Electric Economy 7 Dimplex CXL 24 replacement storage heater(s)

QrizB

littleteapot said:

What about using a different coolant - something with a much higher thermal capacity?  Though once you take into account it would have to be fluid enough to circulate and be pumped through the system, have sufficiently rapid heat transfer properties, be non volatile, non flammable and preferably non corrosive and non toxic you would probably very limited in coolant options.

Water is more-or-less the highest heat capacity liquid that's suitable (there's a list of examples here, and I don't fancy using ammonia as my heat transfer medium).

What you can do is use a thermal store, where the heat storage medium is a solid or a phase-change gel (a bit like those pocket hand warmers) and you pump water through it to extract the heat. There are various options from eg. Sunamp or Tepeo) but they are still expensive (the Sunamp Thermino 300E, "equivalent to a 300 litre water tank", is almost £3k).

And you've essentially reinvented the storage heater, except rather than storing the heat in a box of bricks on the wall in the room you're storing it in a box of something-else in a cupboard, and then using hot water to move the heat from the cupboard into the room.

For under £1000 (and that's a fancy one, there are cheaper options) you could simply buy a modern HHR storage heater to replace the old one and avoid all the complications of wet plumbing.

Solarchaser

CSI_Yorkshire said:

That's a really interesting project - so it wasn't a stupid idea, just a big and complex one.  And almost certainly not suitable for a flat.

Probably not suitable for a flat.
The complexity was because of having to use horizontal tanks, having to use more than one, and also using the tanks for heating and hot water... but not using the water in the cylinder, instead heating from the coils.

Scot_39

BUFF said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

PJ2000 said:

I really am surprised that there don’t seem to be many modern options for economy 7 users - other than another ugly Dimplex!

There are also Elnur and Stiebel (and a few other smaller names).

Including Creda - Dimplex's sister company with afaik a slightly simpler & cheaper range of HHR storage heaters.

Do Creda now do an HHR certified NSH - it's a formal test level - not a marketing TLA - last time I checked their TSRE - whilst it was using a similar configurable controller to the old non RF Dimplex - it wasn't HHR certified.

It's probably not in Dimplex's interest to have a cheaper model certified.

Although one of the regular posters on the Quantum - seems to quite like their old Creda which still runs as well as Quantum - less lossy than others perhaps - but not HHR certified.

Edit

Pretty soon after being kicked off of EMEB Heatwise by EOn and onto E10 - which wassignificantly more expensive off peak - one of my neighbours switched to E7 and then onto a cheap 2 year fix - and had the same problem - running out of heat by evening - the following summer they switched to Quantums - and were far happier with them when asked later on.

I got a quote - but that was before electricity near doubled - and the pay back was too long to justify it.