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Fear of the gas stop in winter: huge rush to fan heaters in Munich

2022-07-14T05:15:27.056Z


Fear of the gas stop in winter: huge rush to fan heaters in Munich Created: 07/14/2022, 06:58 By: Franziska Konrad Sought-after goods: Hornbach employee Alexander Sterthues shows a fan heater. With 15,000 watts, the industrial model is more suitable for construction sites. © Astrid Schmidhuber Fearing a gas freeze in winter, people storm hardware stores and stock up on fan heaters. But experts


Fear of the gas stop in winter: huge rush to fan heaters in Munich

Created: 07/14/2022, 06:58

By: Franziska Konrad

Sought-after goods: Hornbach employee Alexander Sterthues shows a fan heater.

With 15,000 watts, the industrial model is more suitable for construction sites.

© Astrid Schmidhuber

Fearing a gas freeze in winter, people storm hardware stores and stock up on fan heaters.

But experts warn: The devices are only an emergency solution.

Munich – Alexander Sterthues has never experienced that either.

On Monday, the employee at the Hornbach hardware store in Freiham put boxes of new fan heaters on the shelves.

Almost everything is gone by Tuesday morning.

The VK2002 fan heater, the Wifi-enabled heating panels, the Radiator 2000 - sold out in just one day.

The demand for electric heaters is extreme, says Sterthues.

Even Munich's largest hardware store is not yet prepared for such a rush.

"We currently have mainly radiant heaters that you can use to make yourself comfortable on the terrace on a mild summer night," explains Sterthues.

"But customers want appliances that can warm up their homes in winter."

Gas stop in winter?

First residential groups like Vonovia turn down the heating for tenants at night

Because of the Ukraine war, Russia is threatening to turn off the gas supply to Europe.

Will Russian gas still come in winter?

And even if so, at what price?

Who knows.

The first residential groups such as Vonovia are already turning down the heating for their tenants at night.

Economics Minister Robert Habeck even questioned the priority supply of private households in the event of a gas crisis.

It is understandable that some people are already thinking about the cold season despite the threatening heat wave - and are looking for alternatives to their gas heating systems.

"People buy everything that heats and burns," confirms Alexander Sterthues.

But are electric heaters really an alternative?

"At least not as a permanent solution," says energy consultant Norbert Endres from the Bavarian consumer center.

Because it doesn't matter whether it's classic fan heaters, radiators or infrared devices: "Heating with electricity is exorbitantly expensive." A kilowatt hour of electricity costs about three times as much as a kilowatt hour of gas.

Anyone who heats directly with electricity, as it is called in technical jargon, burns a lot of money.


How much electric heating costs can be estimated.

Depending on the age of the building and the insulation, the annual requirement for heating energy is 50 to 300 kilowatt hours per square meter. According to the consumer center, the average is around 100 kilowatt hours.

At a low electricity price of 33 cents per kilowatt hour, that would mean heating costs of 660 euros per year for a living room with 20 square meters; with the current new customer tariff of 47 cents per kilowatt hour from the Munich municipal utility, it would even be 940 euros.

Gas crisis in Munich: rush to fan heaters - high maintenance costs

And that's just the annual average for a single room at current prices.

If the price of electricity continues to rise at the same pace as the price of gas, in a winter month for an apartment with three rooms, kitchen and bathroom "significantly higher costs of more than 500 euros per month can quickly become due," calculates Endres.

So keep your hands off the radiant heater?

You can't say that in general either.

Electric heaters can be an emergency solution if you don't have access to a wood stove or a chimney connection in your home and the gas heating really needs to be switched off for a longer period of time.

This is unlikely, but unfortunately no longer unthinkable at the moment.

"Before you sit in the cold apartment, you can heat with electricity for a very limited time if necessary," admits energy consultant Endres.

Especially since the purchase prices are sometimes less than 100 euros and only the maintenance costs are high.

"But even in an emergency, you should think about which rooms you heat, at what temperature, and for how long."


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Whether you use a fan heater, a radiator or an infrared system is more a question of taste.

Infrared systems have the disadvantage that they heat surfaces and only from one side.

Whoever sits in front of it has a warm stomach but a cold back.

"Not everyone likes that," says Alexander Sterthues from Hornbach in Freiham.

Fan heaters heat up quickly, but are noisy.

So this is more of a bathroom thing.

Radiators, on the other hand, take a similar amount of time to get up to temperature as normal heating.

On the other hand, they store heat longer and are quiet.

"Personally, I would recommend a radiator with wheels," says Sterthues.

"You can move it from room to room, for example in the evening you can heat the living room first, then the bathroom and then the bedroom." In principle, these devices should have 2000 watts if they are to heat a larger room.


By the way, if you want to buy an electric heater to be on the safe side, you don't have to camp in front of the hardware store.

As was the case with toilet paper and pasta, it is not the manufacturers' lack of supply that is leading to gaps on the shelves, but the extraordinary demand from customers - especially since it comes at a time of year when the devices are otherwise rather slow-moving.

"We reacted to the situation and ordered more fan heaters," emphasizes Sterthues, who points out that devices are still available or in stock anyway.

"In addition, the containers with supplies have long been on their way."

BY ANDREAS HOESS

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Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-07-14

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