Electric heating with smart thermostats?

piggeh

I took out the old storage heaters in my flat as one wasn't working and the other was over 20 years old and looked a bit ugly. I need to work out the best solution for heating the flat in the future.

I rarely used the storage heaters when they were in as the flat was never that cold. Being the middle flat it gets heating from above and below. The windows are being replaced so it should be warmer still. As such I wouldn't turn on a storage heater apart from use of the convector function (which is not that energy efficient).

So I was thinking of installing electric oil filled radiators, or a heater panel, but I was wondering if any of these can be used with the smart thermostat devices? It would be handy to turn it on whilst travelling home so I can just use occasionally, rather than have anything on a set timer or constantly thermostatically controlled when I am not in the house. I read a few of the websites and it is not clear if these can work with electric radiators or the like. Has anyone come across similar or know what may be the most efficient way to heat a flat if it just needs occasional heating?

Owain_Moneysaver

Most of the smart thermostats will be designed for controlling a central heating boiler and so will only be rated to about 3 amps (700 watts)

If you want to control a heating load in the kilowatts range you will need a contactor, and each heater would have to be wired back to the contactor.

piggeh

How about If a radiator has digital controls built in, would it just need a signal to say to turn on/off, or turn down/up? ie a way for a smart device just to interface with the individual digital controls?

ed110220

What about a split air conditioner, if you have space on the wall outside or balcony etc for the outside unit?

In heating mode it will give a lot more heat per unit of electricity than any resistance electrical heating. The latter will give 1 kWh of heat for every kWh of electricity but one of the better air conditioners such as the Daikin FTXM-M range should give roughly 4 kWh of heat for every kWh of electricity, though the exact efficiency will depend on the outside temperature.

You can of course use it for cooling too in summer.

piggeh

Unfortunately I don't have an outside space to put one.

I have seen these http://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.uk/haverland-smart-wave-electric-radiators

Which apparently use sensors to only turn on if someone is in the room, and can be controlled by mobile apps. Closest thing I've seen to 'smart' radiators although they act individually of each other (I guess not a big issue in a small flat).

matty2767

I don't know if it would solve your query but I have Tado smart thermostat for 'normal' gas central heating. I know it will also work underfloor heating and air conditoning, have a look at their website

Owain_Moneysaver

piggeh wrote: »

Unfortunately I don't have an outside space to put one.

You can get air conditioners which are all in one unit and just have twin duct holes (and a condensate pipe) through the wall eg

zeupater

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

You can get air conditioners which are all in one unit and just have twin duct holes (and a condensate pipe) through the wall eg

Hi

... and for that kind of price you'd likely get a decent performance and much quieter split system from a top brand fully fitted ....

HTH
Z