I saw this heating and cooling method mentioned on Reddit as a less expensive and more easily installable option for heating three small rooms and a kitchen in a first floor flat. It's said to be designed for a large room, though I don't know whether I would need more than one of these, or be able to transfer heat from a single unit in the lounge.
Dunno, but I changed & trimmed your link to (which will still probably wrap) -
58dB, which is roughly the sound of a conversation, but more annoying as it'll be more of a drone. It could also be quite close to your head in a small flat.
Fine for occasional cooling in the summer (it's just a portable a/c unit with proper ducting) but I wouldn't want it droning all winter.
I would look at air to air heatpump units where the compressor and its noise go outside, but you'll need permission for that.
Theo
Its an integrated air-con unit, all the workings are in the inside box. I doubt it would do the whole house from the one unit, a max of 2800 watts, without having to propel the air into other rooms, so it wouldnt heat much more than the one room unless you are in a small well insulated house. Better may be a proper air-con, with one larger outdoor unit, supplying
3 or 4 rooms. Certainly quieter, the one linked is 58db, thats a lot for an indoor unit.
I am not sure about "easily installable" as it needs to be mounted on an outside wall, and then you need large holes in the outside wall, so you will probably still need scaffold to install and fit the outside vent covers. If there are flats above you may get all sorts of issues with putting such large holes in the outside wall.
I see it also uses an external drain pipe, which they show in all the pictures, but don't mention, so you would need to run that down the outside of the flats.
You will need more than one. That is why we put a radiator in each room. I have split units which distribute in the same way. virtually no affect on other rooms. Think of it as any other fan heater, just it costs less to run.
As others have said look at a proper split units. I have Mitsubishi. They will run multi-split units, so one outdoor unit will serve several internal units, each of which provide heating or cooling (in fact everything that unit does) for several internal rooms. You will need internal pipework but its only one smaller hole in the outside wall
Control from an app or Smart Speaker
any questions, feel free to ask...
Dave.
Thanks, yes, that's the other tricky bit.
The mainly indoor feature of it is the main attraction but not if the other aspects of it would be problematic.
Thanks. I really need something that's going to be inside the flat. At present I have two mobile, oil filled radiators bought from the local supermarket. They warm the flat well enough but if there are similar unobtrusive units that are more economical to run that would be helpful.
Appliances Direct brands are just cheap clones, but Olimpia Splendid is one major brand (they are popular in Italy):
It doesn't need to be run down the outside, you can just run a pipe through the wall. Whoever is below may not like condensate dripping on them, though. It is probably possible to run it into the internal drainage system, using a condensate pump as needed (this is common for a/c room units in big buildings which are far from an outside wall).
Bear in mind that all this is at 'outside' temperature, so you may want to insulate pipework so it doesn't encounter the icy air. (it seems these are primarily designed as air conditioners and I wonder how well insulated the 'cold' parts of the unit are, or whether it's a big cold lump inside your room)
You could potentially duct air from one room to another, internally. Won't be as good as running refrigerant (or water) lines though.
The 'indoor' units aren't a terrible idea if planning prevents you having an outdoor unit. But they probably work better in a large and airy Italian apartment than a one bed council flat.
Theo
Oil filled radiators are probably your best option. You might want to consider one of the wall mounted heatpumps for you main room, but they are noisier than splits and you still have the issue of ruddy great holes in the wall and a drain.
I really would try an get permission for a split for your "main" room. If its small you should get a split for the same price as the wall unit. Of course the real issue will be permission...
... oh and electric blankets?
Dave
Also to note Olimpia have some units with secondary fan coils for indoor use: eg you mount the noisy box in the living room and the fan coil in the bedroom:
Theo
I'm sure that works fine and there is zero risk for those who may walking below.
You might cordon off the pavement for half an hour while doing so but you don't need a full access platform, which will be expensive to get to the
13th floor.Theo
After the multiple redirections, it's not clear which of several items within that category it was intended to link to, the big items in the banner at the top were oil filled radiators ...
What happened to the heating system that the original builder installed ?.
Getting permission from the freeholder, however, is another issue.
In my case, it was disconnected about 1975 when they realised that 1960s electric underfloor heating wasn't actually going to be 'too cheap to meter'
Owain
Wait another 15 years and it will be,
In France they use all electric heating because nuclear is very very cheap.
Yet I understand they are going to run down and close a lot of their nuclear power stations under pressure from the anti-nuclear lobby and/or the greens. That is, until the general population see their electricity bills soaring...
I think you will find that that was last years news. Macron thought that was a vote winning stance.
Today:
"Twenty two countries have signed up to the goal of tripling global nuclear energy capacity by 2050, at the UN's COP28 climate change conference.
The heads of state, or senior officials, from Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, *France*, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the USA signed the declaration at the conference taking place in Dubai."
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