Room (Space) Heaters

[Watchman]

I'd like to hear thoughts about space or room heaters, electric, kerosene, etc. At this point I am more interested in pre-PAW electric usage. It costs a fortune for us to run our furnace (natural gas). Any ideas? We used a Vornado electric heater in our room and it circulates air very good --- but it draws the humidity out of the air and causes physical problems. Has anyone experience or usage of the quartz heaters?

[Toepopper]

I bought a small Patton Quartz heater last October and it works great. Puts out a lot of heat and doesn't use a lot of electricity compared to electric element or radial heaters. The only thing I don't like is the fact that it makes a slight vibrating noise when in use and set to the high position for maximum output. I got it on sale at Home Depot for $30.00.
Kerosene heaters come with a warning label which states that they should not be used in a closed room where humans are sleeping for the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. I have used kerosene heat before and left a window open but woke up with a terrible headache. The cost of kerosene alone should eliminate this heat source from your list of possibilities. Also, they use a cotton wick to burn the fuel and this needs to be adjusted and replaced .

[fern]

If anyone has breathing problems, no kerosene heater should ever be used anyway. We have 2 of them but like Toepopper I get headaches pretty quick so they sit in the garage. The trailers(28") used for rig security, although connected to the rig power station, are too far from the rig to carry enough electric to run more than the lights. They purchased those quartz heaters and put two per trailer. Keeps it snug and warm in the worst of winter on those windy hilltops. Since they run nonstop, I was waiting to see how long they would last. Had one bad one but the rest kept running all winter. Before buying those, they went through all types of heaters over and over. I was lucky enough to be there one night when the second (pre-quartz) heater died and I spent the night in my truck with it running. Brrrr.

[WillyPete]

I once used a kerosene heater for quite awhile and it worked quite well for me. I did experience headaches from time to time but they were well reduced when I opened the window a little wider. I also had problems with the complete lack of moisture in the air from the heater operating. I solved that by keeping a large pan full of water on top of the heater. The water did not boil but did get hot enough to humidify the air. I did this at my last house too since we had a wood stove for some of our heat. That stove dried out the air as bad as the kerosene heater, the water pan helped a lot. The return for the house system was right beside the wood stove and I'd turn the blower on when the wood stove fan started and send the heat all around the house.
Those quartz heaters can do some excellent heating and they seem to be economical too. Using electricity though, they may become very costly at times depending on the utilities rate and billing cycle and, if there's no electricity there's no heat. Still, they're better than the kerosene heaters in that they are maintenance free and quite safe to use.
I use catalytic propane heaters that have a low oxygen sensor built in when I need heat without electricity. Those are inexpensive to operate, depending on LP gas costs, reasonably safe and quite effective. I still open a window near the heater when I use it just because old habits die hard.

[Toepopper]

Of all the different types of portable electric heaters on the market the quartz style is the cheapest to operate as far as electrical current consumption because they do not employ the use of a coiled heating element. They will provide you with the most heat for the buck. Older heating element style units drink electricity and you can watch your meter wheel spinning at full speed ahead, cranking up those kilowatt hours and robbing the cash from your wallet.

[SS5R]

We use an oil filled radiant type in our bathroom. It doesn’t have any fan it just radiates heat. It has a thermostat and a 24-hour timer so you can set it to come on before you get up if you don’t want to heat the whole house. It works good in a small area and will keep putting out heat after it turns off due to the oil inside.

[Watchman]

We settled on an oil-filled radiator heater, the Honeywell HZ-710. It has three heat settings: 600W, 900W, and 1500W. The programmable thermostat will allow you to set any temperature between 45 and 85 degrees F. We used it last night for the first time and set it on 600W, 67 degrees. It reaches the set temperature then turns off and will come back on when it falls below the set temp. It takes about 20 minutes for it to heat the bedroom. Sure beats turning our natural gas furnace on! I figure with two of these going, our wood stove, we will be spending about $25 extra for electricity each month instead of $200 or so a month for natural gas heat.

[fern]

When we lived in VA in our old log cabin...the only heat we had was two of those oil filled electric heaters. We got very accustomed to being cold and when they would heat the house higher than 59 degrees we had to turn them down. They worked well except during the really cold spells that winter brings. Getting in bed during those was no different than climbing into a freezer and just as painful! Fun memories of just a few years ago!! : )