Micro ultra high efficiency electric room heaters..... any good?

[Trigger]

I see the Dyson unit is in the list and is "quiet". Oh no it isn't! I don't know how efficient it is but it is as noisy as any other fan heater IMO.

For localised direct heat, Infrared heaters are very good. Point them where you want the heat (so you could direct them to yourself). Plus side - silent (I hate noisy heaters!). Down side - very very bright (I block out the heater by having the laptop screen between it and my eyes).

I find "wearable heaters" very good. I was given a Heated Vest at Christmas to use outside when working on the van and stuff. You plug in a USB powerpack that goes into a pocket to provide the energy. It is really good and I wear it inside under a jumper as I like the room a fair bit warmer than the OH. Doing this keeps us both happy - A wide selection here: https://amzn.to/3rym7AV
That is maybe the most energy-efficient as it is such localised heating?

Any thing DYSON makes me cringe my Son had a house clearance and removal business for some years and I helped him at times we frequently got Dyson vacuum cleaners in the clearance and we found them to be pretty bad, poor vacuum and unreliable, had difficult selling them on as well , most car boots have Dysons for sale in abundance so that tells me something, , friend has a Dyson electric heater and he doesn't like that either. There are folks out there that love them of course but not us .

 

[wildebus]

Any thing DYSON makes me cringe my Son had a house clearance and removal business for some years and I helped him at times we frequently got Dyson vacuum cleaners in the clearance and we found them to be pretty bad, poor vacuum and unreliable, had difficult selling them on as well , most car boots have Dysons for sale in abundance so that tells me something, , friend has a Dyson electric heater and he doesn't like that either. There are folks out there that love them of course but not us .

People rave about them, don't they! We tried a Dyson we bought from a local reseller at the local weekly car boot (He was called "Jimmy the Hoover"). It was pants. went in the skip when we did some clearing out.

The OH loves Dyson things for some reason which is why I bought her the Tower Cooler/Heater. Very expensive for what it is. Had one recall for some reason and had to send it away.
Now I DO like those Dyson Airblade hand dryer things that are fitted in some public loos (I think IKEAs always have them?). THOSE are good and be great to have a full body-sized one for when you come out the shower

 

[trevskoda]

We are now in the habit of closing all the doors to each and every room as we go in and out of them so what the ever and always reliable @wildebus has to say is as always oh so very true, so thanks for your thoughts David.

My house is a large and long, quite well insulated bungalow that has masses of West facing windows and an enormous log burner in the very large sitting room, (we blocked up the external for this some years ago to block the gale force wind that used to blow through it believing that there were enough air leaks from various other points of the house to supply the all important ventilation). So we are now running our wood burner every single day knowing we have enough wood to last us for at least the next 2 to 3 years.
So far this year our heating hasn't been on at all and it will remain off until the knees start to knock!! We might/will be buying a heater to turn on for a few minutes whilst we take a shower, but apart from that we are going to try and man it out!!

You should not have any 3 pin electrics in a shower room, unless you are trying to get rid of someone.

 

[trevskoda]

When it comes to having a boiler that does water and central heating it is hard to know just what to do sometimes. If it has come on to heat the water, probably best to leave it running a bit more for the central heating? And it if is doing a couple of rooms, may as well open rads to do a coup!e more you may use? But where does it end?

Now the optimum temp according to Trev is 21C? If that were the case, we would be having the heating on all year round as it rarely gets to 21C in the UK for a whole day even in summertime .
I think I will stick to turning the heating on when needed, and in the rooms being used. Trev .... 2400L of oil in a year sounds rather a lot to me? I filled my tank in February and last week I ordered oil to take me to close to full again ... 600L. Now this was used in mostly the warmer months, but I don't expect to have to get more until next February so at the very worst around 1600L in the year? I don't think I have ever had more than three deliveries in one year and would usually not go below 40% on a 1200L tank.
The house is occupied 24/7 so it is not like we don't have the heating on during the day at all either.

P.S. I watched the second video after posting it. It was quite interesting although a bit random (I enjoy the way that guy waffles on so still liked it ) and had some good stuff in it. I'd recommend watching it if not done so.

It should come on and off by itself with maybe 10/15 mins on and 20 or longer of depending on the state of home insulation, water and rads are independent of each other working of there own stats through a programmer.

 

[trevskoda]

Any thing DYSON makes me cringe my Son had a house clearance and removal business for some years and I helped him at times we frequently got Dyson vacuum cleaners in the clearance and we found them to be pretty bad, poor vacuum and unreliable, had difficult selling them on as well , most car boots have Dysons for sale in abundance so that tells me something, , friend has a Dyson electric heater and he doesn't like that either. There are folks out there that love them of course but not us .

