skirting board radiator

teddymaguire

anybody know much about a raditor skirting called thermaskirt??had a few inquiries made for me and they all came back negative except one from distributor in naas, co.kildare.has anyone got it fitted in thier house.would be the perfect solution to our extension if it was a good product.any info would be appreciated.
teddy

stezie

I havent seen this product in use but wasnt this featured on the dragons den a while back..
http://www.discreteheat.co.uk/

yoshytoshy

They're very expensive ,heatmerchants can price them for you. They didn't advertise the stuff for long ,probably because no-one was buying it.

teddymaguire

hi guys,thanks for the info.checked out the website.MY GOD THEY ARE EXSPENSIVE.dont think they are a solution for our exstension.cant understand why they cost so much.somebody better tell discreteheat that we're in a resession.

Beldarin

Actually, i'm in the middle of getting this put in right now,
the kids rooms are getting heat tonight for the first time since our building work started 6 weeks ago, and already it's deadly!
Yeah, it's dearer than regular rads, but it's way cheaper to run,and will pay for itself over a couple of years,and the big bonus for me is there are no big bulky rads on the walls any more, just streamlined skirting, that i'll never need to gloss-paint again.
If you are still interested, let me know, i'll fill u in on how the job went and what to expect.

Outkast_IRE

id love to know just how much cheaper it works out to run .
I love the idea of it but does the running cost really offset the initial price that much if you dont mind asking roughly how much per room does it cost?

Beldarin

It depends on the room, each one needing different amounts of heat, but the biggest room in my house is the new living room, formerly a separate sitting dining and kitchen. it's now 45 m2, and cost roughly €700 to kit it out completly in thermaskirt rads. Yeah, it is a lot of money, considering regular rads would be less than €200 for the same space, but as i said above, we're banking on it saving us a heap in gas bills. our bill last January was nearly €500, though admittedly it was seriously cold out , with a really crappy heating system and we had a new baby in the house, but i'll let you know when i get the bill for the same period next jan, fingers crossed...

Outkast_IRE

Iv never read the literature but do they claim it pays back due to
Lower operating Temp?
Less water in the system to heat ?

Beldarin

exactly, far less water per M2 than a full radiator, so your boiler doing way less work, thus less gas burned. It still gets pretty hot to the touch though, which i hadn't really expected, but there are no thermostats on them yet so maybe thats why.
The idea is to have them running for longer, but at a lower output than the old system. we were forever putting the heating on and off, trying to keep the house heated, without leaving it switched on all day, and if it goes to plan, then there will be a comfortable background warmth all day, boosted for an hour in the evening as needed, but we'll see how it all pans out.
i just love the look of them, and i wasn't sure how much difference it would make to the wall space, but already it has, it looks great, really sleek.
Hopefully by this time tomorrow, the whole system will be up and running.

ps: Oh, and by the way, i recommend you use the online planner, it will give you a great idea of what the job will involve, but don't bother with the prices, they are all in sterling and out of date too i think, quoted me almost twice what i'm paying, nearly put me off initially until i actually spoke to the guy supplying it here and got a far better quote

Beldarin

OOhhh lovely....
House is getting toasty warm, only one more room to get hooked up, hopefully monday, and so far all is well
My daughter has found her new spot, stretched out on thr floor in front of the tv with her feet up against the skirting, probably be stepping over her there for the next 5 years,

teddymaguire

HI, HOW DID YOU GET OM WITH YOURINSTALLATION OF THERMASKIRT RADS??????I GOTAQUOTE FROM THEMIN DUBLIN , IT WAS SERIOUSLY EXSPENSIVE BUT IM THINKING IT MIGHT BE WORTH THE OUTLAY IF IT HAS GOOD LONG TERM SAVINGS.COULD YOU ELABORATE ON HOW IT HAS WORKED OUT FOR YOU REGARDING COSTS ETC.DID YOU INSTALL IT YOUR SELF??.THE BOSSMAN IN DISCRETEHEAT SAYS IT IS AN EASY FIT???

Beldarin

Sorry, have been so busy being warm and cosy i didn't get back to update, ;-)

