Electric Heating Systems

Gas water heaters can provide a number of reliable years of service to the individual’s home or place of business. However, as in all things, nothing lasts forever. Therefore there may come that time when a gas water heater needs to be replaced.

In order to have a new gas water heater installation take place there are a number of financial and technical steps that need to take place. Subsequently a gas water heater installation needs to be accomplished as reasonably as possible and yet done to ensure that the installation of the heater meets the standards and codes required to maintain the safe operation of the equipment.

Gas Water Heater Installation Planning Steps

When beginning the process of replacing an old or non-functioning gas water heater, it is important to assess or reassess the hot water needs of the household. If a 40 gallon tank was installed, perhaps the family no longer needs that sized tank. Or perhaps the size of the tank needs to be upgraded. It simply is an opportunity to make changes.

In addition, if considering a new gas water heater installation, perhaps the opportunity can be taken to look at a whole new system. For example, the owner may wish to convert to an electrical water heater system or a solar powered water heater system.

Also, when installing a new unit it is important to look at all of the features. One of the most important features is a gas water heater thermostat.

This device controls the temperature of the water and is therefore an integral part of the unit's functionality as well as providing energy saving measures. Therefore, the buyer can look for an easy to utilize and accessible thermostat.

However, the customer wants to insure that there are safety measures built into the thermostat system. This will help to prevent any accidental adjustments of the thermostat to a higher level or allowing curious children to make dangerous turns of the device which in turn may prevent scalding water from being released into the water system.

Gas Water Heater Installation Safety Measures

Also, when a gas water heater installation is taking place it is important to have professionals involved. This is because the current unit will need to be removed entirely. This process will require disconnecting the feeding line, the hot water line leading from the unit and disconnecting the gas line.

In addition, when putting in a new unit, the above lines need to be reconnected. Therefore, it is important that the person performing the gas water heater installation knows how to proceed.

In fact because of the reconnecting of a gas line, it may be mandated by code that this action be performed by a licensed plumber. This is simply due to the danger associated with a leaking natural gas line.

This post is the second in the series of making sales in Infrared heating and it is entitled "Finding business".

And the first thing to recognise is that sales is a pro-active task. It takes responsibility, action and focus to win new business and you should never believe you are reliant on anybody else.

The other point that I will make up front is that with every list of prospects you develop (and I suggest lots of ideas below), work through it TO THE VERY LAST NAME. I have found personally that there is an important truth in this. The source of a sale often comes from the person you would least expect - even people you may historically not have got on with who now find themselves in new situations themselves. Such people - you guessed it - always end up at the bottom of your list. They're not the "obvious" ones; not the "comfortable" ones. But I strongly urge you to try them. Just personal experience.

Sources of prospects:

Sources of prospects include:
- Past customers;
- Newspapers and trade magazines;
- Referrals;
- Present customers who you ask for more business;
- Your rollodex of business cards - or Email list of personal contacts;
- Alumni from schools, college, companies you've worked for, trade organisations;
- Past people who "only enquired" (you kept their details, right?);
- "Used-to-supply" lists (i.e. "Gone-away customers);
- "No" lists;
- Contacts who have moved (find out discretly from estate agents who is moving - it is a great opportunity to contact potential IR buyers. Hey, install an IR panel in the agency and get everyone talking about it!);
- Classified adverts and new vacancy enquiries;
- Trade organisations - institue of directors, chambers of commerce;
- Local sports competition activities.

Ways to approach people:

There are several different approach for contact: passive and active.
Passive approaches include:
- Advertising;
- Direct mail;
- Leaflet drops;
- Inserts in jornals & newspapers;
- Conferences, public speaking, article-writing.

Making an active approach:
- Write a letter in which you sell a follow-up telephone call (don't just cold-call - direct marketing agencies have ruined the public tolerance to cold-calls);

- Always make the call yourself - never use a secretary to make contact for you;

- Do not go into detail in a call, your aim is to MEET;

- Always use an unusual time to meet: never on the hour or half-hour (too easy to cancel for all the OTHER meetings planned for these slots);

- Be aware of a customer's "prime desire": it is never to BUY A HEATER: it is always going to be something like "SAVING MONEY"; "COST-EFFICIENCY"; "SPACE-SAVING"; "HEALTH ENHANCING" etc.

So remember: a letter to sell the phone call; a phone call to sell a meeting; a meeting to sell yourself.

Final Thumb Memo:
- It is essential to get new customers, regularly;
- The richest source of interest will always be past customers;
- Use newspapers and journals;
- Referrals are the most cost-effective business, most reliable & haggle the least;
- FOLLOW your customers;
- Develop networks;
- ASK for the business. Don't obscure your eventual aim with a prospect. Ask them.

