John MacLeod wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@l6g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:
Thanks for the input. As it happens, I actually have an infra-red spotlamp bulb. I was always afraid to use it, as it was (I think) 200W, which I thought would cause my light fittings and wiring to overheat. I think my father bought it in the 1980's hoping it would relieve his lumbago. But yes, they are certainly a way of getting some instant heat from above.
Al
really, the only time most storage heaters heat a house, is midnight to midday. After that they have given up the ghost.
They are bloody USELESS in the evenings.
Insulation is key - it needs to be to 2010 standards, then you can combine typically off-peak combined with peak via controller. It still needs to be "rabbit hutch sized" though, not some sprawling place :-)
For the OP, a gas mounted wall heater would be a good quick solution. Cheap to buy, cheap to install, cheap to run, do not rip icy cold air through the house and up a flue so the real world efficiency is double that of a radiant gas fire which in a nutshell is why CH was adopted.
Either that or live in the easiest to heat room, heating just that.
You are wasting your time TNP doesn't know anything about heating really and doesn't care. For example how about masonry heaters, they are just big storage heaters and they work quite well.
I agree. One or two of those will be pretty effective and cheaper to run than a gas cooker as they require no additional ventilation. They are also cost less to run than most gas fires.
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A much better version of this (albeit expensive to buy) is the more modern long wavelength infra-red heating element - a flat white ceramic plate with a snaking rib on the front, rather than the old bulbs and tubes. The advantage of these is that they still heat you, but they don't heat the air between you and the heater. In terms of perceived comfort, I'd rate them as three or four times as efficient. I use them in cold, unheatable workshops. I've a 500W one over my joinery bench.
I had a storage heater which worked fine in the evenings in a 1970s house. (Central storage heater with hot air heating. I had added loft insulation and had cavity wall insulation and double glazing done. It was a small house, and being in the middle of a terrace two walls were effectively perfectly insulated. But neighbours in the end of terrace house had individual storage heaters (their central system had died), and it worked for them.)
If you have undersized storage heaters in a poorly insulated sprawling house, then they will be useless in the evening, obviously.
Well he knows that electric storage heaters are shit.
Of course. I have used em.
I've been warning about for years. I now live in a new-build house that's insulated up to the eyeballs, and these last two months it's been hellishly hot upstairs, even with all windows open to try and encourage a through-draft.
And this is Aberdeenshire!!!!
JGH
Quite.
Quite. Very long lifespan indeed. As opposed to some of ribbon-type elements and wire-coil type elements in cheaper fan heaters which just don't stand up to long-term use.
How long is a piece of string? Generally speaking they're quieter than the the fans on domestic heaters of equivalent power, but that's not always so. The Consort heaters to which I referred specifically have a very quiet fan, but a low heat output even from the bigger model. Noise is dependent not only on the type of fan but on the speed at which it is driven and the quality of build. Tangential fans as used on many domestic fan heaters should in theory be quiet
-- and a well-built tangential fan is a quiet design -- but in the application of a cheap fan heater they're usually very poorly built, rapidly become noisy and are usually trying to move a great deal of air through a very difficult path.
Andy Dingley wrote in news:7560e972-6032-41b8- snipped-for-privacy@f25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
That sounds interesting. Can you provide a link to retailer with prices, etc?
I searched and found this page about Lexin flat-screen infrared heating panels which got my interest:
Al
I had a look earlier and could only see the "raw" elements
Hmmm... Evidently not. TLC used to sell them, but they now seem to be offering these instead. Different tech, although the same claimed advantage. Maybe they've been superseded by the next new best thing?
I'm certainly not doing a downer on the ceramic plate infra-red heaters of which there are many types available -- some designed for domestic use. But they're pricey and the OP was emphasising the need to be economical. Heat bulbs were suggested on the grounds of
1) Low initial cost 2) Very low running cost 3) Ability to target the heat very precisely indeed.All radiant heaters target heat, but few do so as accurately as the reflector of a heat bulb.
The OP raised a point regarding the load on the lamp socket. A fair point. However, few plastic lampholders are good for anything, IMHO. I always keep a stock of brass and porcelain lampholders and replace the plastic ones as they disintegrate from normal use.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember John MacLeod saying something like:
I use them as spot heaters, in my workshop and anywhere else it's chilly enough. The cat loves them.
For lampholders, I use the pukka farm ones, designed for stock use. They're a metal body, with a cage in front, suspended from a hook.
That sounds interesting. Do you have a web source for them?
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember John MacLeod saying something like:
Similar to this idea, but this is an American one
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