More flexible electric heaters

MalthouseMark

EssexHebridean said:

Having lived with a Quantum, I have to say I would still advocate for them not being suitable in bedrooms unless you are comfortable sleeping in a fairly warm room. Although they do retain the heat well, there is still some heat leakage - indeed we used to work on the basis that the one in our hallway didn't need to be set to discharge any heat on all but the coldest of mornings, as the gentle background heat it emitted while charging was fine for less chilly conditions. 

I like the bedroom toasty. My wife likes the window open often. It might not be the best choice for us then!

MalthouseMark

@tamste Thanks, that's a useful comparison. As per a post I made a few moments back I've got an electrican coming tomorrow so will ask about what's possible when he's here.

GDB2222

MalthouseMark said:

GDB2222 said:
It looks worse because you have swapped the usage figures round!

” 9,167 kWh x 0.56 = 5176.228 kWh at 6.008p/kWh = £310.99 on heating per year
9,167 kWh x0.44 = 3,990.770 kWh at 34.875p/kWh = £1,391.78 for everything else”

Try again.

And your figures don’t show any saving from heating your hot water at off peak rates.

Also, it doesn’t look like the installation cost will be anything like £7k. It’s just the difference between replacing your existing heaters with night storage vs non-storage, which is at most a few hundred per heater. 

If the saving in energy cost  is £500 a year and the extra installation cost is £2000, then the pay back would be 4 years, which seems pretty reasonable to me. 

If you just don’t want storage heaters and the complications of e7 that’s your prerogative, of course,  and this thread has rather deviated away from your original question. 

You're right that my figures were probably confused - I have dyscalculia so my first set were done with a calculator probably whilst sitting in bed. I've saved the spreadsheet now and here's a re-work. Either way it's a long recoup period.

Yes the installation might not be £7k. I was going off the £1000 per room original statement for consistency. I'd disagree that it's a few hundred per heater though, having seen the prices online and compared them to what I've got.

"If you just don’t want storage heaters and the complications of e7 that’s your prerogative, of course,  and this thread has rather deviated away from your original question."

This thread deviated instantly from my original question which I tried to say wasn't about saving lots of money but was for comfort and convenience. I don't see the point of heating my lounge from 20:00-21:00 if I've gone to bed at 20:30 (which isn't early if you rise at 05:00). Similarly if want to go to bed at 20:30 then turning the heating on in there at 20:15 to take the chill off is not unreasonable. It's not a question of "saving" money as much as "wasting heating". It feels odd to go to bed with three heaters blasting out in the lounge and yet the bathroom towel rail is cold when you're getting ready for bed.

I often feel like the heaters are on in the wrong part of the house and it is frustrating. That's not saving money as much as wanting to not completely waste it heating the wrong part of the house because of hour-long blocks on the timer.

Similarly if I want 19C one day but another day it is pretty chilly and I want to bump it up to 21C that's hard on my existing system with its "ECO" and "Comfort" zones which are pretty fixed.

When we had a house with a boiler and radiators I'd have just tweaked up the thermostat for the day and instantly made the house warmer - or tweaked the thermostat on an individual radiator if I wanted warmth, say, in my office.

Our existing heating (the Rointe) allows hour blocks. That seems insane to me. It's also a pain to adjust simply short of bunging it on manual and remembering to put it back on auto later.

I came on here looking for more flexible options and everyone piled on telling me Dimplex Quantums and E7 will save me money.

I did try to reply that this wasn't about saving as much as comfort.

The original comment was £1000 per room, hence the £7k assumed cost.

That's a huge expense. It's not like it's the only thing I've got to pay for in this life so it has to be balanced against other outlays. I'd love to have solar panels too but that's not happening either. I don't have that sort of money.

I don't mind a small expense of upgrading a radiator or two in key rooms. That's what I came on to ask about. The answer has effectively been "you need to upgrade everything and swap to E7 to save money" and I've simply been pointing out that that is quite an expensive option and would take years to recover from.

I'm not against Dimplex Quantum - far from it. One of my neighbours has told me that this is what they have and they are very happy with them. I can go and look at them properly, in the flesh, to see how flexible they are. As it happens I've got an electrician coming in tomorrow to fix something so will ask about E7 in the building and what can/can't be done for our building. It might allow us to switch some rather than all and recoup some of the expense.

Each time I've come back with a reply it's more of an observation that they may appear to save money but the cost of installation alone is huge and so the saving isn't the b-all and end-all of it.

I'm interested in Quantums and E7. I'll be looking to see if my particular home with its particular wiring might allow certain devices to be swapped. But I'll be thinking very carefully about how much it costs up front.

