Superseal Magic Box -

makeandmend

Does anyone have any experience of Superseal (Glasgow based company) and their Magic Box.

I was contact by telephone cold call, where it was claimed I could half my heating costs. I was sceptical but interested and two salesmen came round.

Essentially the magic box sits next to the boiler and causes the hot water to travel through the heating system faster but at a lower temperature. Making the heating system work more efficiently.

The cost is high £8,500, but if I can really save what they say I will recover that in less than 6 years.

I have signed up but within the 7 day cooling off period. I have my doubts - reviews on their own website are good - but are they real?

Would appreciate any experiences people have had.

EricMears

makeandmend wrote: »

Essentially the magic box sits next to the boiler and causes the hot water to travel through the heating system faster but at a lower temperature. Making the heating system work more efficiently.

The cost is high £8,500, but if I can really save what they say I will recover that in less than 6 years.

Never heard of the particular company.

Nothing 'magic' about the process described ! Most boilers will have a knob you can twist to drop water temperature - cost zero. It's pretty straightforward to replace an existing central heating pump with a bigger model that will pump faster - might cost a hundred or so and if you're paying someone to fit it that could be another hundred.

That does just leave another £8k of the cost unaccounted for !

'Savings' sound a bit optimistic too. Hard to see how the process described could possibly reduce costs by more than 10% perhaps 20% if there's a bit more 'magic' involved. If they're saying you can save £8500 in six years that would suggest an annual saving of at least £1200 in first year rising to over £1500 by year 6. Are you really spending more than £6000 per year on central heating costs at the moment ?

Martyn1981

This sounds terrifying!

For starters you said it sits next to your boiler, so the heating of your house will still be done by the boiler. You can't half the energy going in and still get the same heat out, unless this magic box is making your boiler 100% more efficient!

Also, how can it save you £8.5k in 6 years? Even if it could half your heating costs, does it really cost you £2,833pa (£8.5k/6 years *2) to heat your house now?

Can you supply more info?

Mart.

Martyn1981

If this is the guys, then it's a thermodynamic panel system.

http://www.supersealltd.co.uk/

Mart.

EricMears

Martyn1981 wrote: »

If this is the guys, then it's a thermodynamic panel system.

http://www.supersealltd.co.uk/

Mart.

That of course is a lot more complex (but NB not magic) than OP's original description. It could well offer large savings on heating costs though hard to see that it might offer the level of savings described (unless perhaps OP is trying to heat a stately home ?)

makeandmend

I tried to post a link but as a new user I couldn't. If you google superseal magic box you get the details

I need to make up my mind very soon as the 7 day cooling off period is on Monday. I think my doubts are telling me to cancel, but I would appreciate if anyone has this system or for any engineers - their opinion.

EricMears

makeandmend wrote: »

I need to make up my mind very soon as the 7 day cooling off period is on Monday. I think my doubts are telling me to cancel, but I would appreciate if anyone has this system or for any engineers - their opinion.

Not a lot of time left till Monday !

The basic question must be "how much did your central heating system cost last year ?" (and preferably how much was it each year for the last 5 years). For most people that would simply be "what did your last four quarterly gas bills add up to ?" (you can ignore the small amount used for cooking) though it might be more complicated if you use coal, oil or other fuels and much more complicated if you use more than one fuel.

When you have that total, I guess you should (initially) accept the (undoubtedly optimistic) claim that you can save half of it so divide the £8500 system cost by half your annual heating costs to get a payback period. If that really is six years or less then it might be a worthwhile investment - but at that point you really should investigate whether there's a real chance of that 50% saving. OTOH if the maths is predicting a much longer payback period then it's less likely to justify the investment.

Martyn1981

Hiya M&M, I'm sure somebody will be along who can give better advice, but it would be extremely helpful if you could post some details to help analyse the numbers.

I know very little about thermodynamic panels (TP's) but most of the bumpf I've read has been aimed at domestic hot water (DHW) with perhaps 1 panel, and prices £2.5k or more. For house heating I assume that it will be a larger internal system (?) and a lot more panels. Perhaps you could list:

Current boiler fuel type,
current annual fuel bill,
some system specifics of the TPs, especially how many will be installed,
where will they go, is it sunny, shaded, south facing, various orientations etc,
will the system be sufficiently large to work through the winter, or will the boiler have to do all the heavy lifting.

As Eric says this is a numbers game, and you'll need to compare costs and savings to get a better idea of the value of this investment.

Also have you considered alternatives, insulate, insulate, insulate - can you bring your bills down more simply. If not,

£8.5k might pay for EWI (external wall insulation) and that might half (or better) your bills.

PV install, and use the FiT subsidy towards your heating bill, and an intelligent diversionary switch to heat your DHW during the summer months, and help a bit during the colder months.

Mart.

Ben84

It's not going to halve your heating costs. Halving the heating costs by alterations to the boiler alone would mean doubling the boiler efficiency. However, typical boiler efficiencies range from 60-90% - all of which double to *more* than 100%, which is impossible. You'd have to add more heat from somewhere to make these savings possible.

Oh, I forgot to add, cancelling it if you need more time is the safest option. You'll still be able to buy it later if you really want it.

WestonDave

Its not a thermodynamic panel system, its a box of tricks that hopes by a combination of running the water through faster and at a lower temperature, plus a bit of heat exchange between the boiler output and input flows to lower energy use. http://www.supersealltd.co.uk/magic-heating-box/

The tests whilst showing some benefits have some significant flaws. The Trinity Dublin test was run on a system in a massive lab with no room thermostat so was purely looking at how fast the system could output heat. Clearly a system trying to heat water to 80C to be cooled on the heating circuit is going to use more energy than one heating to 60C. That much is logically obvious since a huge room with no thermostat is going to take as much heat out as possible whatever the circulating temperature and will therefore require it to be replaced.

Most home central heating systems don't work like that - the boiler cycles not just because the circulating water temperature drops but also because the room reaches the required temperature. Circulating water at 80C should mean the room reaches desired temperature quicker and so the thermostat shuts off fuel use. On the other hand a condensing boiler might work more efficiently if the return water is cooler so the 60C temperature might save fuel not only by not triggering the boiler as frequently when the thermostat is on, but also because the condensing effect will work better.

I'm by no means an expert in this field but for me the available and touted evidence isn't conclusive enough to warrant £8500 for a heat exchanger and a faster pump!

ed110220

Cancel and run faster than you can say "snake oil".

This is so wrong on two completely different levels:

First, to save £8500 in six years, you'd need to save about £1400 per year, which if the claim of halving bills is true they'd need to be £2800. That's an enormous amount of gas and unless you're living in a National Trust type huge, draughty mansion I'd be very surprised you'd be using that amount of gas in one year.

Second, how can such a simple device possibly justify that price tag, regardless of how much it saves?

With £8500 there are lots of ways you could save energy, most of them with a fair bit of change left over.

You could buy a more efficient boiler if your current one is not very efficient. You could install a 4kW solar PV system. You could possibly insulate the exterior walls, depending on the size of the house.