# Heating in winter



## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

Hi everyone - we own a holiday apartment in Javea/Xabia and would like to spend some time there in winter. However the apartment faces north and although it's perfect in summer, in winter it feels like a marble tomb. The aircon/heating is inefficient and expensive. I've noticed a lot of claims made by advertisers regarding the Norwegian Beha convector heaters (also known as Neater Heaters). Have any of the forum members had any experience of these heaters? Would they be a good buy? I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!
nodrog23


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Hi and welcome to the forum. I have no experience of those air con/heaters but there are certainly air con units on the market which cost around 8c an hour to run and they heat a room very efficiently so you won't have them running constantly.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

I'd not heard of them but looked online, they seem very expensive for what they are...a convector heater.


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## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

Thanks for your reply. However as I mentioned in my thread, we already have an aircon/heating system - fine in summer when it's hot but not so good at distributing heat evenly in winter.


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## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

hi Bob - thanks for your reply. The Neater Heaters seem to get a lot of publicity in the local Costa press, but I've still to meet someone who has installed them.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

nodrog23 said:


> hi Bob - thanks for your reply. The Neater Heaters seem to get a lot of publicity in the local Costa press, but I've still to meet someone who has installed them.


I have heard (second-hand information therefore) that they are not very good nor very efficient!




nodrog23 said:


> Thanks for your reply. However as I mentioned in my thread, we already have an aircon/heating system - fine in summer when it's hot but not so good at distributing heat evenly in winter.


Again, like so many things, there are good and bad ones.

We have a modern inverter air conditioning system. It's very efficient (cold or hot) and not expensive to run.

I would suggest either getting the existing system looked at or perhaps replaced with a better, more modern one. Have you thought about a real fire - would that even be a possibility (probably not in an apartment though).


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

nodrog23 said:


> Hi everyone - we own a holiday apartment in Javea/Xabia and would like to spend some time there in winter. However the apartment faces north and although it's perfect in summer, in winter it feels like a marble tomb. The aircon/heating is inefficient and expensive. I've noticed a lot of claims made by advertisers regarding the Norwegian Beha convector heaters (also known as Neater Heaters). Have any of the forum members had any experience of these heaters? Would they be a good buy? I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!
> nodrog23


The aircon/heating units are usually quite fuel efficient and effective but you do need to ensure that the outlet vanes are pointing in the right directions. One of ours was not cooling properly but the vanes were directing the output towards a wall that bounced the cold air back to the unit so that it thought the room was much colder than it was and this caused it to stop trying to cool the air. For heating, you need to point them down so that the heat first warms the floor area before making its way to the ceiling and back to the unit.


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## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

Thanks for your advice, even if secondhand. As for an open fire, you are correct - no place for it in an apartment.


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## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

baldilocks said:


> The aircon/heating units are usually quite fuel efficient and effective but you do need to ensure that the outlet vanes are pointing in the right directions. One of ours was not cooling properly but the vanes were directing the output towards a wall that bounced the cold air back to the unit so that it thought the room was much colder than it was and this caused it to stop trying to cool the air. For heating, you need to point them down so that the heat first warms the floor area before making its way to the ceiling and back to the unit.


Thanks Baldilocks. Our aircon/heater system is built in to the ceiling fittings (and not one which juts out from the wall), so I'm not sure if the directiohn of the air vents can be adjusted to point further down than they do at the moment. However when I go to Javea at the end of this month I'll check. Many thanks for your advice!


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

nodrog23 said:


> Thanks Baldilocks. Our aircon/heater system is built in to the ceiling fittings (and not one which juts out from the wall), so I'm not sure if the directiohn of the air vents can be adjusted to point further down than they do at the moment. However when I go to Javea at the end of this month I'll check. Many thanks for your advice!


If it is similar to the type I have seen in a few of the local shops, the vanes can be repositioned. One of the problem with the type you have is the heat comes out and goes straight back up to the ceiling causing the unit to back off because it senses the heat and assumes that the room has reached the required temperature. It reminds me of a flat I once rented in UK and that had electric heating installed in the ceiling so none of it reached ones body or feet.


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## nodrog23 (Apr 14, 2016)

Exactly! The vent is directly above the dining area, but if you sit at the opposite end of the room there's very little warmth in that direction - and legs and feet remain cold!


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## WeeScottie (Mar 17, 2015)

When we moved into our house last year, the elderly lady that had owned it left us a very strange table. It was positioned like a coffee table in front of the sofa, as high as a dining table and had a heavy velvet curtain all round it. Googling it we found out it was a brasero. The idea is that hot embers are placed in a bowl in a hole underneath then you tuck your tootsies in, nice and cosy. We decided not to keep it, way too dangerous.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

WeeScottie said:


> When we moved into our house last year, the elderly lady that had owned it left us a very strange table. It was positioned like a coffee table in front of the sofa, as high as a dining table and had a heavy velvet curtain all round it. Googling it we found out it was a brasero. The idea is that hot embers are placed in a bowl in a hole underneath then you tuck your tootsies in, nice and cosy.


Why? You can get electric braseros to fit in the round hole or do as we did for the 90 year-old across the road, bought a small 800w oil-filled radiator which sits under the table so that she can still use it the way she always has. It doesn't use much heat and the cloth dangling down to the floor traps the heat warming her instead of the whole room.

Funnily enough when looking for property we noticed that all the estate agents' pictures showed the ubiquitous round table and we wondered, at first whether they just moved the table around from house to house to make them look occupied.


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## WeeScottie (Mar 17, 2015)

Aw no, I'd didn't know there was an electric alternative! My plug in big slipper works a treat though...


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