I fitted a Dimplex Quantum heater!

Davesnave

Casp55 wrote: »

Like you I found the Dimplex customer service guys very little help. They tend not to give a straight answer and often pass your question on to someone else. A month has passed now since I asked a question about the “extra charge” feature on these heaters and I still have not had a reply! The last I heard was that they had sent an e,mail to there factory in Ireland and waiting for a reply. I am starting to think that they are hoping I will get fed up waiting and go away. I WONT.

Classic British engineering innit?

They spend 7 million on research and then c0ck-up by making the details so difficult to figure out, and customer service so poor, that the average person reading this thread quite likely thinks: "Hmmm...too risky!" and goes off to buy something else, with local back-up.

I know I did!

vivatifosi

Casp55 wrote: »

Lady Annabel Aardvark. Sorry but I cant help you much here. I am very confused as to what tariff you are on. It sounds to me like you are on one of the old and rare Economy10 type and I know nothing about them, so you will have to talk to your energy supplier about it. I always thought that "Economy" energy was supplied at night when demands are low, but if you are getting some of it during peak demand periods (8.am-2.30.pm) I cant see how that can be an economy supply. With Economy7 the supply runs from around midnight to 8.am. That is the tariff that most people are on. Economy7 is just that.

As I have already said. I suggest that you contact your energy supplier and find out exactly what type of tariff you are on and the cost difference between that and Economy7.

Good luck and please keep us updated on how you get on. It may help others in the same situation.

Apologies for clumsy edit, but wondered if I could help here. I have E10. I replaced my 20 year old storage heaters with the Dimplex thermostatically controlled ones last winter. We are paying £95 per month for all our electricity. This is to heat a three bedroom semi with three storage heaters, Megaflow water heater, 3 panel heaters and 3 fan heaters running on day rate but not left on often. They are working out about 10-12% cheaper than our older ones. Our neighbours have installed Quantum heaters but don't yet have full year data. They are also experiencing savings.

The only circumstances I can imagine running up high bills would be having the switches on the wall set wrong, so it is the fan on all day at the v expensive E10 day rate rather than storing heat.

Casp55 wrote: »

These heaters are not designed to run of a standard 13amp power outlet. Apart from dangerous you will also invalidate your guarantee. The power cable that runs the storage side is much thicker than the standard cable you would use for everything else. you will also find it costs you a small fortune to run these heaters from a peak electricity supply. It defeats the whole object of having storage heaters. You would be better off buying some big fan heaters to heat your place.

Honest, I would NOT do what you suggest before talking to a proper electrician first. Please don't just go ahead and do it. Get an Economy7 supply and have the heaters installed properly. Excuse the pun, but you will literally be playing with fire if you just go ahead in this way.

It's interesting. We replaced our heaters following a fire inside one of our units. Nothing scarier than smelling burning at 3am, knowing you have a fire somewhere in your house, but not being able to find the source, only that it is really, really hot. Fortunately the Fire Brigade were able to use their thermal imaging camera to identify the source really quickly. The thermal cut out had failed and overheated, the inside of the unit was really charred but contained. A big reason we switched to thermostatically controlled units was that they have double thermostatic cut outs on, so if one fails you have a back up. We also updated the cabling to all heaters on the recommendation of our electrician, which also helps safety.

The smoke detector in our hall did not pick up the burning, as it was behind a closed door. Fire Brigade has subsequently fitted additional detector and said that current Gold Standard is one in each room except kitchens and bathrooms.

dim3nsi0n

Casp55 wrote: »

LoL. So many questions that my brain has started hurting :wall:

First off I am still not sure how you will make this work efficiently. From what you are saying it looks like you have one electrical supply that switches to economy tariff after midnight! I have never heard of anything like that. But as long as you have a qualified electrician advising you then it will at least be safe if not cost effective.

