New storage heaters vs Sunflow

FirebirdMD

Looking to upgrade/replace some old storage heating units. Have read a couple of historic threads but grateful for up to date advice.

I live on the top floor of an electric-only block of flats. I have five 1980s dimplex storage heaters and one panel heater (which doesn't work). Some of the storage heaters have both day and night (E7) inputs, some just have night with no boost function. I'm looking to upgrade to a system which is more energy efficient. At a minimum I need to replace the panel heater in the main bedroom as it doesn't work, but I feel I may as well upgrade the whole flat at once since I plan to be here quite a few years.

If I stick with storage heating, really I'd like them all to be dual input so I can take advantage cheaper night rates, but also have the option to boost if plans change (or I've not thought far enough ahead). I could do this piecemeal and only replace two heaters now, one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen. The ones in the lounge and second bedroom seem to work well enough so I can probably leave them a few years.

I also sought a quote from Sunflow. A pleasant enough sales rep came around and gave me his pitch. From what I can tell from older posts on this forum, they make big promises, but have mixed reviews in practice. I'm attracted to their claims about more centralised control, 'power down' technology to use less electricity, etc. But I'm less keen on them rewiring my flat's electrics so I no longer get night rate electricity at all (which they claim is required). 

Grateful for any tips.

EssexHebridean

As far as I can see, if their heating system uses daytime electricity to heat the home, it’s likely to be more expensive than storage heaters to run. Their website seems remarkably cagey about how exactly the system works, and what sort of energy input is needed to get the temperature they  are talking about? 

Gerry1

They seem to be just like the Fischer non-storage heaters.  Virtually nothing is more expensive for heating than daytime electricity.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3516223/fischer-storage-heaters/

If you want to change your NSHs, go for High Heat Retention ones with high insulation and a fan to blow out heat only at times when it's needed. Dimplex Quantum gets good reviews but there are others.  They're not cheap but it might be worthwhile as you're planning to stay in residence for a long time.

With the Quantum you don't need two supplies: the internal connections can be wired so that you can program it to use just one 24h circuit, but it's critically important to be absolutely sure that it's following the actual E7 times set by your meter, not just set to what the those times are supposed to be in your region.  If it gets cool in the evening you can have a boost, but this will be at the expensive day rate.

If you opt for any NSHs on a 24h supply, it's a good idea to have a neon indicator on at least one of the E7 outlets so that you can see at a glance when the night rate is active and spot any variance from the hours you've programmed the Quantums for.  Any mismatch can be expensive mistake !

FirebirdMD

Gerry1 said:

They seem to be just like the Fischer non-storage heaters.  Virtually nothing is more expensive for heating than daytime electricity.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3516223/fischer-storage-heaters/

If you want to change your NSHs, go for High Heat Retention ones with high insulation and a fan to blow out heat only at times when it's needed. Dimplex Quantum gets good reviews but there are others.  They're not cheap but it might be worthwhile as you're planning to stay in residence for a long time.

With the Quantum you don't need two supplies: the internal connections can be wired so that you can program it to use just one 24h circuit, but it's critically important to be absolutely sure that it's following the actual E7 times set by your meter, not just set to what the those times are supposed to be in your region.  If it gets cool in the evening you can have a boost, but this will be at the expensive day rate.

If you opt for any NSHs on a 24h supply, it's a good idea to have a neon indicator on at least one of the E7 outlets so that you can see at a glance when the night rate is active and spot any variance from the hours you've programmed the Quantums for.  Any mismatch can be expensive mistake !

Forgive me, what is NSH? Presuming you mean my current storage heaters.

macman

Night Storage Heaters.

COrd

Hello - something we are considering in our new home is infrared heating panels as they are very efficient, you might want to consider these OP. They can be very cheap to buy and run from a mains plug. 

chris_n

Sunflow website quote says it all to me!

“We have taken the German Clay Radiator to the next level. Why trust anyone else?”

wittynamegoeshere

FirebirdMD said:

I also sought a quote from Sunflow. A pleasant enough sales rep came around and gave me his pitch. From what I can tell from older posts on this forum, they make big promises, but have mixed reviews in practice. I'm attracted to their claims about more centralised control, 'power down' technology to use less electricity, etc. But I'm less keen on them rewiring my flat's electrics so I no longer get night rate electricity at all (which they claim is required). 

Grateful for any tips.

Scammers are always pleasant while relieving you of your money.  If a heater is outputting heat then it consumed electricity to produce that heat.  The only exception is a heat pump, and their systems are definitely not heat pumps, they're electric heaters so are no more efficient than the cheapest heater you could buy from Argos or elsewhere.

Any statements about them saving you money are deliberately misleading waffle or just outright lies.  These companies are experts in implying that they're better than they are, while never actually stating anything false.  They lead you to conclude this, but often their sales agents do cross the line into outright lies.

Sadly electric heating has a long history of these sort of companies.  Many are the same ones that get re-born under different names after the previous one became well known as a scam operation.

It's extremely likely that you will spend more, probably much more, on electricity if you have your economy 7 system removed and replaced with their nonsense.  But by the time you work this out, they'll already have your money and will not have provided any documents that state that they will save you money, so you will have no legal comeback.

You will lose money and your heating system will have been skipped and replaced with a worse one.

EssexHebridean

COrd said:

Hello - something we are considering in our new home is infrared heating panels as they are very efficient, you might want to consider these OP. They can be very cheap to buy and run from a mains plug. 

They may indeed be relatively cheap to buy, however for someone using them as there only form of heating they would potentially also be exceptionally expensive to run. Not good advice IMO. They are no more efficient than any other form of plug-in heater.

mmmmikey

...to put some numbers to this, elderly gentleman had installed Fischer heaters at a cost of some £4000. The first year I moved in my electricity bill was £2000ish (a staggering amount 5 years ago ). I sold the Fischer heaters on eBay and used the money to install second hand Dimplex NSHs and halved the electricity bill.

wittynamegoeshere

We had a similar system in our house when we bought it.  Not Fischer, but some other similar nonsense where they appear to imply they're some kind of money saver using pseduo-scientific waffle.  They'd hacked out the existing radiator system plumbing circuit and installed electric radiators.  Most are on external walls, so a good proportion of the heat goes through the wall instead of into the room.  Also they're stuffed full of dust and can't be cleaned out so stank when I tried them.

A neighbour had already told us that the previous occupiers had bills in the thousands, and it's not hard to see why.

We're currently using freestanding oil-filled radiators which, due to not being bolted to external walls, are cheaper to run than the voodoo super ones that are disconnected and will be removed eventually.  Eventually we'll install a heat pump system, but this will have to be an air-to-air system due to the pipework having all been butchered - there are copper stumps popping out of the concrete floor that have been walloped flat with a hammer.  To be fair, I probably wouldn't have re-used 70-year old pipework anyway, but I definitely don't have the option now.