Storage heaters - replace, upgrade or live with?

[richlist]

Am I missing something here ?

Why can't you just leave x1 storage heater switched on at a low setting during winter and leave all internal doors open ?
It's what I do in my rental flats......costs about £10 a week.....and doesn't need the water turned off. Simples.

[swill453]

Am I missing something here ?

Why can't you just leave x1 storage heater switched on at a low setting during winter and leave all internal doors open ?
It's what I do in my rental flats......costs about £10 a week.....and doesn't need the water turned off. Simples.

I guess that would rely on the last tenant carrying out instructions, or paying the agent to do it. So either uncertainty or cost.

Scott.

[richlist]

With holiday lets don't you normally have someone.....a key holder.....who changes the laundry, tidies up, runs the vac cleaner around, checks it's ready for the next people etc ? Surely it's not beyond their capability to turn off a coup!e of heaters and turn one down.....it would take all of 30 seconds.

[Clariman]

Just sharing a bit of research here. If anyone is interested in the Timeguard WiFi fused spur solution, I suggest you review the Timeguard app on your smartphone's app store. I am glad I did. I am no longer even remotely considering buying into their solution, though if it were reliable, it is a terrific concept. As home automation matures, I am sure these solutions will very soon become much more reliable.

Thanks for that. What about App put you off using it? I had downloaded it but didn't want to register and couldn't skip the registration.

[Clariman]

I read the reviews on the Android app store. They were largely polarised between one and five stars with not much in between. The number of one star reviews was based around the Timeguard servers (you are 100% reliant on for smart functionality) often being off line or unresponsive and the switches themselves periodically just not working.

Thanks. Your earlier message prompted me to search for reviews and I formed the same impression from the App reviews ... or more specifically the reliability of the servers. It makes you wonder why they didn't integrate it with some established service like Hive. For a holiday-let it would be no use if the heating or immersion didn't go on overnight when guests were paying to stay there.

It is really puzzling that there aren't more on the market. I cannot find another 13amp spur WiFi.

[Itsallaguess]

I read the reviews on the Android app store. They were largely polarised between one and five stars with not much in between. The number of one star reviews was based around the Timeguard servers (you are 100% reliant on for smart functionality) often being off line or unresponsive and the switches themselves periodically just not working.

Thanks. Your earlier message prompted me to search for reviews and I formed the same impression from the App reviews ... or more specifically the reliability of the servers. It makes you wonder why they didn't integrate it with some established service like Hive. For a holiday-let it would be no use if the heating or immersion didn't go on overnight when guests were paying to stay there.

It is really puzzling that there aren't more on the market. I cannot find another 13amp spur WiFi.

Exactly. Why Timeguard have no integration I have no idea. These days as a minimum folks expect Google and Alexa integration and ofte Apple Homekit too. We have to bear in mind it's a very fragmented market still with a way to go to even modest maturity. I share your thinking about why there are not more smart fused spurs. it's the obvious application for space and water heaters.

The nearest I have seen is LightwaveRF. They sell smart 13amp spurs that they say are designed for precisely these services. But, amazingly, they have no integral fuse! So, cannot actually be legally used for the purpose they are selling them for. I asked LightwaveRF why their 13 amp spurs had no fuse but never got a reply. Sorry I can't be more positive, I want this too for my own home, my son and daughters homes too. Very frustrating.

Is there any scope for a bespoke solution to some of these issues?

If some of the smart-switches work well enough on the control and monitoring side of things, can't they be used as part of a relay-switching process where the heating circuits required to be controlled can then be switched and fused appropriately via the relayed power output, rather than the more usual smart-switch output?

I fully understand that this might not be ideal, and would take more electrical work and space, but in the absence of a more suitable solution, then it might well be an option worth considering.

Taking this approach, the user then gets to choose the most appropriate smart-control method as a unique consideration on it's own, and then separate out the actual power-circuit side of things from the choice completely....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[robbelg]

New ones come in the same way as old ones go out.
Bricks in several separate packages and assembled in-situ.

Rob

[servodude]

Here's a thought (bear with me here).

The old bricks.....they could be heated up by the sun and used to heat a summer house for example?

Or a greenhouse?

We have a South facing garden which gets a lot of sun.

in principle yes
- they will absorb heat while insolated and dissipate it afterwards
- whether they will do it to any practical degree is another thing

we've got brick paving and you can get quite a shock if you walk out after dark in bare feet after a hot day

- sd