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I need to heat a fairly large sized master bedroom but the central heat in the rest of the house is turned down when there's no other family there and I'm alone. What's the best kind of personal heater that helps to dissipate heat? I've heard most portable heaters only heat what's in front of them. They all seem to have the same watt ratings, 750W on the low setting and 1500W on the high setting.
Anything with a fan will disburse the heat a bit better, the radiator version will be quieter. 1500W is fine for a small to medium room.
Essentially, all of these heaters produce the same amount of heat for the same cost. Look up your local utility rates, and if you use your heater on the 1500W high setting, it will cost you about 1.5x your average rate to run for an hour.
If your utility charges you 12 cents per KWH, you will be paying 18 cents an hour to run this. If you use it overnight, plus an hour before you go to bed, that cost is going to be $1.72/day, or a bit over $50/month.
Why not heat the bed instead of the entire bedroom?
Quote:
Originally Posted by HouseBuilder328
I need to heat a fairly large sized master bedroom but the central heat in the rest of the house is turned down when there's no other family there and I'm alone.
our pre-electricity ancestors had the right idea -- why not heat the bed rather than bring the entire bedroom up to a comfortable temperature?
There's the traditional electric blanket and heated mattress pads, or if you're worried about safety (fire and EMF) there's the new BedJet, and various circulating water models.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishbrains
Anything with a fan will disburse the heat a bit better, the radiator version will be quieter. 1500W is fine for a small to medium room.
For heating a smaller room, I like this style:
I don't like Dr's "Delivers 60% more heat than other 1500-watt heaters" marketing, but the product is well built and the humidifier works well.
The radiator heaters are silent and diffuse (not dissipate) heat well. You need two though, and possibly an electric blanket.
The first goes in the master bathroom. Unless you wear thermals to bed, a nighttime visit is cold and the heat keeps pipes from freezing (both kinds ). The second goes in the bedroom at a low temperature where the electric blanket keeps you warm.
We have a bonus room that had no heat, so we added an electric baseboard unit.
It cost too much.
So we opted for an infrared heater, about half the cost to run, but still expensive. While the front of it and thusly the fan direction only emits heat that direction, the whole room does get heated. But we keep it set at 67 which will cycle on and off, unless it gets down to the teens or below, then we kick it up to 75 to keep it running to keep the room temperate for a host of plants in there.
It's still expensive, but seems to be about 1/2 to 2/3 the baseboard electric unit. Technically they should cost the sane, but the baseboard is higher wattage than the 1500 infrared.
If it gets to 5 , though we will put on the baseboard, as it does do a better job of heating.
Just last week it was 2°f ambient, wind chill-7, and should have put the baseboard on. The infrared on 75 only kept yhe room ar 62°f, though it was set on 75. Usually the temp is maintained at 67-70.
Keep in mind not to set the rest of the house so low as to freeze pipes on bitter cold nights.
Not knowing what type of main heat you have I'm going to throw this out.
You're in North Carolina? I'm guessing you have a heat pump. If so, you should pick your comfortable temperature and then leave it alone. Heat pumps work most efficiently, meaning cheaply, if you don't pogo the thermostat up and down.
You turn the heat down when you're away and then turn it back up you cause the pump to go into emergency heat mode which is usually resistance heat, the most expensive.
I've found since I've retired, that any additional oil use by keeping the heat up during the day when I'm home is negligible. The furnace only has to heat the house up once a day now, in the morning, instead of twice, the morning when we get up and the afternoon when we come home. We're also not cranking as far back at night any more like we used to do.
I prefer the radiator type oil filled heaters. I have two for upstairs and downstairs. They heat a space quickly and quietly, even my living room if need be. I like the brand Patton.
Our master bedroom was an addition many years ago and the heating was done very poorly. It has the same size vent as our kitchen which is 1/4 of the size! There's only 1 vent, too. It's FREEZING in there all winter. I got fed up with it and we bought an electric fireplace from Lowe's this year. It heats up to 1,000 square feet. Our bedroom is about 400 square feet. I had one of those small woodstove looking heaters and it wasn't enough to heat the room. The fireplace has a remote control with temperature control and a timer so I set it before when I'm in bed so I fall asleep roasty toasty.
Gotta ask yourself, what kind of oil did the factory in China use to fill this thing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by btuhack
I'd recommend the oil filled radiator style for safety reasons.
I'd recommend against the "oil filled" style, for safety reasons.
All resistive electric space heaters are equally efficient (and equally expensive to run), and while all pose some fire risk, they're not all equally dangerous -- for example, the oil-filled ones are the only electric space heaters which literallyexplode.
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Why not heat the bed instead of the entire bedroom?
). The second goes in the bedroom at a low temperature where the electric blanket keeps you warm.
Gotta ask yourself, what kind of oil did the factory in China use to fill this thing?
