Cyprus-Forum.com

[Crivens]

My parents live in Limassol and they were wondering (I'm doing it because you know what parents are like with the Internet...) if you can get storage heaters in Cyprus. You know the ones that heat up in the night and keep their heat, with no power required, in the day. Think they normally have bricks in. Obviously should be a lot cheaper than heating in the winter with air con or even those thin oil filled heaters.

If they do exist then where can they get them and how much are they?

On a side note I should be emigrating out to Limassol myself in a couple of months. Wish me luck. Any advice on what you have to organise before hand would be welcome too (banks, car, tax, forms to fill in - all is good!!!)

Cheers

[elko]

I think the idea behind storage heaters is not valid any longer. The idea was to make better use of power stations by increasing the demand when it was at lowest. Hence the storage heaters with bricks inside to store energy at night and used daytime. The Electricity Authority brought in double tariffs with cheaper electricity drawn at off peak hours. Hence they had a separate meter.

Now the tendency has changed with split unit air conditioners becoming very popular. They are used for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Thus they are mostly used all through the night pushing up the low demand.

Another major thing to consider is that with air conditioners used as heat pumps in the winter, they are about 300% more efficient than the electric heaters. In other words, in winter with one kilowatt hour electricity used, you can pump more heat into the house with a heat pump rather than obtain heat by using an electric heater.

So forget the storage heaters and think about split unit air conditioners working both ways.
ismet

[dinos]

Elko is right, although the terminology is slightly off. A split unit air conditioner is just that - an air conditioning system that has the condensing and evaporating coils in separate spots.

A heat pump - to which Elko refers - is like a split AC unit but with a reversing valve that allows you to operate in heating and cooling modes. These units are not very efficient in the heating mode when outdoor temperatures drop to about 45 or so degs F and below. They should probably do for the most part in Cyprus, but check manufacturer specs / an a/c specialist to be sure...

-dinos

[G.Man]

ah the joy of underfloor heating, and £350 every 6 weeks for diesel... lmao

My heating bill in the UK was around £90 per month for gas, including my cooker, the cost of heating a house here in winter is an outright joke.. the heating fuel should have some serious tax lowering imho...

The way the houses are built means they in themselves are a great big storage heater, they soak up the sun all day and radiate it into the house at night...

The only plausible alternative seems to be LPG gas heaters...

anyway, enough ranting...

[Charnwood Fox]

There was an ad in either the Cyprus Mailor Weekly last week for electric radiator central heating. Each rad seemed to work like an immersion heater.
Something like this: http://www.intheatingsystems.co.uk/
No boiler, flue or pipework, all radiators individually timed.

Mark

[elko]

Dinos wrote:

A heat pump - to which Elko refers - is like a split AC unit but with a reversing valve that allows you to operate in heating and cooling modes. These units are not very efficient in the heating mode when outdoor temperatures drop to about 45 or so degs F and below. They should probably do for the most part in Cyprus, but check manufacturer specs / an a/c specialist to be sure...

Dinos, you must be living in England otherwise you would not be talking in Fahrenheits That means 7.2 degrees Centigrade. It is true that a heat pump does not give high temperatures like an electric heater and as the outside temperature falls, the warm air pumped into the room becomes luke warm. Still it is good enough for Cyprus and much cheaper to use than electric heaters. The ones I use in my house gives 3.25 times more heat compared to an electric heater for the same amount of electricity consumed. What is more I use them in the summer for cooling.

Gas and fuel oil is too expensive in Cyprus for hot water heating systems to be economical. I know many who installed these systems but cannot afford to use them. The most sensible thing would be to use sunshine for heating the houses coupled with better insulation. Once I thought about applying this system for my new house in Famagusta but then I thought I would not be able to find the right craftsman to execute my plans. The idea was to have glass panels on the roof and have the air circulated into a pit full of gravel in a closed circuit. Some of this hot air would be used to heat the house daytime and the heat energy accumulated in the pit would be used to heat the house after sunset. I believe they have these systems in California in the States.
Here is a business idea for young and upcoming engineers.
ismet

[dinos]

I'm in New York, actually. I do see heat pumps every once in a while; almost exclusively in condos. They're usually located indoors because of their inefficiency in the low temps that we get.

I'm fully aware of oil prices in Cyprus and can't blame anyone for not wanting to install a fossil fuel system for that reason, and also for risk of CO gas and all that good stuf. What I'm not familiar with is the cost of solar heating systems in Cyprus. They're expensive here (about $15-30 thousand installed, with tax incentives figured in).

Heat pumps are most probably the most efficient alternative in Cyprus.

-dinos

[orokliniservices]

Using your Split AC/HEating unit will cost you a fortune. Our last bill for 2 months was 236 quid!!
Gas heaters are the way to heat your house cheaply.

[mountainman]

Gas heaters are a good way of heating your place, the only problem with the portable type heaters which have their own gas bottle inside is that they give off fumes and condensation into the room.

a better (though initially more expensive) alternative is to go for balanced flue gas heaters, they can run off of individual gas cylinders or you could inverst in a bulk storage tank.
D

[elko]

Mountainman wrote:

a better (though initially more expensive) alternative is to go for balanced flue gas heaters, they can run off of individual gas cylinders or you could inverst in a bulk storage tank.

Can you please explain what are "balanced flue gas heaters"?

I do not like normal gas heaters because
a) They give off bad smell
b) Diminishes oxygen of the room
c) I do not think inhaling the flue gasses is good for health.
ismet