Fischer Future Heat

I've gone green!

My gas was capped off last night and two chaps came this morning to install a Fischer water heater and remove the old gas water heater. I had my first non-gas powered shower before midday!

The water was coming out so hot that I went and turned it down before showering.

I now have a hole in my kitchen wall where the gas flue exited! So, some making good to do!

I also need to get some more pipe lagging as the Fisher job is in my workshop that is not heated. Being so close to the River Severn means that it never gets very cold here (and with a bit of global warming helping) but I don't wanna be caught out with frozen pipes in January!

So, the chemical technology does work!

 

First of all gas: I did use gas before and now my gas is capped off. so, my gas usage is now zero - no argument.

The chemical reaction that produces heat is triggered by electricity, in the same way that a pouch for skiing that you can put in your boots or gloves has a little battery to begin the reaction. The fact that my water heater can be just plugged into a 13 amp socket illustrates that it is not using anything like as much as an electric instant hot water heater that would need a fused spur, I could get a power cut now and still have a hot shower proving that it is a chemical reaction that produces the heat and not electricity. I can go on without electricity for 130 odd litres before the chemical reaction finishes and electricity is need to re-crystallise the chemical.

I wasn't persuaded by any advertising and most of those advertising claims arose from people who were too thick to understand the science.

I had to replace the gas water heater, anyway. So, my choice was another gas heater (that will be banned soon) or an instant electric heater powerful enough to drive a shower and fill a bath. I have not got a storage tank (nor do I want one) and as power cuts in Berkeley (the home of the first ever nuclear power station) are almost weekly, I didn't want to rely on an instantaneous electric water heater for a shower.

I'll keep a log of my electricity usage to see if it goes up. Unlike the thick people that complain, I expect it to go up but I will no longer pay for gas. The big greenhouse gas debate in that deliberation is just wrong and based upon mis-understanding. I no longer use gas and therefor produce no carbon monoxide but I will use some electricity. How that electricity is generated (whether from green sources or not) is beyond my control. so, yes, the electricity usage may produce greenhouse gases (most of ours is produced from coal, despite what we are told) but I have no say in that. I plug into the national grid and get what's there. Nothing that I can do about that.

 

Yeah, all snake oil.

I just ran an experiment. I turned off the power to the water heater and then run a bath. And then went and turned on the power to the water heater. According to it's indicator lights, it was still half charged, so I could of ran two baths (at least) without electricity - unless you believe that the indicator lights are rigged, as well. Then I went and checked my meters. Strangely enough, the gas one was still capped and I had by some miracle (called science) I used no gas. The electric meter was spinning and I watched it for a long as my boredom permitted. In that time, I used less than 1/10 of a unit.

I am horrified and will complain. 1/10 of a unit to run a bath is ridiculous! And running a bath with no electricity is just plain out of order. I will get on to the rip-off merchants tomorrow. I will complain vociferously, that the unit still works when the electricity is off and they have the bare-faced cheek to not ensure that my 1/10th of a unit of electricity does not come from a green source out of the national grid. I'll tell them alright! I will also complain to Watchdog.

Or, I could just accept that it does exactly what they told me it would and no snake oil changed hands.

 

This is the bodgery that I had to accept from the snake oil salesman:

 

I had an early (8:55) appointment at Southmead Hospital, this morning. I had a taxi booked for 7:45 and so a very early start for me! I had to get up and shower when it was still dark! So, I turn on the shower and all I got was cold snake oil! And then I woke up and got hot water (still a bit too hot) out of my rip-off new hot water heater. I haven't checked my meter yet and will be annoyed if I've used 0.2 of a kwh, rather than o,1...

 

The heater, or my posts, DO NOT defy the laws of thermodynamics. A chemical reaction occurs when sodium ... is activated to turn from crystal to liquid. I can't remember the exact name of the chemical but I think that I've mentioned it before. So, no laws of physics are not defied, but obeyed. A chemical reaction triggered by electricity is exothermic.

So, I can have hot water with the electricity turned off and I have no hot water storage facility. The only energy stored is in the chemical.

There s no more that I can say. I've run a bath with the electricity turned off. Checked my electricity usage and seen that it is minimal - I know that if I go and check right now - after filling the sink with hot water to do washing up - my meter readings will have hardly changed.

 

I don't know whose name the patents are in. They will not be in Fischer's name because they only hold manufacturing and selling rights in the UK. They acquired them from a German company (possibly Fischer as well) and I think that the inventor is American. If I was bothered (which I am not), then I could obtain more details and the patent number. According to my electricity meter (which you might think is in on the scam) I have used 5 units of electricity. This includes running one bath (for experimentation) and two showers together with my normal electricity use (my only form of power, unless you think that capping off my gas and removing the gas heater was also a scam). I pay 15p a unit for daytime electricity (I know that is high and it is on my list of things to fix, but is high because I pay less for off-peak usage).

So, a bath and two showers plus my normal use for about 40 hours has cost me75p - a f**king scam!