In the second of our Redwell Infrared heating product showcases we will look at the Redwell "Free-standing" IR heater.


As you can see, this heater is designed to be point-of-need, being easily wheeled from one place to another.

It looks bigger in the picture than it actually is - so don't be put off that this is an ungainly "slab" that has to be lugged from a to b and then hidden in a corner. The 600 Watt Unit is only 70cm (about 2 feet) high and 107cm wide (just over 3 feet). The 900 watt unit is 80 cm wide and 127cm wide.

Output - as just indicated - is available in 600 watt and 900 watt variants. This indicates (see "How to calculate power consumption for infrared heating") a heating volume of 36m3 for the 900 watt variant and 24m3 for the 600 watt variant. (Note: A similar 36m3 volume would require an equivalent oil-fired power consumption of 1.980 kilowatts and the 24m3 volume would require 1.320 kw (assuming a boiler that is under 3 years old).

The wooden frame is available in birch plywood or polished oak. The heater surface is enammelled steel, available in white, red or blue finishes.

The unit operates as partial storage heater. Surface temperature of the unit reaches 95C on the front and 70C on the rear. Don't panic, that is the temperature of the element. Remember the enamelled surface has low transfer conductivity. That means essentially you won't scald yourself by touching the surface for a short time although you do feel the unit is hot. The unit is therefore safe for pets and children. (Treat it as you would a standard water-heated radiator). To satisfy yourself how the units are constructed, please see our web page about Redwell Product features or our blog post on the same topic.

Unit Voltage (Europe) is 230 volts, 50Hz. Certificates and reports are TÜV, GS, CE, IGEF.

Marketing is not Selling. Marketing is a positioning activity to ensure your product has the best chance of being seen by potential buyers and of "selling itself" as far as possible.

The difference between marketing and selling is pro-activity and the ability to achieve the sale that has been set up for you by good marketing.

There are six building blocks to successful selling that are relevant to selling energy-efficient heating such as Infra Red.

1) Business knowledge.
- Do you understand the business climate in which potential buyers are operating and in which you are selling? Is it strong? Is it weak? Is it seasonal (yes it is - generally - for heaters!)? Is it political?

- Be well-read. That is, understand as much as you can about the present business environment and demonstrate that you do.

- Be able to converse on current events and futures. Self-explanatory. Be level headed. Don't adopt obvious 'sides'.

- Be politically aware. What is the impact of current government policy and its current and future impact on business (huge selling opportunity here, obviously for energy-efficient products and the likelihood of getting funding).

2) Industry Knowledge
- Ensure you are fully informed about your client's industry. How does it fit within the overall business knowledge you have? For example, whilst the economy is weak, public spending is reasonably high (hospitals, public bodies etc may consequently be 'buyers'); other people will also be motivated to cut costs and therefore equally may be 'buyers' but each needs a different sales message. How would Infrared Heating satisfy each type of client?

- Be aware of your client's competitors and how your product may help a client stay ahead of them.

- Be aware of any personalities in their industry - have they recently said anything for or against infrared heating?

3) Company Knowledge
- Be rock-sure about how your own company operates - for example - will you do "proofs of concept" if asked?

- Are there ethical boundaries about where or to whom (or how) you sell your products? For example not rubbishing the competition.

- Be aware of your own advertising. How did the client find you? Will you feed any of this back into your own company?

- Are there specific experts within your own company that you should get infront of the client rather than try and "bluff your way" yourself?

4) Product Knowledge
- You must have an in depth knowledge about your Infrared heating products yourself.

- Be persuasive. This includes being aware of any possible weakness in your products. Be sure a client will probably have researched them. Have an answer ready.

- Believe in what you sell.

5) Selling knowledge
- Selling is a skill. Research it. Try "Selling to Win" by Richard Denny.

- Avoid any hint of "But it's difficult" or any other negative. Always sell its flip side. "Infrared heaters aren't actually expensive, when you compare their running costs versus traditional forms of heating - even over just two or three years".

- Practice selling.

6) Attitude!
- It is the ultimate characteristic that separates stars from "also rans"

- The old cliché that "first impressions count" really counts.

- Trust yourself.

Finally:
Think about your strengths and weakenesses in the above areas every month. It will give you insight into potential sales as well.

Trust yourself. You got this far due to "something".

Think professional. Don't lower yourself to other peoples' sales standards and don't be afraid equally to walk away from an opportunity as they might from you. A sale well made is a potential subsequent sale. A sale badly made is a trail of bad feeling and bad-mouthing that will follow you and your company around.

Success builds success no matter how small the initial success.

The one who gets ahead is the one who does more than is necessary - and keeps on doing it.

This short post profiles one of the Redwell products: the Wave 2000 heater.