You cant select when the heaters take a charge. That is done automaticly when the Economy7 tariff turns on at night. There are two cables that feed the heater. The other is for the 24 hour supply. As I have allready told you these heaters are not designed to run totally on a 24 hour supply. Doing so would certainly void your guarantee. You should not have the heaters running 24 hours. That is why in there timer settings they have on and off periods in four blocks during the day. The heaters must have rest periods.

The extra charge setting will only work if you have an economy supply that provides more than 7 hours. If you read back through my posts you will see that I am currently challenging Dimplex over this, because what they say in the user manual is not correct.

These heaters are not designed to run all night. they should be at rest whilst taking a night charge. I also get up often during the night to use the bathroom, but this only takes a couple of minutes and is no reason to have the heaters running all night just for that.

The auto boost setting is designed to be used in the evening if the temperature suddenly drops and the stored energy is not enough to keep the room warm.

To be totally honest I don't think these heaters are suitable for what you want them to do. Apart from wanting to run them against the manufacturers recommendations I think you will quickly find that they will cost you an absolute fortune to run.

I strongly recommend that you look at an alternative form of electric heating that will work better for your needs and be economical with regards to your current power supply.

I have a standard economy 7 meter. The meter has 2 readings. Peak and off-peak. I also have a quartz timer. The quartz timer switches the meter from the peak to off-peak at 12pm usually. So at 12pm the second reader starts registering and the first one stops registering. Now the storage heaters are dumb. If they have electricity on wire they will start charging. To prevent that I have to put a timer on them. So either I buy a timer with a 16amp fuse for each of them and set the timer to be "on" from 12pm to 7am or I buy a new fuse box only for them and put a master timer on all of them. The quartz time switcher doesn't know you have storage heaters, all it does it switches the meter from peak to off peak.

I assume you also have a quartz timer and also a different timer to instruct the storage heater circuit to start charging at 12pm and stops at 7am. Is it not true?

SoozyJ22

Hi all. I've really enjoyed reading the discussions here and have decided to get the Quantum heaters installed. The only question is 'when?' So I have a question. My old storage heaters have feet which go onto the floor - that is the actual boards, and the carpet (hall) and laminate (living room) are cut around them. Does anyone know if this is how it should work with the Quantums? Or can/should they go on top of the floor covering? I ask as I'm planning on getting new flooring next year and if the heaters can/should go on top then I'll wait until after the new flooring's in place. If not, then I can go ahead and start getting quotes now.

Thanks in advance.

Casp55

dim3nsi0n wrote: »

I have a standard economy 7 meter. The meter has 2 readings. Peak and off-peak. I also have a quartz timer. The quartz timer switches the meter from the peak to off-peak at 12pm usually. So at 12pm the second reader starts registering and the first one stops registering. Now the storage heaters are dumb. If they have electricity on wire they will start charging. To prevent that I have to put a timer on them. So either I buy a timer with a 16amp fuse for each of them and set the timer to be "on" from 12pm to 7am or I buy a new fuse box only for them and put a master timer on all of them. The quartz time switcher doesn't know you have storage heaters, all it does it switches the meter from peak to off peak.

I assume you also have a quartz timer and also a different timer to instruct the storage heater circuit to start charging at 12pm and stops at 7am. Is it not true?

Ok, I now think I know what you have. My Economy7 setup is pretty much the same, apart for the fact I have one meter with dual timer and two fuse boxes. At midnight the power is turned on for the Economy7 that runs on a separate circuit for the heaters and hot water, and everything else continues to run on the 24 hour standard energy supply. You will have to have your supply meter/box converted to do the same thing, or your heaters will just continue to take a charge during the day and probably cause a fire! If you can get a timer set into the charge supply line of the heater it may work, but you should certainly seek professional advice on what type and if it will be safe before doing this.

Casp55

SoozyJ22 wrote: »

Hi all. I've really enjoyed reading the discussions here and have decided to get the Quantum heaters installed. The only question is 'when?' So I have a question. My old storage heaters have feet which go onto the floor - that is the actual boards, and the carpet (hall) and laminate (living room) are cut around them. Does anyone know if this is how it should work with the Quantums? Or can/should they go on top of the floor covering? I ask as I'm planning on getting new flooring next year and if the heaters can/should go on top then I'll wait until after the new flooring's in place. If not, then I can go ahead and start getting quotes now.