Nothing wrong with the old simple hoover junior with a bag from the fifties.

 

[trevskoda]

People rave about them, don't they! We tried a Dyson we bought from a local reseller at the local weekly car boot (He was called "Jimmy the Hoover"). It was pants. went in the skip when we did some clearing out.

The OH loves Dyson things for some reason which is why I bought her the Tower Cooler/Heater. Very expensive for what it is. Had one recall for some reason and had to send it away.
Now I DO like those Dyson Airblade hand dryer things that are fitted in some public loos (I think IKEAs always have them?). THOSE are good and be great to have a full body-sized one for when you come out the shower

I would rather have the downward hand warmer/dryers as you can pull your pants out at the front and warm fido.

 

[maingate]

Only heating one room is incorrect, you heat the whole house at even 21c, how do you get to the loo or kitchen with doors closed, do you keep sarnies and a bucket at hand.

Exactly Trev.

What nobody seems to realise in this thread so far is that a house is really an enormous 'heatsink'. It absorbs heat from the air and stores it in the brickwork and foundations ..... lots of it in Summer. In Winter it slowly gives back that heat to the outside but also to the inside. That is why only a little heating is required in Autumn and early Winter. If background heating is used constantly then the inbuilt heat in the fabric of the house is maintained longer.

It is October and my heating (set at 20 degrees) rarely comes on more than once, usually only in the early hours. To save energy I have also moved my (mobile) thermostat to about 1.5 metres (5 feet) from a radiator. This slightly shortens the heating cycle as the thermostat detects the temperature has increased to the set value. I also make the most of solar (ie sunshine) to optimise the natural heating upstairs by opening all doors of the rooms on the sunny side of the hose in the mornings.

I have reduced the hot water temperature setting which is now more efficient. I could not reduce the heating temperature too much on the boiler because we have microbore pipework. It works fine after reducing the temperature by 8 degrees however. If you have the normal size copper heating pipework then you can drop the temp. value even more.

 

[SquirrellCook]

Exactly Trev.

What nobody seems to realise in this thread so far is that a house is really an enormous 'heatsink'. It absorbs heat from the air and stores it in the brickwork and foundations ..... lots of it in Summer. In Winter it slowly gives back that heat to the outside but also to the inside. That is why only a little heating is required in Autumn and early Winter. If background heating is used constantly then the inbuilt heat in the fabric of the house is maintained longer.

It is October and my heating (set at 20 degrees) rarely comes on more than once, usually only in the early hours. To save energy I have also moved my (mobile) thermostat to about 1.5 metres (5 feet) from a radiator. This slightly shortens the heating cycle as the thermostat detects the temperature has increased to the set value. I also make the most of solar (ie sunshine) to optimise the natural heating upstairs by opening all doors of the rooms on the sunny side of the hose in the mornings.

I have reduced the hot water temperature setting which is now more efficient. I could not reduce the heating temperature too much on the boiler because we have microbore pipework. It works fine after reducing the temperature by 8 degrees however. If you have the normal size copper heating pipework then you can drop the temp. value even more.

This is only valid if the building is correctly insulated. Very few are. I’m building an extension at work and current building regulations are out of date, that said even the those standards are not adhered to by the building contractors in this area. It’s harder than you think to avoid all cold bridges. Then the hassle of getting your air heat recovery system sorted with adequate ventilation. All good fun.

 

[Molly 3]

I’ve got that one that’s the No1 in that list and it’s crap it heats a space of about 3 foot at full pelt its in the box wae all the other crap I bought on Amazon during the boring nights of lockdown. And it’s noisy.

Can you let the secret out of the bag and say what the wattage is ?

 

[Vanterrier]

We have a large SW facing conservatory which gets pretty warm even in winter even with relatively low sunlight. The doors to the house are left open so the heat moves into the living areas and bedrooms. I wish I could store this heat as it obviously disappears pretty quickly when the sun goes down.
Short of filling the conservatory with black bags full of water or whatever to move indoors, I can't see a sensible way of storing this free heat.. ideas?

K

 

[Millie Master]

We have a large SW facing conservatory which gets pretty warm even in winter even with relatively low sunlight. The doors to the house are left open so the heat moves into the living areas and bedrooms. I wish I could store this heat as it obviously disappears pretty quickly when the sun goes down.
Short of filling the conservatory with black bags full of water or whatever to move indoors, I can't see a sensible way of storing this free heat.. ideas?

