Ecowärme Electric Radiators

[Panrock]

Hi everyone.

I used to have a solid fuel back-boiler Parkray central heating system. These seemed to last about twenty years before rusting and leaking at the back. The most recent failure occurred last year, and this time I replaced the whole system with five programmable Ecowärme Electric Radiators. (There's no gas main in the village). The web page is here: https://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.u...ors-white/  They are controllable both for 'on' timings and temperature, with three (adjustable) warmth levels. I reckon this must be pretty standard.

I have found them to be satisfactory. Suitably set up, they have resulted in heating bills no more than I was previously spending on solid fuel. Moreover, they're 'fit-and-forget', the heating is more even and there's no longer any work or dirt involved in handling the fuel.

They must have internal re-chargeable batteries, since they do not forget their temperature and timing settings when power is interrupted. I'm anxious not to lose these 'settings', since I optimised them over time and the programming procedure is rather fiddly, with the use of a mirror necessary to see the set-up screen in some of the locations.

My question. How long do you think these settings will be stored? Will it be safe to disconnect these radiators from the mains (rather than just turn them off) over the summer season?

Thank you!

Steve

[Mark Hennessy]

No idea, but wouldn't be surprised if settings are held in non-volatile memory that will last for years with no power applied. If there is an internal battery, it's most likely there to keep the clock correct.

Only way to be sure is an internal inspection. Might be extremely interesting...

[ppppenguin]

I don't know about the volatility of the settings but I can't think they are cheap to run despite the makers' claims. (There are several well advertised makes).
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/are-electr...ap-to-run/

They are running on full price electricity at about 12p/kwh. Albeit with 100% efficiency. If you have mains gas at about 3p/kwH and better than 80% boiler efficiency then that should be a lot cheaper. If you have a really well insulated house (at or close to Passivhaus standards) then the cost of space heating is small regardless of heating type.

If you don't have mains gas then the choice of heating system is more difficult. Storage heaters on Economy 7 tariff can be reasonably economical but it's easy to be caught with too little or too much stored heat.

Obviously these electric heaters are simple and fairly inexpensive to fit. A heatpump based electric heating system can give 3kWh of heat for each 1kWh of electricity. Of course it's more complex.

[Panrock]

Hi Mark and Jeffrey,

Yes, the real question is likely to be how long the internal clock can be left to run before its energy source runs down.  I'm naturally hoping it will take a few months in its stride.

Mains gas is not an option in the village, and the perceived cost, space requirement and general upheaval of installing a calor gas or similar installation counted against it.  

I used to have Economy 7. Maybe worth considering again now, but I remember how expensive the on-peak rate was!

The old solid fuel system was dreadfully inefficient, laborious, dirty, and expensive to run. So I readily admit the bar was set low when thinking of a possible replacement! This is still comparatively expensive to run, but it is sooo convenient compared to what went before.

I have a heat pump/ air conditioner in the workshop and agree it's effective.

Steve

[Paul_RK]

Hi Steve,

Looks like quite a similar product to Haverland's range of wall-mounted radiators https://haverland.co.uk/electric-radiators/ - I wouldn't have bought them myself, but our flat has two, one on the landing and the other in the kitchen, as well as seven storage radiators in various rooms and another make of heater in the bathroom. Our actual use has just encompassed three of the storage heaters (two don't work anyway), now and again the Haverland in the kitchen, the bathroom heater at its lowest temperature setting, and three or four Belling Champions on occasion to make up for low settings of the storage heaters.

We've not even tried to use the kitchen Haverland other than in manual mode as and when we've felt cold in there, but have observed that its settings were held at least for a few weeks when powered down. I seem to recall that last year's six month summer rest period, the first since we bought the flat, was long enough for the settings to be lost. On the strength of that I would be leaving the heater powered through the summer if I were at all reluctant to repeat the fairly simple steps required to reinstate manual operation, but I'm not so I won't. My guess would be that the Ecowärme radiators too would forget what they've been told if left without power for months,  but it's only a guess. The manual, https://www.electricradiatorsdirect.co.u...1526987169 , doesn't appear to have anything to say on the subject: why not try a call or a letter to the manufacturers to ask them? I see at the end of the manual there's a note to the effect that EU regulations have forbidden such heaters to be installed without an additional programmable room temperature controller, something that in our situation at least would be a perfectly useless elaboration.

Paul