I’m afraid that an energy forum is predisposed towards saving energy and/or money.

Maybe you should consider drastically cutting back the hours your Rointe heaters are on. Then buy some fan heaters or convection heaters, and just use them as your main heating. They cost exactly the same to run as the  Rointe heaters, but they heat up faster, and they don’t stay hot after you switch them off. You can get them with thermostats and time switches. You can even automate them by using Tapo sockets. They typically cost £10-20 to buy.

EssexHebridean

danrv said:

EssexHebridean said:

Having lived with a Quantum, I have to say I would still advocate for them not being suitable in bedrooms unless you are comfortable sleeping in a fairly warm room. 

Yes.An example of unsuitability would be warm days and chilly evening/nights. Maybe, with the storage section turned off, the boost element could be used instead.

It's a far cheaper option to just have a panel heater installed though, ideally with a timer, so it can just be popped on to take the chill off before going to bed, and first thing in the morning. 

We had a small storage heater installed in our bedroom at the flat, and bitterly regretted it - it literally never got used after the first couple of nights we had it on. We debated about switching it for a similarly sized Quantum but feeling even the low level of heat loss from the one in the hallway, decided that even that was going to create a warmer environment than we were happy with overnight! 

danrv

I bought five of these as an experiment:

https://www.toolstation.com/2kw-convector-heater/p98046

I'm not too bothered about temperature number readout that was mentioned in the original post.  Just turn the dial to adjust the thermostat.
I like that they're quick to heat up,  just having a couple of elements. Makes them flexible to use and suited to a random or spontaneous heating schedule.
The timer can easily be set in 15min intervals for any rountine space heating. A flick of a switch can then put the heater in manual mode or off.
As long as the heater has power, the timer settings remain. 

There's also Tesy Wifi heaters that have an app for control. I did consider them as a cheap, modern system. 

https://www.diy.com/departments/tesy-1500w-liveco-cloud-electric-panel-heater-cn051-/3800879207961_BQ.prd?&&&&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwtu9BhC8ARIsAI9JHame3QhfuSCCX8LForFH4Mq9423S2U2iJTTP5GTU8OAxdT0wWF89xisaAsWtEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

If converting back to E7 and HHR storage heaters is not a possibility, the cheapest available tariff is a must with any direct electric space heaters. 
Best used in smaller, well insulated rooms. 

Gerry1

danrv said:

As long as the heater has power, the timer settings remain.

That sounds a bit concerning.  I know you have an air-to-air heat pump for downstairs, but someone relying on these heaters when away on a winter holiday might return to a flooded house if a brief power cut meant they defaulted to Off and the pipes burst.

danrv

Gerry1 said:

danrv said:

As long as the heater has power, the timer settings remain.

That sounds a bit concerning.  I know you have an air-to-air heat pump for downstairs, but someone relying on these heaters when away on a winter holiday might return to a flooded house if a brief power cut meant they defaulted to Off and the pipes burst.

I should have put remain accurate. The heater stays in timer mode as it's a mechanical switch.
A brief power cut would just halt the built in clock for however long the power's off.

Gerry1

danrv said:

Gerry1 said:

danrv said:

As long as the heater has power, the timer settings remain.

That sounds a bit concerning.  I know you have an air-to-air heat pump for downstairs, but someone relying on these heaters when away on a winter holiday might return to a flooded house if a brief power cut meant they defaulted to Off and the pipes burst.

The heater stays in timer mode as it's a mechanical switch.
A brief power cut would just halt the built in clock for however long the power's off.

Sounds a bit primitive.  I'd have expected an electronic timer with backup.

MalthouseMark

GDB2222 said:I’m afraid that an energy forum is predisposed towards saving energy and/or money.

Yup, that's why I didn't post it in an energy forum. From memory it was in "In My Home" which covers appliances.

@QrizB "I've also asked for this thread to be moved to the Energy forum, where the rest of the electric heating geeks hang out."

Oh well.

I've got all I can out of this. I'll leave it there. Thanks all.

danrv

Gerry1 said:

danrv said:

Gerry1 said:

danrv said:

As long as the heater has power, the timer settings remain.

That sounds a bit concerning.  I know you have an air-to-air heat pump for downstairs, but someone relying on these heaters when away on a winter holiday might return to a flooded house if a brief power cut meant they defaulted to Off and the pipes burst.

The heater stays in timer mode as it's a mechanical switch.
A brief power cut would just halt the built in clock for however long the power's off.

Sounds a bit primitive.  I'd have expected an electronic timer with backup.

Yes, as basic as it gets. A doddle to use too.
I guess there must be something in between these and the Rointe type that the OP has.