The heater is the pedestal you see in the centre of the atrium in the picture and at 2000 watts it is suitable for heating large open spaces.

Technical details are as follows:
Weight = 73 kg
Power = 2000 Watts
Voltage: 230 volts, 50 Hz
Pedestal Dimensions 50 cm x 50 cm
Unit dimensions = 2m 12cm tall x 45 cm wide
Certificates & Reports: TÜV, GS, CE, IGEF

The unit surface is enamelled steel (which is scratch-resistant and corrosion-resistant) and the wooden frame is available in Maple or Oak, in natural or stained finishes.

The heating element is a partial storage heater which helps accumulate and load-balance power requirements.

We get asked this question a lot - and we love answering it. Cost is clearly a deciding factor in purchasing electrical appliances and the question itself shows the industry is failing to educate people about energy-efficiency.

A more common variant of the same question is "Why are energy-saving light-bulbs so expensive?" The question even holds the clue to its own un-picking.

Yes, the modern energy-saving bulb is expensive, because it is not the same as the old energy-guzzling tungsten filament bulbs of yesteryear. Tungsten bulbs are basically (no insult to Thomas Eddison intended) a blob of glass, a bit of metal and an inert gas. They are very cheap to buy nowadays because we can bang them out ten to a penny. That's where the "good news" stops.

Tungsten bulbs last a short time because light is basically the secondary output of passing a high current through a high resistance wire (the primary output of which is actually heat.) Consequently these bulbs are very expensive to run (90% of their power consumption produces heat as opposed to light) and they are relatively fragile (they go "phut" very quickly).

Low energy light bulbs are complex, flourescent tubes with solid-state electronics that govern their illumination and running. They are not the same beasts as Eddison's invention. And at the moment, they are "expensive" only relative to the purchase cost of the old tungsten bulbs. However - and here is the rub - you will save on average £40 per bulb over the lifetime of an energy-saving bulb versus the running cost of a tungsten equivalent. How does this make them more expensive? They are far, far, far cheaper. You have to look at "total cost of ownership" and not just "purchase cost".

Exactly the same argument applies to Infrared Heating. I will fully admit that the modern materials and technology that makes Infrared Heaters very very reliable over their entire lifetimes and allows them to be 70% more energy-efficient than other forms of heater looks like a "barrier" to purchase. But they are so cheap to run that over even a five year period, you will have saved the purchase cost of the unit and still be left with a reliable heater. The same cannot be said, for example, for oil burners, which are relatively cheap to purchase (total heating requirements of a building considered) but are more expensive to run and also decay markedly after year 3. See the previous post "How to calculate power consumption for Infrared Heating Vs other forms of heating" for the comparative formulae.

So the answer is "the question is wrong". Infrared Heaters are not expensive. They are very, very cheap.

So far we have looked at how infrared heating (as a concept) works; some of its benefits and talked a lot about its energy efficiency.

What I would like to do in this post is to look at the physical composition of Redwell Infra red heaters themselves.

The three basic components of the heater are:

1) the core element and accumulator;

2) The electronics;

3) The body and heating surface.

Lets look briefly at each using the above diagram.

The Core Element and accumulator
This is a non-flammable material with a very high melting point (1315 degrees Centigrade; 2399 Farenheit). The core is not electrically conductive (handy - you want an accumulator for its electrical and thermal buffering qualities) and exhibits little "hot-spotting" or "layering" if the unit is exposed to freezing temperatures.

Electronics
The heating unit comes directly from the aerospace industry which makes the Redwell units so reliable and the element itself is manufactured to remain stable for 100 years. (All Infrared Heating brands are NOT the same). This also means the Redwell units themselves do not contribute to "electrosmog" over time.

(What is electrosmog? Electrosmog is the harmful electromagnetic radiation emitted by electrical devices such as mobile phones and wireless networks and over an extended period of time can contribute to headaches, disrupted sleep, irritability, skin complaints etc. Poor quality electrical devices can increase levels of electrosmog as the integrity of the device decays over time.)

The unit is protected from over-heating by a thermostat.

The body and heating surface
The body of a Redwell IR heater is made from enammelled stainless steel and glass according to the shape of the individual heater. Enammeled steel is scratch-proof, acid proof, shatter-proof. The case is made in a range of colours and surfaces can be made with nearly any decorative theme or picture.

The sirface of each unit has "low surface transfer conductivity" which is a fancy way of saying "if you touch it you won't get burnt".

Units are backed (where relevant) by a galvanised metal sheet to add stiffness and resist twist and distortion.

Frames (where applicable) of the units are made of anodised aluminium and installation brackets are provided that are either hidden, or (where visible) available in sympathetic colours.