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I have a 5 year old home which doesn't have a finished basement though it is completely insulated! The HAVC contractor installed a 95% efficient duel zone ready furnace but only duct the upstairs. I am planning on getting the framing done next year and then bringing back the contractor to finish the duct work for the downstairs the following year. In the mean time I do use the basement for a recording/rehearsal studio and it does get quite cool down there during Utah winters. The basement is about 1730 sq. ft. with no closed framing at this time. The main large room is about 650 sq. ft. and I would like to use supplemental heating solutions for this area when having band members over so they are comfortable. I will have to use 120v. outlets and will use 1500W of heating energy for this area being that is the most one can use with this type of power if I choose electric.
Bear in mind I only will use this heater when working downstairs which is about 3hrs per day on average during the winter months. The cost is about sixes except the cost of white kerosene which will have to be filled every 12 hours. I am not sure which is most energy efficient which maybe someone out there can chime in on. Thank you for taking time to read and post to this thread.
I have a 5 year old home which doesn't have a finished basement though it is completely insulated
The HAVC contractor installed a 95% efficient duel zone ready furnace...
In the mean time...
Use the furnace.
Cut into the trunk for a 6" takeoff fitting.
Set a diffuser. Close it when not down there.
I would not go with the kerosene becuse you will need to store the kerosene and fill up your storage cans routinely.
Personally, I like the oil filled radiators. They are inexpensive and we have used one in our family room for years. It was repurposed after the kids were no longer toddlers. We keep our thermostat set pretty low, especially at night. So while they were little we kept the heaters in their rooms for just a bit more warmth. Once they could manage staying warm with electric blankets and such we moved the heater to the family room. It has always been colder there as it has two outside walls and a garage wall that is not well isulated. So instead of turning up the thermostat for the whole house, we use the heater for just the family room...toasty!
Ceramic heaters...I researched them a couple years ago...love mine.
But I go with Mr. Rational!!!
I was going to say get a guy to just come over and do what he said!!
I keep telling a friend to do the same thing...her basement is so cold...but the
furnace is right there!
What MrRational said. Use the furnace, it's already there.
Choice #2
If you still don't want to use the furnace, I'd go with an electric heater. Just not a fan of kerosene heaters due to hauling, filling, spilling, and odor.
As for which electric I'd just get whatever cheap electric unit you like the look of.
All electric radiant heaters are 100% efficient. That is all the electric that it consumes is converted to heat. It makes no difference (other than direction and spread, ex. has a fan to blow the heat around) whether it's oil, ceramic, infrared, big, small, pretty, or ugly. In the end, 1500 watts of heat will end up in your basement. Get a fan to blow it around if needed.
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I would go with the oil-filled. I have a similar situation with the room over the garage, about 700sf, which does have 2 furnace ducts coming in but as you may find with your basement, when the rest of the house is up to the temperature set on the thermostat, it's not. In my case it's the size of the room and being at the end of the line (duct). In your case, heat rises, so the basement may need supplemental heat even after ducted to the furnace.
At 1,730sf it should really have it's own furnace. Oil filled are the safest to leave on when no one is around, I turn mine on a half hour before going in there to work on projects and it's nice and toasty when I get there. If only there for an hour or less, I can turn it off and it continues to give off heat that long.
I'm with Hemlock. I have an old uninsulated 1800sf farm house in western Texas that I heat with a large pellet stove. However, many times it gets too cold for too long to rely only on the undistributed heat of the stove so I use 1500w oil-filled electric heaters (radiator-styled - Delonghi) at each end of the house during extreme cold spells.
These oil-filled heaters are very safe with no external glowing parts. I believe most of these heaters anymore, if not all, have safety switches that turn the heater off if it gets tipped over. I've never had one turn over though since the heaters I have are very stable in the standing position.
The drawback to an oil-filled heater is these are very slow to heat up and to cool down, so are not great for a room that you use sporadically for a few hours each week and only want to heat when you're actually using it. If you are set on using an electric space heater, I would get one with a built-in fan, rather than trying to use little portable fans to blow air over some other heater.
Is your existing furnace fueled with propane or NG? If so, you can install a relatively inexpensive direct vent heater to quickly (and inexpensively) heat the recording/rehearsal studio space when you are using it.
If I was finishing a 650 sq. ft. basement room as a recording studio, I would install radiant floor heating.
I'm assuming the first one is 1500 watt heater, the square footage they are giving you for the infrared is "up to" as in up to 1800 sq ft. if it's 65 degrees outside and you want to raise the temperure to 70. Any of these space heaters that use electric are going to cost you the exact same amount per BTU, assuming that infrared heater is 1500watts it's going to produce as much heat as one of the oil filled units.
The oil filled are good for smaller rooms, what I would suggest in your situation if you decide to go with electric is buy one with fan to move heat around.
As long as you can live with the smell which isn't exactly bad IMO this is the best option for portable heat. That's equal to bout 4.5 of those electric heaters.
Ultimately what Mr. Rational suggested is what you should do. That's a gas furnace apparently? The cost of the electric heat is going to be 3X what it is for natural gas.
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What kind of furnace do you have?
