Fischer - Free Heat

It is a con aimed at the aged and vulnerable.

David presented the following explanation :

I am well aware that it is a con, but why do Trading Standards permit such impossible claims?

Fischer make storage heaters, which save you money, though misleading to talk about "free heat". Are you sure the leaflet wasn't advertising these? (The only other way to get more out electricity is heat pump, but I don't think Fischer sell those.)

Did anyone see the programme about Nibe exhaust air heat pumps costing people thousands of pounds to run? (I think it was Rip Off Britain or possibly Watchdog.) I know that people aren't very technically minded, but the woman on the programme seemed to think that switching from gas central heating to electricity would save her money as "there wouldn't be a gas bill." For as long as I can remember electricity has been regarded as an expensive way to heat a house (referring to bar/convector/fan heaters).

Nibe blamed the specification/installation of the systems - though they didn't seem to have investigated this - and people not using it correctly - it appears you have to sit through videos that explain how to use the system.

I would have thought that a ground source or external air heat pump would be better.

Max Demian has brought this to us :

The leaflet didn't explain what they were selling in any detail - idea seemed to be to get you to contact them for more detail - then no doubt, you get the hard sell. It mentioned 'clay' and no pipes around the house.

"Clay" sounds like the stuff storage heaters store the heat in.

I don't know why they wouldn't talk about off-peak electricity being cheaper. Maybe advertising works better when they don't say what they are advertising.

I love all the TV adverts where they try to show you how much 'better' a new design electric heater is ... using thermometers showing how the 'core' continues to get hot after the power is turned off and how that means you get free heat / energy?

What I hate is that such adverts may trick those who don't understand basic science into thinking they really will save them money (and so should be banned).

The 'issue' could be that *they* don't actually state that you *will* save money, but might / could (which *could* be possible, depending on what you are using already and how suitable that is)?

Cheers, T i m

Try running that one past Lord Sugar!

Probably due to them using storage heaters on an extremely low price for whenever it is supposed to work. I have storage system and to be honest its not so bad, indeed I pay less for my electric only than a neighbour for dual fuel cos she has CH. However its all down to the costs involved and trading one thing off against another. Brian

Might be worth investigating the trusted parts of it, but as I say, some good things can be done on off peak. also a friend of mine has a roof water based heating system which saves a lot even in quite dull weather. No idea how it works but I bet a plumbing leak on the roof would not be fun. Brian

Sounds like a "Proper" solar heater that heats *your* water rather than an EV system that heats everyone elses.

Is this associated with the "You can save THIS MUCH energy with a Smartmeter!!!" (rhetorical question)

J.

Now that's one for the ATA to get its teeth into!

Case in point, my daughter has a SM, and I was looking at the display and feeling suprised at how little it had clocked up for the time of day, and it may well have encouriged me to be less economical.

HOW MUCH! £1727.27 each, even if you go way over the top on installation costs £500 each you still looking at £500+ more than the modern high heat retention true storage heaters. That may actually save you money by not leaking (as much) heat during the day than conventional storeage heaters.

What no 50% discount if you agree to paying a 10% deposit now but I'll have to phone my manager to get approval...

I hope you've put her right and got her to cancel the order and stopped the cheque and/or contacted the card company. Hope it wasn't a Debit Card...

Which is why they advertise a lot on publications aimed at that demographic like ?yours? . More concerning the same adverts often appear in freebie publications issued by councils who then in another part of these free mags warn older people to look out for dodgy traders, if anyone should not be encouraging these just on the right side of being legal claims then it is councils.

Often these people will still have a large house but now unoccupied rooms but still a basic central heating system with limited control for those rooms ,or they don?t know how to turn down radiators. Fischer come along install a room stat in each room and yes in some circumstances the energy bill will go down, as it would have done if someone turned down the radiators or fitted them with TRV s for a fraction of the cost of these heaters.

I got in into a discussion at agricultural show a year or two back where a salesmen was delivering the spell I pursued questions as to why these new fangled storage heaters which is what they are could be any more efficient than old style ones and that one Kilowatt going in cannot be any better between them or any other heating device though how it is let out again may vary. He changed tack and said it was the combined installation which had better thermostatic control than a basic storage heater to which my response was the price between std storage heaters and what they charged for these ones must mean that thermostats were made of precious metals and any one wanting similar accuracy would be better engaging an electrician to wire up some conventional heaters with some sensible placed thermostats from Screwfix or an electrical wholesaler and still save a packet. The audience was getting quite amused at his discomfort at his stage and he suddenly declared ? well sorry I have to go to lunch?.

GH

Like the smart meter adverts, that try to infer you will save money just by having one.

Which again you *might*, if you spend some time looking at the display and adjust your power consumption based on it?

During the winter I don't really care about how many things I've got running in the background because 1) we generally need them on (routers, access points, switches etc) and 2) any wasted energy goes towards heating the house.

But 'most people' don't have clue about what draws what. An elderly neighbour we look after now and again has two ceiling lights, each with 6 x 60W candle lamps. With both on that's 720W ... and if she turns on both of her floor standing uplighter pedestal lamps with (I think) 150W halogen strip lamp in each, we are now over a kW of lighting!

The uplighters can be dimmed but as we know, that doesn't do much towards saving power as they still need a fair bit of power to make them give of any light at all (below that they are *just* heaters). ;-(

So we replaced the 12 x 60W incandescent candles with 12 x 4W LED, she's happy with the light levels and the power / cost saving (~10p/h if my maths is right).

The LED lamps were 36 quid so assuming she has the top lights on for 6 hours each evening she should start saving in a couple of months (minus what it costs extra on her central heating)?

Cheers, T i m

There was one valid way, but I have no idea if it is still available.

Datacentres use a lot of energy for cooling and one company was installing servers designed to look like radiators in people's homes. The comapny paid for the electricity to run them and the waste heat heated the house for free. During warm periods, the waste heat was vented outside instead, so they could only be on external walls.

All the data was encrypted for security and if the internat connection was lost, the servers ran dummy calculations to ensure the house remained heated.

The companies benefitted from not paying for huge datacenters or for cooling them.

SteveW

A lot of crypto miners do that - a big stack of GPUs generating 'money', and then no need to heat their apartment. Obviously they cook in summer but hey 'money'. This works better in places like Russia where they have more electricity than summer.

Theo

(who did the sums and reckoned it was better to host a machine locally and get the free heat than rent a machine in a datacentre)

On 19 Nov 2018 08:41:29 +0000 (GMT), Theo <theom+ snipped-for-privacy@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote: <snip>

Cheers, T i m