Just got a promotion in the mail for this. Anybody seen one in action? Any ideas on electricity usage? Is it worth it?
eta: It’s on the Paul Harvey show, so it has to be good!
Mostly hype. The heat output of any resistance electrical heater is exactly the same in every case. No one is better than another. So from the viewpoint of efficiency they’re all the same. Some may be noisy if they have fans. Some may be dangerous, Some may be ugly. But they’re just as efficient.
Seems like it’s just a toaster with a fan. As the above poster mentioned, all resistance heaters are pretty much equally efficient (they convert electricity to heat with about 100% efficiency), but they lose to gas in terms of cost, and to heat pumps which are actually capable of over 100% efficiency, in a way.
While the electrical usage is the same an infrared heater uses quartz tubes that transfers some of the heat into infrared energy which will heat objects farther away. So as a standoff device they are more efficient at getting heat to a person across the room. the flip side of this is that you can’t sit in front of it or you’ll get roasted.
Had to edit my post because I didnt’ see the link. If you can’t see the quartz tubes then you aren’t getting the benefit of infrared. I’ve seen these advertised before and I doubt they are effective. A good quartz unit is in the $50 to $70 range.
Yes, those “quartz” heaters (they can be of many types of ceramics) which glow red have their uses. They send the heat out by radiation rather than convection and so are better at directing the heat in a certain direction. They are useful in a cold bathroom and you will also see them above store doors because you can feel their heat even in a cold atmosphere. They are not trying to heat the air between you and the heater but rather the heat goes through the cold air and hits you directly. To heat a room they make no difference but if you cannot afford to heat a room and you will be in a cold room then a radiant heater makes more sense. I have also seen security guards in entrance booths to parking lots use them. They have the window open and will be in the cold anyway but a radiant heater can keep their feet warm more effectively.
A radiant heater would make sense if you cannot afford to heat the entire room and you direct it from above to the baby’s crib. Or hatched chicks.
But it akes no sense as a way to normally heat a room.
One thing I do not like about normal, cheap space heaters is the noise of the fan. That is one reason I have often used radiant heaters but you can get radiant heaters also in the form of oil filled radiators. they are rather more expensive than a cheap space heater though.
I hate these sorts of things. They don’t warm up anything that isn’t directly in front of them, and they don’t heat up the air (at least not directly). I’ll take a good old fan blowing on hot metal room heater any day.
All electrical heaters have 100% efficiency in converting electricity into heat, but they differ in where they deliver the heat. A couple watts of power delivered into the toe of your shoe is noticeable, whereas it takes a couple thousand watts delivered into your house to be noticeable.
If “efficiency” takes into account the energy loss from your house, heating the air may help warmer air leak out more vigorously, which would be a loss. But, then, a radiant heater may be heating the inner surface of an exterior wall, which is an expensive thing to keep warm, and passing its energy right over the leather sofa surface, which would have been cheap and gratifying to heat.
Why would the wall absorb the radiation, but not the sofa?
Depends on where it’s pointed, obviously.
The EdenPURE GEN3 is not like other infrared heaters, apparently. According to the pamphlet in the mail, “once the heat exchanger absorbs the infrared heat, it exhales the heat into the living area carried by the existing humidity in the air.” It was developed by John Jones, who after storing a piece of cured copper near the furnace of his old farmhouse, found his basement nice and toasty, even after the furnace was off, thanks to the heat coming from the copper.
Unless I’m missing something, this is just a resistance heater which will put out ~3.414 BTU for every Watt input. There’s no great advantage that I can see to using infrared to heat an element, versus heating the element by passing current through it. So the 1000W unit will put out 3414 BTUs, what’s the advantage over any other space heater except that it costs more? I won’t be buying one.
Rubbish. Heat is heat, regardless of its source. As noted earlier, radiant heaters can heat things a good distance from them quickly, which can help make you feel warmer before the air around you has actually warmed up. All others mainly heat the air in the room via convection. This humidity bullshit is nonsense.
Consumer Reports magazine once said infrared heaters are better than toaster-type, but oil-filled radiant heaters are best. This brand was specifically recommended:
http://www.google.com/products?q=oil+filled+electric+heater&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7DELA&um=1&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
The article I’m thinking of was so long ago that they’ve doubtlessly done more research since then.
Well, that pamphlet would certainly put me right off buying anything from that company ever again. An electric heater that ‘exhales’ heat via air humidity? Invented by a bloke who was startled, nay, ASTOUNDED that heating an object and leaving it in a room resulted in the room being a bit warmer. :smack:
Maybe it comes down to personal preference, but I find that any heater that does not have a fan is basically worthless to me. Warm air is what makes me feel warm. If you point magic heat rays at me, it will be about as effective as getting a sun burn in a freezer. Yeah, I sense that there is something hot pointed my way, but my inner ice cube is not melting. If my hands are cold, I’d rather stick them in warm water then hold them over a lighter.
I propose that there are four issues:
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In the typical technical understanding of heating efficiency, all electric heaters are 100% efficient.
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In a more practically useful sense of heating efficiency, namely providing a satisfying warm feeling to humans in a living space who are chilly, different heater types - and even the very same heater pointed in different directions - there are good physical reasons to expect more or less satisfying warm feelings per watt.
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We are humans and so subject to various misperceptions, including those that link some misunderstanding or some snake oil to our subjective observations of warming effects, and so there are also physically ungrounded psuedoreasons we may conclude we get more or less satisfying warm feelings per watt.
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The makers of EdenPURE are lying sacks.
…bought two oil filled heaters for $113.95 total delivered (Free Shipping), Acehardware.com. I had one in the rental last Winter not the same as good ole Kerosene, but my old lady and the fire department, CO detector went off once or twice,… heh heh,
:smack:
pumping k-1 no fun either,
let’s revisit this topic November…
Kerosene heaters not vented outside are a terrible idea which I can only understand in cases of dirt-poor people. I would never use such a thing in a home with children.
Oil-filled electric radiators are safer for children than some other types of electric heaters but, other than that, they are pretty much the same. $114 seems quite expensive to me. I would have bought a couple of cheap ones for $20.
an oil filled heater combined with a simple desk fan can heat a pretty large area very very effectively. all you need is some air circulation and a good heat source, the nice thing about the oil ones is they are very quiet (well they pop while heating up and cooling) and you can turn your fan any way you like.
An oil filled heater with a fan will give off exactly the same amount of heat as a space heater of the same wattage which costs 1/10 as much.