Eco Bollocks Award No 9: Clear Heater Units

Recently, I've become aware of some striking claims being made for electric radiant heating. Like a new way of heating homes has been discovered that is way more efficient than anything else that we have come across before. I think not.

The practice of using radiant heating is not new and it seems to work very well in many places. But claims that is somehow magically more efficient than other forms of heating  is, in my opinion, pure baloney.

Take a look at this website. Clear Heater Systems have a neat looking wall panel radiator which they claim will save you a pot of money. They claim that you can save up to 65% against gas heating on a three-bed semi, and up to 90% on electric heating on the same house. Impressed? Let's investigate.

Their claims are apparently backed-up by a piece of academic research by a chap from Leeds University which, at first glance, looks very compelling. It concludes: Overall, the results that we have produced show the Logicor Clear Heating System in a good light. They certainly do. 

However, if you read the report carefully, you can see that it's not quite all that it appears to be in its conclusion. The report is based on an analysis of the energy used in 53 properties in the north of England which have been fitted with the Clear Heater units. The results are, however, not being compared with properties heated by other methods, but with an estimated heat loss for each of these 53 properties, based on their own calculations using standard U-values. What this tells you is not how efficient Clear Heater units are but how inaccurate U-value calculations can be if used inappropriately. They are a useful tool for working out maximum heat loads, but not for predicting annual heating bills.

The methodology is even made explicit within the report. Buried away on page 4, under the heading Statistical Analysis, the author states that the study is not a measure of savings against competing heating systems but rather a measure of performance against theoretical heat losses. With the emphasis on the word theoretical. 

You'd have to be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the apples here are not being compared with other apples, but with a load of dodgy oranges. And it's on this basis that they claim that you can save pots of money against gas heating. Which is frankly incredible because the Clear Heater Units are electric radiators, albeit with a very thin carbon ceramic heating element sandwiched between two sheets of toughened glass. Much as they would have liked to, Logicor haven't managed to change the laws of physics and, for just hinting that they might have, they get a House 2.0 Eco Bollcocks award.