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Experiences of the Panasonic Energy Saver.
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A. About 1,250 sqft. We maintain 21 degrees C throughout the space consisting of 5 rooms with a hallway, and this even on very cold
days with an outdoor temperature of 5 degrees. Our central heating is not on. The temperature is evenly spread around all the rooms
with no cold or hot spots. Even the floors are quite warm – my partner walks around barefooted. Our house was built in the 1920’s with
no exceptional level of insulation, although we have added good double glazed windows. Here is a sketch of my floorplan: Environmental Heating Solutions Ltd recommended that the indoor unit be placed at the other end of the house - i.e. at the staircase for optimum heating performance. However, we were also keen to get cooling in the summer as our living room gets very hot, so we requested the indoor unit to be placed there - being fully aware this would reduce the capability of the unit to heat our 2nd floor. |
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Q. What is the noise level like?
We were initially relatively worried about this aspect, but I have to say that once the unit has heated the space you can barely hear it. My partner often sits within 2-3 metres of the unit and reads, and the noise level is not an issue for her. We were also worried that the outdoor unit would be noisy, so we requested it be mounted facing away from any neighbour and in our back garden, but I have to say that unit is also very quiet – noise is not a problem and with hindsight we didn’t need to have it placed there.Q. Do you keep the unit on all the time? If not, how long does it take to heat up the space?
We have an alarm system which necessitates us closing internal doors at night, so we turn off the unit at night. Once we get up in the morning we turn on the unit and it does not take long at all to heat up the space again – perhaps 10-20 minutes, and certainly much faster than a normal central heating system.Q. Have you noticed any change in your heating costs?
It is a bit early to tell as I haven’t had the unit for all that long – about a month. Anyhow I reckon that without the unit my heating costs were about £ 6-7 a day in the cold period, and now with the unit it has dropped to about £ 2.50-£3 a day. I am quite impressed with this reduction.Q. Any other observations living with the unit?
The heat from the unit is different from a normal central heating system. The air now feels aerated and ventilated throughout the day – you don’t get the “stuffiness” you can get with a normal central heating system.My partner is very sensitive to air quality and can get quite ill at times. It is a bit early to tell, but it could be that she feels a bit better with the unit.
I suffer quite badly from hay fever, so I am hoping the powerful filters will help later in the spring.
Our sitting room gets very hot in the summer so we are very much looking forward to using the cooling capabilities.
It takes a while to get used to the unit and you should definitely experiment with temperature and air direction settings to get the optimum performance, although I now leave all settings to automatic.
One thing that surprised us was that when we first got the unit we closed all doors to the room where the unit is, thinking this would help the unit, and making it heat up faster. In fact, it emerged our unit is so powerful (we have the large unit) that not only does it have the ability to heat large spaces, it also needs the air for it to work properly. Once we opened up the doors it worked perfectly.
In fact, normal behaviour would be to close all doors in winter-time to retain heat - whereas in the summer we would keep the doors open. With the unit we have our own summer "microclimate" in the house as all doors are left open.
Q. What was your experience with Environmental Heating Solutions Ltd?
We knew we took a bit of a risk with buying the unit as we were early adopters. However they were helpful and courteous, answering any questions we might have. We had some difficulty understanding some of the settings on the remote control so Environmental Heating Solutions organised for one of their experts to call us from Sweden. This clarified everything (the chap though sounded American…).Panasonic Energy Saver: 63% reduction in heating costs. £ 60-120 per year to heat your house
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