Rothelec Heating System

[mint]

According to their blurb, this is an electric heating system with "le radiateur eco-electrique".  If anyone has had one of these systems installed, could you please give me your comments.

I wish to know whether the system works well and whether the running costs compare favourably with a conventional system of individual electric heating units.

I have decided, because of where we are situated and the structure of our property, electricity is probably our best option as it would involve minimal disturbance to existing structures and finishes.

Thank you very much in anticipation.

[Soleil]

Snap! We are investigating this system too. We had the rep round last night and he said that he has a 100 sq m house and it costs him €700 a year to heat it. He stressed that he had 3 daughters who like to be warm! He is going to send us the costs for the heaters. I have an awful feeling that the heaters will be efficient and economical but that the initial outlay will be high. If you haven't already done so it may be worth having a chat with a rep.

Soleil

[Quillan]

They take their name from the French word Rayonnants which is a particular type of radiator construction. There is nothing ‘special’ about their particular radiators there are many that use the same construction method. They are quite expensive and range from as little as 146,00 to 949,00 Euros but the typical cost is around 500,00 per unit. The ones you are looking at can be found on the Castorama website, the link is below.

 

http://www.castorama.fr/boutique/products/products.jhtml?elementId=CastoCO0304&champTri=Prix&sensTri=ASC&nomAttrib2=

 

At least you can compare prices. I would say that to buy will cost you about the same price as fitting a conventional central heating system. The running cost, well it's difficult to say as there are so many factors to be put in the equation. We have 7 such radiators and I have mixed feelings about them. The wife would like them ripped out and conventional central heating installed but we have no gas or oil. The biggest problem is with them all on (we have a 60 Amp supply) and you turn the kettle on the whole house trips out so we have had to have a special box installed that ensures we don't go over our limit. Bill wise is anywhere between 1,600 and 1,900 Euros per year which is all our electricity plus we burn a further 300 Euros of wood and use about 200 Euros of parafin in our backup heaters because we are on Tempo and you can't have them on on the red days it would be far too expensive (probably double our current bill). The cost of Electricity per unit in France is roughly the same as the UK (lasy time I looked) but the killer is the cost of delivery (standing charge 830,00 for 60 Amp - look on EDF website  http://particuliers.edf.fr/rubrique114.html ) which is very high for a big supply and which we don't pay in the UK.

 

They also have their own website at http://www.rothelec.fr/

 

Hope this helps.

[mint]

soleil

thanks for your message.  if you do decide to install, would you mind pming or emailing and telling me the reasons for your choice?  then, belt-and-braces type that i am, i can at least have someone else's thinking to guide me

quillan

you are informative and helpful as usual.  i will look at the websites you have mentioned.  i AM going to look at this more in detail.  your wife's opinion is good enough for me.  generally, us women are both intuitive and logical (despite what the other sex thinks)!

like you we do not have gas or oil. it would be expensive and disruptive to have bottled gas or oil and install a whole new system as our property is already "done up" (by the previous owner).  i was thinking along the lines of installing individual hot/cold air appliances in each location where we need it. we quite often stay at a chambre d'hote near st malo where the landlady has these appliances in the bedrooms and they seem to me to be very flexible - after all you can then heat different rooms to different temperatures and, indeed, at different times of the day

unfortunately, we can't go over to france now as the weather is so cold and we, of course, have NO heating!  however, i did ask a local electrician to give us a quote for an appliance in each room.  he hasn't come back to me as yet but, when i am next over there, i shall track him down!

[Quillan]

Of course you might consider storage heaters or Accumulateurs as they are called in France which ‘charge’ during the night when electricity is cheaper and discharge during the day. They are cheaper to run but are slow to react to temperature changes.

There are also these units which look like air conditioning systems which heat as well as chill. I have a friend who is an electrician over here and he knows a lot about them but I have to say I don’t. Apparently they are very economical and somehow it seems you get more heat out (in kilowatts) than you put in. He is a bit of a skinflint (aren’t all us chaps) and has investigated them fully and has now installed them in his house and is very pleased.

You should also look in the DIY shops here and look at the efficiency ratings of the different units which greatly effects their price, the more efficient they are the more expensive they are.

You mentioned decoration; well to be truthful whatever you install will require cables to be run in. So you can either have the walls channelled out and the cable buried (means redecorating after) or you can have the cable surface mounted in white PVC trunking which I think looks terrible and is nasty stuff to work round when you next decorate. So basically it’s nearly as bad as having normal central heating installed.

One thing you might consider, which are also very popular in France, is paraffin heating. We have 4 units around the house and we have bought wheeled plinths for them so we can push them around. They are temperature controlled and child safe but must plug in to the electricity for the fan and timer. They cost from as little 135 Euros (cheapest price I have seen at Brico Depot) although the more normal price is around the 200 Euro mark. We do not use the non odour paraffin (or petrol as its called here) because apart from the slight smell when they start and stop they don’t smell anyway and the non odour stuff is so expensive. We have introduced many of our friends to them and they all think they are ‘magic’ and I know there are a few people on the forum that use them and think the same. The ‘petrol’ is normally sold in 20ltr plastic cans and is around 16/17 Euros a can at the moment or you can buy it from the pump at some supermarkets (Leclerc at Limoux sells it this way). They have a basic ‘on’ timer as well which we use and they are quite economical. You also set the temperature of the room on the front and it goes in to idle mode when the temperature is reached.

You might also consider a wood burning fire as well.