Thermaskirt is working beautifully, it looks gorgeous, it's fast to heat up, and maintains a nice level of heat, there's trv's in each room, and so we're gradually fine tuning the settings to suit our needs.
Regarding fitting, we had their guy do it, with my fella helping out, (that saved on some costs) and it is very straightforward, however, most of the price is tied up in the materials, not the fitting, that's why we decided to get them to do it.
Each length of rad clips onto brackets, once they are on properly, it's fairly easy from there. You would definitely need some plumbing/heating experience to get you through with no probs, but its simply a matter of connecting all the fittings to feed points in each room. If you do decide to go ahead and fit it yourself, i'm sure my fella will share any tips he picked up, though Alan from discrete heat walked us through the whole thing and it went exactly as he said it would (minus one small hiccup where a connection popped off during the first fill of the system, spilling water out, :eek: but luckily it was easy fixed, and no damage done)
As far as running costs are concerned, i won't know til January, but the boiler is running at a lower setting than before, which must be saving cash, yey!
As for the rest, well, we couldn't be happier.
It looks stunning, we have the Ivory OG in the living room, which is a tall Georgian style, and the smaller profile in all the rest, also ivory
My favorite bit is having no bulky rads on the walls, so no restrictions on where we put the furniture, which makes SUCH a difference, and I was worried i'd have no-where to hang damp clothes on wet days, but actually they dry in a day on a clothes-horse which is placed beside one rad.

Have now realised i'm ranting on & on, I should be on commission, lol, but I'm so delighted with the job that every time i start talking bout it, this happens,
As you can tell, i'm happy to fill u in with more info as needed, just let me know, and I'll try to add a picture later, or else i'll pm u my facebook page, which has a few pics of all the work we've been doing, including some of the thermaskirt during & after fitting.

Barbra

Beldarin

Ok, pictures are huge, but here ya go..

teddymaguire

hi barbra, thanks a mill for the photos,it looks the part ,just a couple of more questions for you,are the pipes covered in any way ( covers??? ) and is there a gap left between floor and bottom of skirting? Other than those questions i think you have answerd them all for me.Good to get a customers opinion other than the usual its the best system ever from that lad alan in the office.How did you find working with that fellah??thanks again for all the info
teddy

Beldarin

Yeah, there are covers, these photos were from 2 weeks ago, will try to take a new one soon.
Basically, there are moulded plastic covers for each corner, end, or join, and some have built-in trv's.
Along the top of the rad there is a removeable rubber caulking strip (no more masking the skirting before painting) and along the bottom, another strip clips in to hide your speaker wires, modem cable etc. The only problem we had with any of these is one of them was glued on crooked, and when i peeled it off the strip broke,we didn't see it before the job was done, but Alan says he'll drop a new one out to me so it wont be a problem. As for him, I found him nice, i was a bit wary of the sales-pitch, but actually, his enthusasim is justified, it is a great system, and you can see for yourself above that by now, i'm a big fan myself.
All in all, i'm one very satisfied customer, if you can afford it, i'd reccommend thermaskirt to everyone. We went the whole hog, while we had the cash available and while the house was already being wrecked, but you could just as easily do one room in a house at a time, and see if it suits your needs.

yoshytoshy

How is upstairs in the house since these went in ?
They look very neat:) , we were concerned they wouldn't heat the higher part of rooms and so the rooms above would suffer.

lauri

I have the thermaskirt (skirting heating) fitted and we have nothing but problems since.
The room is not warm at all.
The pressure of the boiler went down, and they haven't been able to fix it.
The "thermaskirt plumbers" are very young and inexperienced.
Now we are waiting for a proper plumber to install a non return valve that it's missing......
Didn't know at the time that I was paying a small fortune for an unfinished product. You still need to sandle, varnish, and paint the dummy skirting. :eek:
All my fault, didn't do any research beforehand..... :mad:

Wadsworth

Dear Lauri,
This is Martin Wadsworth here, Managing Director of DiscreteHeat Co Ltd & manufacturers of the Thermaskirt heating system.
I am very sorry to read of your disappointment with our system - we have in fact over 6,000 systems sucessfully installed in the UK and over 200 in Ireland.
I have discussed your post with Alan Mangan, Sales Director of DiscreteHeat.ie and he too is disappointed by your antipathy towards the company and product.
If you are the customer we believe you are (we have so very few complaints its easy to identify who they might be) then you will be aware that Alan and his team are visiting your property -for the 3rd time - this weekend at their own expense to sort out an issue that is not of their making for the sake of the products good name & reputation.
If you are the customer we believe you to be, then you are well aware of the information and advise that you were given, free of charge, that you chose to ignore.
Despite this you have opted to post a derogatory blog, before Alan and his team have even been to site to try to sort it out.
I would have thought this is a highly risky strategy, as you are relying on DiscreteHeat.ie and their good will to turn up & fix a problem that is not of their making, at their expense whilst you prefer to dog the product on the web.
It will not be lost on readers, that your 1st posting is to complain about the product, despite the many positive reports it receives earlier in the thread.
May I respectfully suggest that in future, you wait until our colleagues in Ireland have completed the job to the best of their abilities, before you reach a conclusion?
As for the youthful age of the installers, I would have thought that with the population of Ireland one of the youngest average ages in the EU that should hardly be a surprise. We employ enthusiastic, hard working and courteous fitters, whatever age they might be. Gerry by the way is 50+

