforting credit balance.

Example of both storage of cheap heat plus an extra instant any time radiant heater built into the heater :



Hope this helps - any questions - just ask !

lstar337

Oap_confused_female wrote: »

Seriously thinking of replacing old heaters in 2 bed flat, large rooms 6 heaters in total, but concerned about conflicting info on sites and cost!! No money has changed hands! Can anyone tell me if I can just change the bricks to improve efficiency or if there is any benefit going for new? Also the benefits of changing from E7 to E10.

Can you explain what it is about the storage heaters that isn't working for you?

Maybe we can help you there.