Electric Heater controlling, does it exist?

st07 · 20 Oct 2010

Hi,

Where my mum lives there's no gas supply available to her. This means she has to use electric panel heaters to provide warmth to the flat.

Where she used to live, she had gas central heating and a thermostat on the wall which could be adjusted / timed so the house would be warm before she came home from work etc. Unfortunately the panel heaters have no such thing, but I was wondering if it's possible to have a central thermostat / timer unit that could control the two heaters.

The closest I got to finding a solution was this Dimplex unit but it looks like Dimplex have designed it around their own storage heater units, it's not something I could easily retro fit to my mums existing heaters:

http://www.dimplex.co.uk/products/d..._heating_controls/4_zone_controller/index.htm

I'm struggling to find an alternative, so any advice is greatly appreciated

Lectrician · 20 Oct 2010

Time clock & roomstat / programmable stat controlling a contactor.

The contactor switching one heater circuit per pole (so upto 3 or 4 circuits). If more needed, use a second contactor.

1john · 20 Oct 2010

These heaters, are the block storage heaters on an economy 7 tariff? If so then a bit of adjustment with the output setting might help, it controls a little flap which slows the escape of heat from the heater, it could be that your mum has turned these to max and all the heat is escaping during the beginning of the day.

st07 · 20 Oct 2010

Lectrician said:
Time clock & roomstat / programmable stat controlling a contactor.

Sounds about right, would you be able to link us up to a suitable timer/thermostat with contactor?

1john said:
These heaters, are the block storage heaters on an economy 7 tariff?

Yeah, they're economy 7 storage heaters with a convection heater built in. Problem with E7 is I think it's a fiddly system to work and isn't even that cheap to run, you have to plan in advance when you're going to require heat and so when to charge it up, etc. My mums work hours are erratic so it's probably just better if she uses the instant heat of the convection heaters. She won't be having them turned on for many hours so it's not going to cause a massive energy bill.

Thanks guys

Steve · 20 Oct 2010

st07 said:
She won't be having them turned on for many hours so it's not going to cause a massive energy bill.

Thanks guys

No but think about this.

Say she's home for 12 hours a day. Not unreasonable.

She's gonna want to be at 21 degrees for at least 4 of those hours, then at about 17 or 18 for the other 8. And shes not going to want to let the temperature get down very low, as this will cause issues with condensation and general building problems.

I leave my heating on at about 14 degrees while I'm out, 21 degrees when I'm in, and 17 when I'm asleep.

And if she does leave the heat off when she's out, then its going to take a lot of energy to get back up to 21 degrees if its dropped to 10.

Just something to think about.

AndyPRK · 20 Oct 2010

could have a timer a bit like this. Bit big and ugly though!

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1770061#1770061

you don't want a thermostat. Just use the on/off switch and heater controls

ajrobb · 20 Oct 2010

Given the price difference between normal and cheap rates, is it worth replacing old storage heaters with modern units with external temperature sensor for automatic charge and output boost? (e.g. Dimplex XLS range)

st07 · 21 Oct 2010

Cheers for the advice Steve. She's in for far less than 12 hours a day during the week, so a thermostat solution would be very welcome really.

@AndyPRK, we definitely want a thermostat. I've been researching the idea some more tonight and I can't believe there's so little option in the way of electrically controlled heating. How hard is it to find a thermostat / timer with wireless 'control units' (13a plug contactors for example) that I could use with the heaters?! I can't be the only person who has ever asked this question, lol.

If all else fails I suppose it would be easy enough to buy some mains timers to fit to the heater flex, only thing is they're connected to spurs rather than being on 13A plugs. Hmm..

AndyPRK · 21 Oct 2010

The problem with old style STORAGE heaters (if this is what you have) is that they store the heat up inside at night and let it out during the day.

Therefore you can't control the heaters with an electric thermostat in real time.

An immersion heater style timer as each heater would work. Although ugly would be functional allowing each heater to have different times.

Generally you have the heaters on at night in the cheap period though (if your electric meter has two readings)

st07 · 21 Oct 2010

It's a storage heater but it has a built in convector heater on the front, so they should be entirely controllable with an external stat etc (in line with the mains supply to the unit, switching on / off etc).

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Electric Heater controlling, does it exist?

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