The MDF skirting can not be supplied painted, as we dont make it and the surface finish would be damaged on installation as we professionally screw or nail and dont rely on adhesive, save to act as filler. It clearly states 'primed for painting' on our literature and if you wanted it painting by others, I am sure Alan could have arranged that too. (Or you could have bought extra ThermaSkirt for dummy at 3x the price)

Never the less, despite your precipitous and unjustified sleight against our company & product, I am sure Alan, reliable as ever will turn up as & when you decide you would like him. I suggest you contact him to confirm whether you still would like him to try and sort out the issues that are not of his making. This is a gesture of good will on our part, that seems sadly lacking on yours.

If you wish to speak to me direct, I am available on my mobile on
+44 7974 766113 at any reasonable time.
I suggest the way to get your issues resolved is by discussion with Alan & his colleagues, and not via the internet.

Sincerely

Martin Wadsworth
Managing Director
DiscreteHeat Co Ltd
www.discreteheat.co.uk

Ambersky

I was drawn to this thread because a neighbour of mine was describing to me the other day the ongoing difficulties he is having with his skirting board radiators.
His upstairs area if fairly warm but the downstairs area is cold.
I dont know who put them in or the name of the product.
Is the naming of the product and company a problem here, maybe a mod could clarify, I think were not suppose to mention actual companies, trades people or shops, but I do see loads of posts with them mentioned.
I know a first poster wouldnt know the rules anyway.

Personally I want to hear from consumers on these boards about both their good and bad experiences with products and services.

It dosent strike me as odd that someone, lauri in this case, would put up a first post if she saw a thread on something that was causing difficulties for her at the moment.
Its hardly a vengeful post. In fact she blames herself at the end of her brief post for not doing her research properly.
And yes I do expect to have to hear good and bad stories sometimes about the same product or companies and to have to make up my own mind on whats going on.

But I guess no matter how much it is lauri's own fault and no matter how badly she followed the "free advice" and even after the three generous visits, the fact seems to be, and I guess she is competent enough to tell us herself without consulting any experts that "the room is not warm at all"

Wadsworths reply seems almost threatening with its, We Know Who You Are and We Know Where You Live.
lauri Im with you on this one.
I dont think I would want to invite those plumbers into my home if their manner is anythng like the tone of Wadsworths reply.
lauri maybe have someone with you when they are due to call this time.
Its the reply to lauri's post, not her post, that would put me off.

yoshytoshy

I can't for the life of me understand ,why it would take professionals three attempts to fix something

Surely the product has issues.

Wadsworth

I am glad to say that the husband of 'Lauri' contacted me direct on Friday morning, so I am pleased that at least there is a dialogue going.
DiscreteHeat.ie have arranged to go next week and work things out.
On the whole the customer was very complimentary about the product, but felt let down since Christmas by our after care. In mitigation, the snow caused havoc with the timetable for January, but we should have communicated better with them & I have apologised for that.

I am confident that Alan will sort things out.

As for the product, there are no 'issues' with it. You put hot water through it, it gets hot and heats the room. Simple as a radiator.

If the room does not get warm enough, there's only 3 reasons:
1. Hot water is not getting to it
2. There isnt enough length of it to meet the demands of the room.
3. The room isnt as well insulated as thought.

The fact is, that with any heating system, rads, under floor or electric, you can calculate the heat required for the room quite easily if its new build, but you have to make assumptions if its an existing building.

We have independant tests on ThermaSkirt so we know what the heat ouput is per metre for any degree temperature of water. We can easily calculate what the output is. We can reasonably estimate the heat load of the room, as any plumbing & heating company does. We invariably dont have a problem, and 6,500+ systems installed is a testament to that.

Anyway, bottom line is we want Lauri & husband to be as satisfied as all our other customers - and I am sure we will turn things around.

We dont give up!
Best regards

Martin

Ambersky

Well now that much better isnt it.
It wasnt all lauris fault, silly woman.
She did have something to complain about, cold room, poor comunication, havoc with the timetable and all that and an apology was due and given.
Good job lauri has a husband who was able to get a better dialogue going.:rolleyes:

On the whole the customer was very complimentary about the product, but felt let down since Christmas by our after care. In mitigation, the snow caused havoc with the timetable for January, but we should have communicated better with them & I have apologised for that

How about an apology to lauri for the tone of the our product is fabulous,How dare you post any criticisms, if anything is the matter its all your fault, and we know who you are and where you live post?
If thats the tone of reply to the public mention of any problems with your product I would hate to be trying to deal with the company in private.
Im a complete stranger with no association with lauri and Im picking up on bullying tones.
My home is 20 years old now and I am needing to update my heating system. I will take note of this companies name and make sure never to have any dealings with it.
I dont care how good a product is in theory.
Continuous quoting of how fantastic it is is no good to someone sitting in a cold room.
It sounds like lauri and her husband have been trying to get this sorted since before the snow which was weeks ago.
The reply to her post should have been something like Sorry to hear there are any difficulties or disatisfaction with our poduct.
The aim of our company is to ensure everyone is satisfied with our wonderful product. I will personally see to it that any problems are sorted out. lauri you could contact me or PM me here. As soon as any difficulties are sorted out I hope you will feel motivated to post again and tell everyone how happy you now are.

