Electric heating for shop - storage heaters or what ?

I understand the application in "big shops" - but I can't think of one shop within 30 miles of ours that's that hi-tech...

Rural West Cork, Ireland, here - probably a little behind the times in retail trends - but we love it that way..

Adrian

HI Theo

A general mix of arts & crafts - we do have a fitting room for pullovers, knitted hats etc... Actually - less of a fitting room - more of a corridor

Adrian

At my place of work - which is closing in a few months so no money will be spent - the heating system is dreadful. Most colleagues use fan heaters at their feet every minute they are in the office. I don't because I hate the noise.

This last winter I set up a 150 watt "health" inra-red lamp using a Philips Ruby lamp pointing in my general direction and found it quickly made me toasty warm. Quite astonishingly effective. In fact, better than the 2 kW fan heater that I have available. No-one cares about electricity consumption - this was done purely for my comfort.

Interesting - I think the theory is that long-range I-R actually heats people rather than heating the air....

Thanks Adrian

...

Now, I would see that as an opportunity to be the only shop in the area where there is always a nice warm blast of air to welcome people in on a cold winter's day.

Colin Bignell

we installed that in our company which as sited in a converted car showroom... we had a sodding big gas boiler heating some water rads and where we couldn't site them air curtains fed by hot water. They are very good in that they blow hot air down reversing the trend of convection.

they weren't coolers, but we overrode the thermostats in summer to provide some sort of breeze.

HI Colin

Well - yes - but at a price.....

Adrian

That is the problem with marketing. You often don't know what is going to work until after you have tried it. Perhaps a free hot coffee with every purchase on cold winter days instead?

Colin Bignell

That's true (about not knowing what's going to work until afterwards)

Adrian

Adrian,

Mother came from Athenry where I spent most of my school summer holidays and we used to go down for Christmas as well

Glue is still doing the job. Customer has since returned to buy even more from us !!

Paul Mc Cann

Ah, right. 'West' rather than 'South West'....

Grand - good investment then! Great stuff, that glue. I shall probably regret saying so - but I've never known it to fail....

All the best Adrian

A heated floor mat by the till may be an option -- perhaps look for a "cattle heater mat".

Thomas Prufer

We kept two coffeepots going (one for decaf), and a selection of teas. Customers took to bringing in plates of homemade biscuits...Happy customers spend money.

Hi Thomas

That's a thought! Thanks

Adrian

The same shops will probably also sell cattle prods if you want to ginger the volunteers up a bit

Owain

Now don't go giving me ideas

- at least - not in a public forum!

Seriously though - the folks are grand...

Adrian

Indeeed, McDonalds put better sound systems in to achieve the same thing - avoids the awful muzak sound quality in some places at least.

Sure Big Macs are a leather sole... you eat it, but it is as though you ate nothing, like cardboard.

Sorry to join in so late. I've been told this about air curtains before but never understood how they work. If you are blasting a lot of hot air in front of the door, why doesn't it escape outside when the door is opened?

Because the airstream is angled slightly away from the door.