Paphos Life

I'm thinking of getting a standalone electric warm air heater for the winter. I notice that the high tech Dyson one costs around 700 Euro. I was looking for something cheaper. Does anybody have any suggestions please? Thanks.

Even the older air con units, set to heat, are much cheaper to run than any form of electric heating. On the older units, for every kw you burn, you get around 3kw of heat, whereas the newer units are even more efficient. We have two new, LG units, which we have used for aircon all summer, and intend to use for our heating in the winter. They were fitted by one of the site sponsors and we have been really pleased with them. Unlike the older units which we used to have, they are silent.

Anarita John wrote: ↑Sat Oct 31, 2020 11:45 pm for every kw you burn, you get around 3kw of heat, whereas the newer units are even more efficient.

I think the first Law of Thermodynamics might be a problem with that.

1kw of electric can produce 3kw of heat with an air con unit. No other form of heating can do this. 1kw burned produces 1 kw of heat. I am sure Max or Devil will contribute to explain the science. In fact it was a post many years ago on the Eastern forum by Devil which got us using aircon for heating. Previously we had used our oil, underfloor heating, which we found very expensive.

Perfectly true! With any form of electric heater, you convert the electrical energy directly into thermal energy with an efficiency of 100%. With a heat pump, you extract energy from an outside source at a low temperature and convert it to a higher, more useful, temperature. Example: blow up a bicycle tyre with a hand pump. The pump will get quite hot because you are using energy to compress the air but the energy you are using is mechanical from your hand. At the same time, the air in the pump cylinder gets hot while a vast amount of air surrounding where you are pumping gets cooler. In practice, the amount of heat apparently produced by compressing the air is heat which is extracted from the region round where you are pumping. It is not the energy of the actual pumping. Under the right conditions, a heat pump will give the user three or four times as much heat as the apparent energy required to operate the pump.

Thanks to everyone for your quick replies. Mouse, the answer is yes. I live in a 30 year old concrete block!