I know I will get some bad comments about this but if you consider a wood fire don’t import a UK one buy a French insert as opposed to a free standing unit. These units can also supply ‘hot air’ central heating to other rooms by ducting and a low volume fan. The reason I say this is because the French have been using these for years now and have perfected the way of getting more heat for their money, the French love to save money. The UK free standing units are not as efficient, there’s not many about (because it’s difficult to get logs) and people use them for effect than anything else.

[mint]

quillan

i shall be eternally grateful to you.  yes, we do need to watch the pennies and i will look at all of your suggestions.  i am pleased you have told me about the decorating so now i will do nothing with the walls until the heaters (whatever we decide on) are in and that way at least we will not have to redecorate afterwards

we will be installing a woodburner in the sitting room and one in the hall but i thought i'd still install one radiator in the sitting-room for when we do not want to build a fire there, perhaps because it's not cold enough or because we do not have the time.

have a wonderful day tomorrow, quillan.  you have been so helpful and kind that you have truly done your bit to make the world a better place this christmas! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gyn_Paul]

I'd steer clear of the air conditioning units if I were you, if you live anywhere which  is really cold. Unlike the system which extracts heat from the ground (geothermie), the efficiency of the split packs (a box on the outside of the house, and a long thin box high on the wall indoors) varies with the outside air temperature, and by the time it gets down to 0c they hardly work at all. Exactly the reverse of what you would want !

p

[Gluestick]

This one has been covered earlier on. They are a heat pump but use ambient air to take advantage of the latent heat in the external air.

Whilst there are many claims made (one includes all air has latent heat, even when the temp is zero C), if you stop and think about it, if the ambient air temp is hovering round 0 C, then the heat pump has to work very hard indeed to extract latent heat, as there is so little!

The whole point about ground heat source is that ground temp stays fairly constant once you reach a few metres down, as the ground above insulates and prevents rapid heat loss.

If you google Air Heat Pumps, there is lot of info on the web.

e.g.  http://www.est.org.uk/housingbuildings/calculators/hardtotreat/matrix/airtoairpumps.cfm

 

 

[mint]

 p

thanks for your input.  i guess i'd just have to settle for a few fans or spend the summer in wales!  always assured of damp cold air in wales!

[mint]

gluestick

thank you indeed; the link is brill, full of info.  will get the old man to have a good look at the site. i looked at the castorama site (info provided by quillan) and got seriously frightened by the cost of the units.

still, we do need a comprehensive system of heating and will have to grasp the nettle of costs.  nothing worse than being cold indoors, is there?

[Chancer]

I am using my air conditioning unit as a heater at the moment and it appears to be working very efficiently at -1 degree C.

It is heaing a combined area  of about 33m2 which is more than it is rated for, the background heat is from two storage heaters totalling 3kw charging for 8 hours at night. Between them they heat the room to about 18 degrees overnight, during the recent cold evenings when the temp has dropped to 14 degrees I have switched on the aircon unit, it has rapidly raised the temp by 8 degrees in about 45 minutes.

I have checked and it is using just under 1kw but the output still running at about 3Kw to raise the temp in that time.

When I tested it in the summer it was raising the temp at about the same rate.

So I am sorry but I disagree with the above comments, mine appears to be working just as efficiently (it is still -1 degrees here) but I will post again when the temperature really drops.

The storage heaters that I used come from BDC iin England  and I am very pleased with them, they have controls for input, output and another to reduce or stop the charge according to the ambient temperature.

Combined with the thermopump aircon unit I now have a quite economical and controllable set up all the time that the electricity price remains stable.

Also the heating effect of the aircon unit is very soft and gentle like a summer breeze! With the deflector set to "balayage" - sweeping action it really spreads the heat around but very gently.

[Gluestick]

Sweet 17:

Here is one thread: try the search function on this site, there were quite a few more, I recall!

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/554061/ShowPost.aspx

JR:

From memory, I think it depends on the effectiveness of the pump. Many spurious claims have been made for cheap systems. Some comments elsewhere on this site.

Obviously, if the pump's efficiency is really good, then the capital cost rises, significantly.

Sweet: Loads of info on the web: here's some more!

http://energysavingnow.com/hvac/energymove.shtml

http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12620

http://www.chelanpud.org/1870.html

http://www.ilea.org/articles/heatpump.html

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ageng/structu/ae1015.htm

 

[mint]

gluestick

thank you so much for going to all the trouble of supplying me with those websites.  when i do make a choice, i hope it will be the right one.  if not, i'd only have myself to blame after all the help i've had.

jr, thank you to you too.  your system of combining storage heaters with the more flexible air con unit sounds like quite a good and prudent choice.  and that's me- belt, braces, the lot!

cheers & happy new year

[Gluestick]

My pleasure Sweet! [:)]

In theory, the concept of combining aircon with air heat extraction is logical, since the core engineering method (i.e. heatpump) can act in both functions: i.e. take latent heat from outside and pump it in or take latent heat from the inside and move it out!

It did seem to me, when I looked into air heat extraction heating, that as temps drop, quite a number of units used a resistive heater (electric fire!), which of course would not enjoy the "Free" heat element.

Still you pays your money and you makes your choice............

 

[heather]

On the subject of heating systems, I've seen ones which run on little wooden pellets and wonder if anyone has tried this. are they economical to run?; expensive to install?

Heather

[Gluestick]

[quote user="heather"]

On the subject of heating systems, I've seen ones which run on little wooden pellets and wonder if anyone has tried this. are they economical to run?; expensive to install?

Heather

[/quote]

The boiler and installation is quite a bit dearer than a conventional oil of gas equivalent.

Pellets are a very cost-effective fuel: you need considerable storage space and at present, pellets are not readily available all throughout France.