New heater advocated by Heathcote council

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 9

New heater advocated by Heathcote council

A new type of nightstorage heater is advocated by the Heathcote County Council.

The heaters, made in Britain, are more compact than other types and run entirely on electricity supplied at night at a cheaper rate.

The county’s electrical engineer, Mr lan Bywater, said that the heaters had been developed by the Electricity Council Research Centre in Capenhurst, England. The centre had wanted a heater that would give maximum performance but only use electricity at night. The types of night-storage heater available now need to be boosted with power in the afternoon, said Mr Bywater. This puts an extra load on peak-time power use.

The centre discovered that a new heat-storage medium, called feolite, and an opacified silica gel could be used in a heater of smaller dimensions which would.give a superior form of insulation. The benefits of this

smaller, more modemstyled heater included greater efficiency and more places where it could be put in the home, he said. When the centre finished its research, it licensed the design to several British manufacturers. Mr Bywater said that because of the interest in this new heater in New Zealand, a Dunedin company, Ginivan Industries, Ltd, had applied for an import licence to bring the heaters into the country. Heathcote County was the prime mover with this company and had placed the first order for heaters. Since then the Municipal Electricity Department has also ordered. The heaters should arrive in time for next winter. When the heaters were put on the market in England, 500,000 were sold in the first year. Until then, night-storage heaters had been slow movers, said Mr Bywater. If interest is strong enough in New Zealand, Ginivan Industries hope to make them. Tests done at the University of Otago

showed that feolite blocks could be made easily here, he said. The raw material feolite was made from an abundant natural resource in New Zealand and was more freely available than it was in Britain. Because of this, the export potential of the heaters was tremendous, said Mr Bywater. The heaters were cheaper to run than others because they used electricity at a less costly time, he said. They also assisted the supply authority because they did not use power at peak times and the authority did not have to make additions to its electricity system.

Heat was not leaked from the heaters and if it was not turned on to deliver heat, it would take 15 hours to cool so that it had only half its heat left. Other types could not be stopped from leaking heat, Mr Bywater said. The Canterbury United Council would hold a clean air seminar tomorrow and the heaters were a main item on the agenda, he said.

Electric heaters could help ease air pollution.