Panel heaters / what am I doing wrong?

casper_gutman

I don't think it's the case that all panel heaters suffer from this issue. If anything I have the opposite problem!

I switch my heater on in small, cold room (about 10°C) and set the temperature to 18°C. The air temperature in the room feels comfortable after 10-15 minutes. The thermostat on the heater only very gradually creeps up towards 18°C over the course of several hours, with the metal housing of the heater on the side where the controls (and presumably the temperature sensor) are feeling decidedly cool to the touch. I have to turn it down to the low power setting otherwise the room gets uncomfortably overheated.

Luckily in my case this isn't too much of a problem, as I'm sitting right next to it anyway. This is an "OMETA" branded panel heater, similar to this one: 
Ometa Glass Electric Heater, Wall Mounted Radiator or Free Standing Electric Radiator with Wifi Amazon Alexa Google Assistant & Remote, Black Electric Heater in 1500W or 2000W (watts, 2000) : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

danrv

They do sound quite complicated to setup and I did consider them when looking at electric heating.
My cheap convector heaters have electro mechanical thermostats with a low to high dial. I don't know what the temperature is but I just turn it to suit and they cycle on and off.
Very simple to use and have a 24hr timer.

The Adax heaters sound like they're confusing themselves with the overly sensitive thermostats. 
They also may be slow to warm up and therefore will take a while to then heat the room. 
If they need to be set at 24 °C to keep warm then do that regardless of room temperature readings. Probably just a case of getting used to them.

Rippone

danrv said:

If they need to be set at 24 °C to keep warm then do that regardless of room temperature readings. Probably just a case of getting used to them.

ThisIsWeird said:

Can you compensate to some degree using the programmable feature - eg for the morning have it running for a half-hour or so at the silly 25+o, and then automatically back down to closer to 'sensible'? Repeat for the evenings.

Clearly a daft 'solution', but it might mean you don't need to keep adjusting it manually.

But, nuts.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

These last batch of 3 units, they need to be set up at over 25 to warm up the room to the desired temperature. Then, once this is reached, they need to be adjusted again to maintain that temperature.

Let's say I want to keep my flat at 19 degrees. 

Once effective temperature of 19 is reached (by blasting the heating at 25+), these heaters need to be adjusted to a lower temp. To what temperature however is dependent to the outdoor temperature. If outside is around 0 degrees, I found that I need to set them to 23/24. If it's like today, which is around 7 degrees outside, then 21 is enough (if I kept them at 23/24 I would reach probably 20+, thus costing me). Minor adjustments are needed all day as the outdoor temperature changes; the sun may come out, or it may get windy and clouded. 

This is because these heaters can't read the real room temperature because the thermostat is just messed up by the heat emanated by the radiator. 

And I went through 6 of them. And my brother returned 3 more. 

They are not smart, programmable heaters at all.  

Rippone

casper_gutman said:

I don't think it's the case that all panel heaters suffer from this issue. If anything I have the opposite problem!

I switch my heater on in small, cold room (about 10°C) and set the temperature to 18°C. The air temperature in the room feels comfortable after 10-15 minutes. The thermostat on the heater only very gradually creeps up towards 18°C over the course of several hours, with the metal housing of the heater on the side where the controls (and presumably the temperature sensor) are feeling decidedly cool to the touch. I have to turn it down to the low power setting otherwise the room gets uncomfortably overheated.

Luckily in my case this isn't too much of a problem, as I'm sitting right next to it anyway. This is an "OMETA" branded panel heater, similar to this one: 
Ometa Glass Electric Heater, Wall Mounted Radiator or Free Standing Electric Radiator with Wifi Amazon Alexa Google Assistant & Remote, Black Electric Heater in 1500W or 2000W (watts, 2000) : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

Thank you for your insight. Interesting! In a way, you have the same problem as I have with the thermostat giving false readings, just opposite result. If you don't fiddle with the temperature , then you end up toasting and using lots of electricity for no reason. 

Albermarle

Whenever I have used these types of heaters ( in for example hotels or holiday homes) I have assumed they would not be very good at monitoring the actual room temperature, but that the dial controls were just for Low- Medium- High Heat output, and that regular manual adjustment was necessary.
It sounds like from your experience I was probably right !

Rippone

Lot 20 compliant meaning therefore nothing in terms of improved efficiency through sophisticated controls

danrv

I don't think that thermostats on electric radiators and panel heaters are problematic in general.
It's also unlikely that all the Adax heaters are faulty. Maybe a design flaw.
I looked into all sorts of different heaters for my all electric property and considered some of the Economiser type from here:
https://www.electricheatingexpert.co.uk/

Only because they look smart and are wifi controllable with an added hub.
Pricey and does the same job as a cheap oil filled or convector rad of the same power.
Maybe though, the design is such that the thermostats are more accurate, hence the price.