Thanks in advance.

This is a pretty easy question to answer Soozy. The heaters have two separate sets of fixing points for the feet. The idea of this is that it will allow you to use the same position for the feet as on your old heaters if they are the older Dimplex type. I am not sure if it would work the same for other makes of heater.

They must NEVER be installed on top of carpet, the carpet must be cut/fitted around the feet after the heater has been installed.

Fitting the heater on top of concrete, wooden or laminate flooring is fine though. I have one of my heaters installed on top of my laminate flooring without cutting around the feet.

delboy61

how can you not put the feet on top of a carpet?

delboy61

Casp55 wrote: »

This is a pretty easy question to answer Soozy. The heaters have two separate sets of fixing points for the feet. The idea of this is that it will allow you to use the same position for the feet as on your old heaters if they are the older Dimplex type. I am not sure if it would work the same for other makes of heater.

They must NEVER be installed on top of carpet, the carpet must be cut/fitted around the feet after the heater has been installed.

Fitting the heater on top of concrete, wooden or laminate flooring is fine though. I have one of my heaters installed on top of my laminate flooring without cutting around the feet.

how can you not put the feet of the heaters on top of a carpet

delboy61

Lady_Annabel_Aardvark wrote: »

I've read this entire thread with interest. Thank you everyone for the input.

I've moved to a council bungalow with my husband in December. The Quantum system Was fitted about 18 months ago. We don't have other storage heaters to compare it to as previously we had gas.

I have to say I am astounded at how much electricity we are using. after two weeks of the heating being on low to warm the cold house but only two days of actually living here, we got a bill for almost £62!

I read the meters last Sunday and over the subsequent 53 days it works out to be about £205 for a small two bedroom bungalow. Two bedrooms are set to out all day, one on 18 degrees for morning and evening and one on 16. The hall one is also set to 18, home all day and I vary the living room one between 18 and 20, set to home all day but with four fairly short periods of heat totally seven hours in all. The heater does stay very hot during the day.

We had no instructions given to us so have worked it out for ourselves.

I quoted the above post because our heating and immersion tank are the only things on the cheaper rate of electricity. Everything else no matter what time of day or night runs on the other meter.

We are with SSR. The hours of our economy 7 meter (if that's what it is), are 4.30am until 2.30pm.

I can change to Scottish Power whose night time rate runs from 12 til 8 (or thereabouts) as their night time rate is a lot cheaper but I don't know if 12 til 8 will give me enough heat all day and evening. Also my immersion is timed to only heat water according to the times of the off peak electricity, therefore I'd need to have it switched on for those eight hours (currently I switch it on for a few hours in the daytime as needed), and after 8am I'd have no way to heat water. (We don't have a shower so need to use it for baths).

A switching company is currently switching us to Scottish Power but I think we might have to cancel this because of the problems it would give us. However, electricity is going to cost us at least £120 a month which to me seems a lot and is about twice what we used to pay for both electricity and gas.

Any suggestions or advice would be gratefully received.

I still have total heating total control (THTC) tariff rather economy 7 works the same and I pay £130 a month for all my electric day and night

SoozyJ22

Thanks very much Casp for your answer. I was thinking I'd wait then and try and get the heater replaced at the same time as the laminate in the living room so it can go on top, but thinking about it I'm not sure of the logistics since the old heater would have to be removed before the new flooring is put down and I was assuming (maybe incorrectly?) that the people who came to install the new heaters would remove the old ones too. I have lots of time to work it out though.

Delboy, basically my hall carpet is cut around the heater feet at the back, and then covers the front of the foot. So the foot's kind of L shaped, with one part of the L parallel to the wall and the other on the floor, and the part on the floor is under the carpet and the carpet fitters cut a hole around where the upright bit is.