UKC

Has anyone experience of these new style electric radiators that claim to be super efficient? 'Rointe' is one brand, though loads of different manufacturers and importers seem to have appeared from nowhere in last 6 months, using oil or clay mediums.

Living in an old cob building, to change from 70s storage heaters to a new wet system would be a nightmare to install. I have been advised modern electric heaters operating with a central control, planned or on demand heating not on Economy 7 is the way to go.

I am hoping someone with direct experience of them can comment!

Cheers

In reply to Shone:NO mention of any such 'new' system that I can see, I looked on Which , but they just have the same old stuff.

Got me stumped...

Was it a salesman telling you this ?
( Salesmen know that New Daz, sells better than old Daz, (with minuscule changes, if any)

Nothing new on Which
http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/home-he...

Nothing new on uswitch either
http://www.uswitch.com/energy-saving/guides/energy-efficient-heaters/

Is it this perhaps ?
http://www.ecowarmth-sw.com/

In reply to Jim C: Sorry you said Modern , not ' new' but I still see that even modern electric heating is fairly expensive,

In reply to Shone:

All electric heaters are exactly 100% efficient.
The only differences between types is how the heat is transferred, radiation, convection, or conduction (fan).
They all use the same amount of electricity for the same amount of heat.
Old ones are as good as new ones.

In reply to David Riley:

In a power station boiler you have to but the heat in, and then you want the heat to come back out in people's homes.

If I burn a million tonnes of coal in a non supercritical boiler coal fired boiler say, I will convert that heat into electricity, but that same electrical product will yield , in heat in the home , say only 40% of the total heat that went into creating it.

So not 100% efficient on those terms.

In reply to Jim C:

Don't forget RF losses... Racking my brains to see how else efficiency could be improved and all I came up with was reducing heat transfer to the wall via the mounting bracket(s).

In reply to Shone:

You aren't burning coal to produce electricity, nor converting steam energy, or any other form of intermediate energy production where losses occur.
You are converting electricity to heat and any inefficiency will be lost as... heat. So it doesn't matter a damn what sort of heaters you use from that point of view. However how you store and release the heat is a different matter and researching the most effective heaters to do this against purchase cost is the key.

In reply to Jim C:
Jim,
The ecowarmth web site is an example, I have had several firms fliers through my letter box importing German heaters in various guises. They seem to be in two groups, clay or oil filled.

On the net there are lots of discussions about electric being 100% efficient at point of conversion etc, but I just can't find any users! Getting an existing user recommendation is really what I am after!

Cheers

In reply to digby:

He said not on Economy 7. So any storage would only be a disavantage.

In reply to Shone:

I think these heaters are claiming to be more efficient because they are radiant and heat you, if you are in front of them, without heating the room.

In reply to Shone:
>

Indeed, that is the point I was making, they focus on the 100% efficiency ( at point of conversion) but the cost of creation is where the expense is added as it is so inefficient to create/convert the largely coal fuel to the more convienient electricity. You are never going to recover that costbthrough any kind of 'efficiency'

It is a bit like marketing a Mars bar Lite, with a tiny amount less fat , and sugar than the original.
They are correct it is Lite ( in comparison) and they get to talk about the good aspects, and ignore the elephant in the room.

The Elephant in your room is electic heating is expensive to start with compared to other options , so the 100% efficiency is irrelevant .

Electric isn't necessarily expensive. You have to forget mains gas as usually it's not available.

I found wet electric to be cheaper than oil.

Modern storage heaters are about efficient discharge - that is, heat when you need it. We had them in a rented house, fans to discharge them, economy 10 electric plan.

The most important thing to do with electric heating is get the right tariff - not economy 7 (heaters charged 12-5 am will be cold by the evening).

In reply to Shone:
I am not sure if these heaters are just the result of a clever marketing ploy, but as already mentioned electric heaters are 100% efficient, 1kw of electric consumed will produce 1kw of heat.

I would like to think there has been a new invention, but there is one method to get more than 1kw of heat out of 1kw of electric and that is to use a heat pump. Heat pumps rely on a pumped refrigerant fluid but there is no mention of any such method in the advertising.

However the release of heat produced by these new radiators appears to have a better control and heat release mechanism. This could result in improved heat dispersion and circulation. In turn this could make the room feel warmer overall than it would otherwise. In other words the same feel of warmth could be achieved with less electric consumed.

It would be good to hear from someone who has actually used these heaters to see if they stack up to the claims.