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They provide the same amount of BTU's for the same price. All electric heaters cost the same per BTU. How they differ is how effectively they distribute the heat. The oil filled heater will take longer to heat up and longer to cool down. They generally have more surface area so do a better job of heating a larger volume of air. They provide a more comfortable heat similar to hot water radiators.
Because of the way they work, it is useful to de-rate the oil filled heaters to about 2/3 or the stated wattage. The efficiency is the same, but because the temperature of the surface of the heater is thermostatically limited, they tend to spend more time with the electric element inside powered off.
Example: Your bathroom is 55 degrees, you want to get it to 70 so you can take a shower. With a radiant heater, you crank the thermostat up to high and it stays on continuously. With an oil filled heater, you crank it up to high and once the oil temperature inside reaches the safety limit, the element turns off and only the heated oil is adding heat to the room. Since the actual electric element is off about 1/3 of the time, it puts out only 2/3rds the heat of a heater that is on continuously during a fixed amount of time. (If your bathroom is 35 degrees, it might stay on all the time because the oil is being cooled faster, but once it gets closer to room temperature the cycling of the heating element will begin.)
The heat from oil filled is a nice even heat, and they work best in areas that you want to keep constantly warm.
Oil filled = excellent for maintaining a comfortable temp in an enclosed space with no drafts
Radiant = directional, better for spot heating
Convection = better at distributing heat despite drafts and quickly heating large cold areas
Oil filled is the more cost efficient option as long as the goal is to heat an entire room to a consistent temperature. They're not good for areas with extreme temp differentials (large space, high ceilings, lots of leakage/drafts) where heating all of the air isn't a viable option.
Bottom line, IF you can use an oil filled radiator, it's the more comfortable/economical choice. But they're not good for spot heating or areas with a lot of cold air flow.
A major advantage to oil-filled for me is that they're quiet ...
I have one very similar to the delonghi oiled heater you showed.
I don't use it any more as I ditched my cold blooded gf a few years ago. It did work great though to keep the bedroom alittle warmer at night. Very quiet and comfy type heat.
If power was shut off and back on ... I recall it would reset itself to a very high temp setting ( like 79 degrees ) Which I really thought was a bad feature. I caught it the few times it happened early then kept my eye on it
Besides that I was very happy with it - the girlfriend ....... not so much
One relative advantage of the oil-filled heaters is that the surface does not get hot enough to burn lint in the air into tiny wisps of black carbon, like a hot-wire type heater does. So they are a bit cleaner.
I have had them for ages, usually I run mine on the lower of 2 wattage settings. Typically they have 2 switches along with the thermostat, frequently 600 and 900 W.
It is important to realize that the cost to heat a certain room with any electric heater (except a heat pump) is *exactly* the same, regardless of wattage, type of electric heater (oil-filled, hot wire, heat lamp, even those goofy Eden Pure heaters that shine heat lamps on quartz crystals - it all works exactly the same.
In Europe, many use DeLonghi portable, oil filled radiators as the only source of heat for unheated rooms. I always found they worked quite well and I felt they were safer then other types. Some models have a programmable timer which is a good feature especially in a bedroom to turn it on an hour or so before bed time, lower when sleeping then back to high before getting up.
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