heating with little electric heaters

My old trailer didn't have central heat,was poorly insulated,and I used many different space heaters while I lived there.
If it's gonna' be your primary heat source,especially in rooms that you want to keep at least a little bit warm for most of the day,the oil-filled type might be your best bet.They are nearly silent,and can heat a large area.I used mine for quite a while before reading the directions about where to place it in a room,and relocating it just a few feet made a substantial difference.As CN pointed out,they are slow to heat up a cold room,though.I used one in the living room/kitchen area,but I used a ceramic heater to knock the chill out of the bathroom in the morning.
Considering how drafty and poorly insulated that place was,the electric bill stayed pretty reasonable.
Good luck

We used one of those oil filled radiator like looking space heaters last year. Unfrotunately the one room we were trying to keep warmer is rather open and has 12 foot celings. About 5 minutes after the electric bill came that bugger was already in our yard sale pile for the summer. We didn't notice any particular great output in heat and the bill jacked up $80 for that month.

I use a small ceramic heater under my desk, to keep my feet warm and keep the central heat on 60, wear more clothes, etc.

We gutted this old farm house 2 years ago. New windows and insulation. We bought a new central AC and heat pump system at that time. Never hooked them up. One large window ac unit keeps the 1000sf we use comfy and 3 1500watt electric heaters keep it warm in the winter. Some day Ill hook up the system, but it may be a while LOL!.
Anyone want to buy a brand new 3.5ton system?

We use the Delonghi oil filled radiator heater. There are some with the timer and some without. Here's what one of ours looks like:

http://www.shopping.com/xPO-DeLonghi...Radiator_MG15#

Some have timers and some models don't. We own three and are very pleased with them. They don't heat up quickly, but do heat up well and keep a room at about 72 degrees at our place. Our rooms are fairly small though.

I think that the oil-filled, radiator type space heators are the safest & most efficient. Their surface temps never get high enough to cause anything to catch fire or to burn kids or pets. They continue to radiate heat after the heating element shuts off, untill it starts again...giving a more even warmth.. instead of the on-off heat of the Coil type heators. We have 2 of them & they can actually heat 1,000 sq ft at an even temp, instead of the On-Off heat of the hot coil type space heaters that we've tried in the past. They do take some time to heat a space, but they'll keep it comfy constantly.

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Freedom isn't Free

with a 12 foot ceiling, you have to heat alot of space before you feel any heat down where you are.

I dropped all my ceilings to 6.5 feet +/- a few inches in some rooms.

if you are tall, watch out for the ceiling fans. (yup, several people have been whacked so far)

I'm only 5'3", I dont need high ceilings. lol

do the math, with 12 foot ceilings, once you are warm down on the floor you are actually heating TWICE the volume of space you 'live in".

Please tell us all, so we understand ... where does the rest go?

Every watt of electricity consumed in your house ultimately ends up as heat, unless the appliance somehow vents the heat outside the house. Examples of appliances that vent heat are your dryer, air conditioner and bathroom vent fans.

1500 watts is 1500 watts. The primary difference between the expensive and cheap heater is safety and how much noise they make.

Pete

Good point CN. Keeping in mind the purpose for controling the temperature in a room is to allow you to lose heat comfortably, humidity plays a huge role in the economics of any heating system. Electric heat by nature is very dry which will increase the rate you lose heat through perspiration which in turn will make you turn up the electric heater to "keep you warmer". Thus spinning the meter faster. Too much and you'll not be comfortable either but consider adding a humidifier.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

the fan consumes power
the cheap construction of the design leaks power.
yes it all ends up as heat, but its not concentrated heat that you can actually say "its warming up the room".

I do not know the "science" of it, but i have used several kinds of heaters, in a closed bathroom, hooked to a kill o watt meter, and a wall thermometer standing by.

some heaters heat the room faster and maintain the temp better than others, all of them were using about the same draw.

wire coil heaters are the worst, sealed oil heaters the best. [we are talking about 110v heaters]

you cant argue with a thermometer, and a kill o watt meter.

yes, it was pretty much the same temp outside when I tested these dang things.

for some reason a forced fan wire coil heater cannot maintain the temp unless it runs constantly.
a sealed oil heater goes on and off, and maintains the temp nicely, with less KWH used.

I will dig up the papers I scribbled the details on....

to make the point... try to heat your bathroom with a hair dryer... they suck @ 1250 to 1500 watts.

you wont get it warm.... it will run 24/7.