K

Me neither, however what we do is to dry all the washing and dog towels, soaking up the sun in the free heat.

 

[maingate]

We have a large SW facing conservatory which gets pretty warm even in winter even with relatively low sunlight. The doors to the house are left open so the heat moves into the living areas and bedrooms. I wish I could store this heat as it obviously disappears pretty quickly when the sun goes down.
Short of filling the conservatory with black bags full of water or whatever to move indoors, I can't see a sensible way of storing this free heat.. ideas?

K

You already are storing the heat in the fabric of your home. If you did not have a Conservatory your heating bills would be slightly higher.

 

[trevskoda]

Exactly Trev.

What nobody seems to realise in this thread so far is that a house is really an enormous 'heatsink'. It absorbs heat from the air and stores it in the brickwork and foundations ..... lots of it in Summer. In Winter it slowly gives back that heat to the outside but also to the inside. That is why only a little heating is required in Autumn and early Winter. If background heating is used constantly then the inbuilt heat in the fabric of the house is maintained longer.

It is October and my heating (set at 20 degrees) rarely comes on more than once, usually only in the early hours. To save energy I have also moved my (mobile) thermostat to about 1.5 metres (5 feet) from a radiator. This slightly shortens the heating cycle as the thermostat detects the temperature has increased to the set value. I also make the most of solar (ie sunshine) to optimise the natural heating upstairs by opening all doors of the rooms on the sunny side of the hose in the mornings.

I have reduced the hot water temperature setting which is now more efficient. I could not reduce the heating temperature too much on the boiler because we have microbore pipework. It works fine after reducing the temperature by 8 degrees however. If you have the normal size copper heating pipework then you can drop the temp. value even more.

All good except m bore should only be used upstairs, down stairs should be on 15mm or 22mm main feed from the motor valves teed of at rad juntions, boiler safety stat should be set about 70c, some have a hidden one inside the box in case the main one fails if your room stat/tank stat goes awal.

 

[Molly 3]

We have a large SW facing conservatory which gets pretty warm even in winter even with relatively low sunlight. The doors to the house are left open so the heat moves into the living areas and bedrooms. I wish I could store this heat as it obviously disappears pretty quickly when the sun goes down.
Short of filling the conservatory with black bags full of water or whatever to move indoors, I can't see a sensible way of storing this free heat.. ideas?

K

If, you could find way to store it you would be richer than Elon Musk

 

[Hugh]

I used to live in Devon and my house had a multi-fuel burner in the sitting room (standalone one. not linked to anything else)
When I looked into getting Cavity Wall Insulation, I was told because of the burner, I had to have a 7" ventilation hole in the wall to the outside.
And it had to be permanantly open irrespective of if the burner was being used or not. Not heard anything so stupid as that, especially as only used to use the fire (which had a proper lined flue all the way up the original chimney so had all the right installation done) just a few days a year.

I didn't bother with the insulation as I didn't want a bloody great hole in the wall basically (even though I could have just put a cover over it, it was more a principle thing).

Are you sure it wasn't supposed to be 7 square inches, rather that 7" diameter?

 

[Vanterrier]

If, you could find way to store it you would be richer than Elon Musk

Might have another look then...

K

 

[wildebus]

Are you sure it wasn't supposed to be 7 square inches, rather that 7" diameter?

who knows. it was years ago.

 

[DACS]

It is worth considering improving your heating controls, especially as fuel prices rise. I fitted the Wiser Smart Heating system which allows me to programme the temperature of each room with different temperatures for different times of the day. In simple terms, I can heat the bedrooms at night and the living rooms during the day. Hallways etc. can be kept cooler as well.

 

[trevskoda]

It is worth considering improving your heating controls, especially as fuel prices rise. I fitted the Wiser Smart Heating system which allows me to programme the temperature of each room with different temperatures for different times of the day. In simple terms, I can heat the bedrooms at night and the living rooms during the day. Hallways etc. can be kept cooler as well.

Does not work as heat from hot rooms will travel to colder rooms, that tec went out with Nelsons eye and was proven to be a con, same as rad valves fitted downstairs when it shoud be the room stat which sets the heat.

 

[Frogman]

What's all the fuss about? I grew up in 1940s, one fire in the kitchen range all day, hot coals on a shovel into the sitting room for the evening, hot water bottle at bedtime! And when we had 4 babies in towelling nappies in 1972 the miner's strike gave us 3 hour power cuts!