Dyson Hot & Cool Heaters - How economical and effective is it?

jamesdeanjames

Hi,

Has anyone got one of these or know how economical it is?

dyson.ie/fans-and-heaters/heaters/am05/am05-nickel-nickel.aspx

The woman in the shop assures me it's no less economical than running a light bulb bit found that hard to believe. I have a cold house and need an extra bit of pep to add to the central heating. If this thing is as good as it's lauded it might be worth a shot, or should I just keep my old ****ty emergency heater as the additional heater.

According to this review it'll consume 2000 watts at its max.

theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/15/dyson-hot-cool-am09-review-worlds-best-heater-fan

So if I have one of these and run it for a couple of hours a night will it it
a) Give me a huge airtricity bill?
b) Warm the place considerably!

Thanks!

John T Carroll

jamesdeanjames wrote: »

Hi,

Has anyone got one of these or know how economical it is?

dyson.ie/fans-and-heaters/heaters/am05/am05-nickel-nickel.aspx

The woman in the shop assures me it's no less economical than running a light bulb bit found that hard to believe. I have a cold house and need an extra bit of pep to add to the central heating. If this thing is as good as it's lauded it might be worth a shot, or should I just keep my old ****ty emergency heater as the additional heater.

According to this review it'll consume 2000 watts at its max.

theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/15/dyson-hot-cool-am09-review-worlds-best-heater-fan

So if I have one of these and run it for a couple of hours a night will it it
a) Give me a huge airtricity bill?
b) Warm the place considerably!

Thanks!

Appears to be a nice looking electric fan heater to me, at the end of the day you will need x Kw to heat your room, the dyson may distribute the heated air more uniformly but thats about it. Re consuming 2000 watts at max, well 2000 watts is 2 KW which is a mighty big bulb! and would cost around 34 cent/hour to run at this power output. Even with the room up to temperature after say an hour, it will still need to supply anything between say 0.20 Kw and 0.40 Kw at a cost of 3.5 to 7 cent/hour, (depending on room size and insulation). Its only my opinion but you may save 10% or or so compared to other forms of electrical heating due the more even distribution of the heated air.

jamesdeanjames

John T Carroll wrote: »

Appears to be a nice looking electric fan heater to me, at the end of the day you will need x Kw to heat your room, the dyson may distribute the heated air more uniformly but thats about it. Re consuming 2000 watts at max, well 2000 watts is 2 KW which is a mighty big bulb! and would cost around 34 cent/hour to run at this power output. Even with the room up to temperature after say an hour, it will still need to supply anything between say 0.20 Kw and 0.40 Kw at a cost of 3.5 to 7 cent/hour, (depending on room size and insulation). Its only my opinion but you may save 10% or or so compared to other forms of electrical heating due the more even distribution of the heated air.

Maybe she meant the bulb off one of the floodlights in Croker!

Sound!

xband

1kW of electricity will give you 1kW of heat minus some losses for the motors and so on.

It's just a fan heater, with a very fancy looking fan setup.

That's all it is.

In general, electric heating is a *very* expensive way of heating a room at Irish (or most European) rates.

JustTheOne

xband wrote: »

1kW of electricity will give you 1kW of heat minus some losses for the motors and so on.

It's just a fan heater, with a very fancy looking fan setup.

That's all it is.

In general, electric heating is a *very* expensive way of heating a room at Irish (or most European) rates.

Is gas fired any cheaper when broken down?

xband

JustTheOne wrote: »

Is gas fired any cheaper when broken down?

Much cheaper.

John T Carroll

xband wrote: »

Much cheaper.

I suppose one should stand back a little from the cost per Kwh of heating and ones actual heating requirements. I ordered kerosene a few days ago for my oil fired boiler central heating at 51 cent/Litre which translates to around 5.7 c/Kwh delivered into my house as heat which is less than 1/3 cost of full price electricity, gas is possibly cheaper. However not everyone needs to heat a full house, requirements might only require the heating of one or two rooms, in which case it is cheaper and faster to use some form of full cost electric heating. If this is the case and if one likes the look of the Dyson or whatever then there is really nothing wrong with buying one of these if one likes a bit of style. As I stated in a previous post, once up to temperature, one room will cost, depending on size & insulation, 3.5 to 7 cent/hr to maintain a comfortable temperature.. alot cheaper than running a oil or gas CH Boiler to heat one room. I often remind myself that there is a big difference between Efficiency and Efficacy.

JustTheOne

John T Carroll wrote: »

I suppose one should stand back a little from the cost per Kwh of heating and ones actual heating requirements. I ordered kerosene a few days ago for my oil fired boiler central heating at 51 cent/Litre which translates to around 5.7 c/Kwh delivered into my house as heat which is less than 1/3 cost of full price electricity, gas is possibly cheaper. However not everyone needs to heat a full house, requirements might only require the heating of one or two rooms, in which case it is cheaper and faster to use some form of full cost electric heating. If this is the case and if one likes the look of the Dyson or whatever then there is really nothing wrong with buying one of these if one likes a bit of style. As I stated in a previous post, once up to temperature, one room will cost, depending on size & insulation, 3.5 to 7 cent/hr to maintain a comfortable temperature.. alot cheaper than running a oil or gas CH Boiler to heat one room. I often remind myself that there is a big difference between Efficiency and Efficacy.

Exactly my point.

When broken down to single rooms and the cost I'm sure its minimal difference maybe cheaper with electricity.

xband

JustTheOne wrote: »

Exactly my point.