By the way lauri, how happy are you now? lauri
I would like to hear it from you.
It is ok to post here. Youve done nothing wrong.
Thats what boards.ie is here for, to hear both the recommendations and warnings about products and services

yoshytoshy

Wadsworth wrote: »

The fact is, that with any heating system, rads, under floor or electric, you can calculate the heat required for the room quite easily if its new build, but you have to make assumptions if its an existing building.


We dont give up!
Best regards

Martin

We use a heat calculator to get heat requirements and it's never failed.

70% of our work is on old buildings.

wing52

Hello yoshytoshy.

Where can a person get one of those heatin calculators?

Thanks.

Wadsworth

Go to
www.thermaskirt.com and download the free designer software.
ThermaSkirt designer 3.3

It uses not only the latest building standards, but previous years to give you an estimate for your room.Its been designed with data from the BRE & BSRIA, and you can also vary the flow temperature to represent boilers, heat pumps etc.

The Mears heat calculator for rads etc usually adds about 20~30% to the actual requirement to compenstate for the convection currents that carry the heat via the ceiling first.

70% of our installations are in existing buildings. New build is a recent development with McCarthy & Stone, TMF, Springoak and others now standardising on ThermaSkirt.

Martin

Beldarin

Ok, so i am a little bit wary getting back in here, it seems there's some strong feeling going on...
I am sorry to hear that not everyone has had as great an experience as us with thermaskirt, but as for our own story, well, no problems to report!
We have nice even heat distribution throughout the house, kids rooms are set fairly low on the thermosat as they had been getting overheated in the evenings, and the rest is perfect! As for the customer service end of things, well, lauris experience seems very far from mine, that's all i'll say, we were well taken care of, and had no issues to complain of. My camera didn't make it through Xmas so no update there, but i stand by my offer to anyone thinking of getting this done, either in part or a whole house, i'm happy to reccommend it, and happy to go into more job-detail if necessary, just pm me.


ps:
To Mr Wadsworth: Great product, thank you very much!

lauri

Well, after a long time, I can still say that the skirting board heating was never fixed. The house is warm except the kitchen.

I will never recommend it.

Allan couldn't fix it and Martin promised to give us the money back.
Well, we never got any money back, so beware.....
We've being lied to.

ThermaSkirt not working for us. DiscreteHeat not working for us.
That's all I can say. We are not happy or satisfied customers.

:mad::mad::mad:

Allan coulnd't fix it, he tried 3 times. Not only Allan couldn't fix the ThermaSkirt, but he also managed to make things worse in every attempt. They also managed to make a mess of the heating in the house, by trying to get the kitchen warm and not the rest of the house.

We will have to get rid of it, spend money on buying new radiators, skirting boards and painting the room.

ThermaSkirt not working for us. DiscreteHeat not working for us.
We are not happy or satisfied customers.
I will never recommend it.

dovetailglove

hi, lauri, any chance you could post up some photos of the finished thermaskirt if you still have it in??? just interested to see if the standard of fitting was as good as they claim to have done. im a bit wary of this company lines stating its an easy fit and so on.
thanks
dove

dovetailglove

can anyone tell me the thruth about this product called thermaskirt. ive gone to see it in an unsold house and it heats up fine but estetically it looks unfinished. does anybody understand how these covers stay on or why they have covers. more info please.the seller of the house is having lots of teething probs with it but has not got them sorted yet. i like the fact that you can get rid of radiators but will it enhance or devalue a house. again more info please. would prefer info from householders who have it in their houses rather than from the head honcho it seems who was on here some time ago.
thanks a lot
dove

480905

What kind of price did people pay for this product??

paddy147

480905 wrote: »

What kind of price did people pay for this product??

This heating system was featured on a programme on RTE 1 called Room For Improvement.

It was installed in a house extension and rebuld out near Dundrum.

They had terrible problems with trying to get the system to fit propperly and to work too.

the wife was horrified by it and hated it in fact,even the hubby wasnt happy with it.

He said it was very gappy looking,especially at room corners and did not look nice.

Alot of money wasted in the end.:(