I have found that infra red heat lamps use 250 watts, and they produce a good felt warmth in a rooom like a bathroom.
I have one right over my toilet, in the winter, you flick on the light and it comes on aand your toasty warm while you download.

I have another about 3 feet away by the shower and together they use only 500 watts....
but in the dead of winter, in a close bathroom in 15 min you have to click one off or you start to sweat.

why?

I dunno. "different" kinda heat?

I tossed out the 1500 watt heater and now only use 500 most of the time on demand.

unless its bitter cold and the pipes need to be kept above 40, then I set the baseboard on LOW.... and it doesnt make it warm it just keeps stuff from freezing.

ALL electricity DOES turn into heat, sort of..... kinda.

but is it usable heat?

often it isnt!

I have some very old milk house heaters (we don't use them any more) but they were rated for 5000 watts and did I much better job of heating than the new 5000 watt construction heaters we had added later. Basically the same beasts box fan unit heaters but the newer ones were nearly useless. I'd have to guess the new ones simply weren't pulling 5000 watts, we switched to oil heat too soon after to investigate. None I've ever encountered on the job sites seem to do much. Certainly there are different heats, radient heat passes through the air only heating particles suspended in it to heat solid objects IE heat lamps) , Convective heat is physically heating the air (radiators are convective, fan unit heater are forced convective heaters) , conductive heat, (like a pot sitting on a stove or an electric blanket), and friction. Warm is warm, comfortable is comfortable and there are different ways to get there.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

Actually, that is exactly what all the heat does, it warms up the room. Turning on 15 100 watt light bulbs, turning on a 1500 watt heater of any heater, or turning on a 1500 watt hair dryer will all have EXACTLY the same effect on the room temperature.


I hate to break it to you, but this is not a scientific experiment. Was the outside temperature exactly the same in all circumstances? Was the outside wind speed and direction the same? Did you use the bathroom more often in one case then the other, open the door, turn on the exhaust fan? Was the bathroom door perfectly sealed, or could an exhaust fan elsewhere in the house been causing negative air pressure, thus pulling a cold draft into the room from outside? Was the temperature of your starting point the same? Had it been there for a long enough time for the objects in the room to be the same temperature as your starting point?

Imagine two rooms with the same air temperature, say 60 degrees. One is just being warmed up, the other cooled down. Thus, the warming room is filled with objects that haven't been warmed to air temperature and could be only 40 degrees. The cooling room could be filled with objects at 80 degrees. If this system were closed, and no heat added or removed, the air temperature in the one room would rise and in the other would fall.

It is darn near impossible to do the science at home. This is exactly why the watt number on the appliance gives you a quantitative method of telling how much energy the device will produce/consume.

Your experimentation was flawed, and so your conclusion was wrong. Don't feel bad, it even happens to the best scientists. That is why peer review is so important in the scientific community.

Infra red heat lamps produce radiant heat. Radiant warms objects rather then the air, thus they quickly and effectively make you warmer. That said, in a closed system, these objects would then loose their heat to the air, causing the air temperature to rise appropriately. Ultimately, a watt is a watt is a watt.

Here is the scientific principal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy Unless you are using these heaters to lift objects or store energy in some other way, you get the same net result regardless of the type of heater. Advertisers try to get you to believe exactly what you do, so they can sell you more expensive heaters.

Pete

Surely, somebody, somewhere has done some kind of testing of these little electric heaters?

Maybe this is something for mythbusters?

Or consumer reports?

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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Well, I tested the ones I use last winter. The year before last I used the oil filled type and it was colder than a well diggers brass monkey in here. The ones I use now keep the house as warm as we want, and at a cheaper cost. That's all the testing I need.

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HIGHGROUND

Don't forget to wear a hat as most of your own heat radiates out the top of your head.

I vote for a wood stove & and oil filled radiant heater if needed.

At "The Place" or cabin, we use the wood stove as primary, and back it up with elect. baseboards.
One in the bath(1000W), one under the kitchen table(750w, under a window), two in the living room (1500 each), one in each loft(1500 each). Each has their own t-stat, set at 60. They cycle on/off as needed.
Works well, can't say how the costs compare, as we aren't there full time yet, but they only seem to run at night.

good points pete... i will redu the "experiments' with tighter note to detail.

but on a "daily normal use", Ive seen the oil filled things use less and apparently heat the room more "consistently comfortable".

this will give me something to do in the dead of winter when i am bored to tears... LOL