When broken down to single rooms and the cost I'm sure its minimal difference maybe cheaper with electricity.

Most central heating systems have the ability to do that too. Just turn off the unwanted radiators.

John T Carroll

xband wrote: »

Most central heating systems have the ability to do that too. Just turn off the unwanted radiators.

Thats quite true but for someone living in one/two bedroom apartment, full cost electrical heating isnt really as outrageous as the bald figures suggest, obviously, if one lives in a heated house, it would be rather daft to go around heating each individual room with fan heaters or whatever. At the end of the day its horses for courses.

xband

It's still way more expensive no matter what way you look at it, you're getting significantly less heat per €

FloGas natural gas 4.7c per kWh
Energia : 13.98c per kWh

Those are the cheapest two rates I could find.

It's not just a little bit cheaper it's an absolutely huge difference in cost per kWh.

We just upgraded my elderly aunt from electric plug in heating to gas and her bill to heat heat her whole house is less than her bill to spot heat two rooms to an uncomfortably cold level.

The only advantage to electric heating in this market is landlords can retrofit it very cheaply to old houses and it's very cheap to install in apartments so developers use it as a shortcut.

It seems "affordable" in a smaller home because you don't notice it as much as a % of your overall household budget because you're only heating a small space.

It's a bit like buying your weeks groceries in a garage convenience store vs the supermarket though.

Wearb

I find it hard to follow JTC's logic on electric heating versus oil/gas when heating one or two rooms.

JTC, are you bringing in the installation costs of a hydraulic central heating system when claiming that electricity would be cheaper in the above instance?

Heat demand and heat loss will remain the same regardless of heat source. Now if we are talking about efficiency V efficacy then that is a different matter and sometimes can be an important consideration.
I always empty (or fill, depending on how I find it) the electric kettle so there is only enough for my cuppa. Having refused at the time, sometimes my wife changes her mind and goes out to make one for herself. She is never a happy camper when she finds the kettle empty. So yes, savings made in one area can sometimes cause discomfort. :-(

xband

Electric heat makes sense in countries where you've a huge, cheap source of electricity like massive hydro dams (Canada) or very large nuclear (France).

At Irish electricity rates, it's lousy value tho.

John T Carroll

Wearb wrote: »

I find it hard to follow JTC's logic on electric heating versus oil/gas when heating one or two rooms.

JTC, are you bringing in the installation costs of a hydraulic central heating system when claiming that electricity would be cheaper in the above instance?

Heat demand and heat loss will remain the same regardless of heat source. Now if we are talking about efficiency V efficacy then that is a different matter and sometimes can be an important consideration.
I always empty (or fill, depending on how I find it) the electric kettle so there is only enough for my cuppa. Having refused at the time, sometimes my wife changes her mind and goes out to make one for herself. She is never a happy camper when she finds the kettle empty. So yes, savings made in one area can sometimes cause discomfort. :-(

Yes, I fully agree that the cost per useful (heating) Kwh with gas/oil is much cheaper than full cost electricity but your electric kettle comparison best describes what I am suggesting. As I said originally, it would be rather daft to heat each individual room in a house with full cost electricity, equally, again in my opinion, it would seem rather daft to install a oil/gas CH system to heat one/two rooms if that was all one possessed.
I suppose I should add that the power required to maintain a comfortable room temperature in even two well insulated rooms would only amount to 1 Kw, I dont think that a gas/oil fired Boiler, however downsized would be very efficient running with a thermal output of 1 Kw.

Wearb

It is always a problem for oil/gas heating to efficiently supply maintenance a demand for 1Kw*. However, even then I don't think the losses would be 2/3rds. The losses would need to be even greater than that for electricity to be cheaper.
If we were to take in the installation costs of oil/gas heating, then I am not sure where the figures would take us.

*I overcome this somewhat, by always having a well insulated cylinder in the circuit. This (along with boiler contents) acts as a thermal flywheel. Sometimes when my room stat calls for heat, the circulating pump will kick in without the boiler stat ever kicking in during that heating demand cycle.

John T Carroll

[QUOTE

*I overcome this somewhat, by always having a well insulated cylinder in the circuit. This (along with boiler contents) acts as a thermal flywheel. Sometimes when my room stat calls for heat, the circulating pump will kick in without the boiler stat ever kicking in during that heating demand cycle.[/QUOTE]

That's fair going, you must have a fairly small hysteresis setting on your room stat, my boiler stat has a hysteresis of 9C and with the room stat calling for heat the boiler will run on the system contents "buffer" for just under 8 minutes before the burner restarts. I reckon the boiler & "rads in service" contents at 75 Ltrs so the buffer is 0.785 Kwh (75*9/860), my heating demand (with cylinder motorised valve shut) is around 6 Kwh for the whole house so the calculation ties up with the 8 minute buffer time (0.785/6*60)=7.8mins, all interesting stuff.

Wearb

I don't know the hysteresis of my room stat. It is a standard analogue one. Works well though. I have an accurate room stat. The room only changes by about 1 to 1.3 degrees.

It is all very interesting. It is good to know these things, especially as we are moving close to individual room control now. There will be times when there is very little heat demand and that should be designed for now. There are fairly simple ways to cater for low demands.

One of the good developments in recent years is the low level flues. They take a lot less heat from the boiler during idle periods. Another was the hydraulic air flap on some burners.

Anyway I suppose we have bored the pants off enough readers for now.