Went to Canadian Tire today to get a space heater; we’ve got an old house and some rooms get a bit of a draft when it’s 30 below.
On the box it says « Safe ceramic heat ».
What is a ceramic space heater? And why is it billed as « safe » ? Aren’t all space heaters safe, nowadays?
It’s a matter of degree (snerk!). A lot of radiant heaters (and don’t get me started about the propane powered ones) still have literal red-hot elements and a blower. Ceramic radiant heaters are a LOT cooler - still don’t want to touch it, but much less likely to start a fire. The room heaters I have for a gas emergency or spot heating are oil filled radiator style.
Granted, even most electric red hot element heaters are safer than when most of us were younger.
So still probably 60-70% marketing buzz.
Uses a ceramic heating element, rather than the old-style metal coils, or the oil-filled radiator-style space heaters.
The heating element is ceramic, so not prone to shorting and throwing sparks, and it is at a lower temperature that won’t reach ignition temperatures that a resistive metallic element. The downside is that because they don’t get as hot they have to force more air to produce equivalent sensed warmth. There are also micathermic (basically a fanless ceramic), infrared, oil filled, and propane heaters, all of which have their place but for household use you want a ceramic or micathermic heater.
They were responsible for a lot of fires when a piece of paper or fabric got in contact with an element, and I haven’t seen them in years. I don’t know if they are banned but they certainly can’t meet UL requirements.
Stranger
Thanks all.
I started giggling insanely when I read this warning sticker:
WARNING: Risk of Heat Stroke (Hyperthermia) Hyperthermia can result in deaths in infants or others. Use caution to avoid overheating individuals. Read and follow all instructions before use.
Pretty serious, right? So why the giggling?
The final line of this warning tag:
REMOVE BEFORE USE!
Sorta like « Burn after reading! ». Wouldn’t want this information about these risks to become widely known amongst consumers. 
I detect the Yin and Yang pulls of the Marketing division and Legal.
ETA: the written instructions manual (yes I read instructions. Lawyer and all that, you know.) warns that the heater should only be moved by its handle.
This model doesn’t have a handle.
I guess it has become an immeuble in my living room.
Is there a problem with an oil-filled heater for household use? I used to have one of those, but it died on me some time ago.
They just tend to be slow to heat up and larger than ceramic heaters. If you plan on using it regularly in a larger space than a small office or bedroom, they’re probably the best choice because they are quiet and are better at maintaining a consistent temperature.
Stranger
Consistent with my experience with an oil-filled radiator heater. We use it in our family room (the coldest room in the house), and while it takes maybe a half-hour to really get warm, once it does, it’s great for that room.
Yeah, they produce nice omni-directional radiant heat, so unlike a force air element heater you don’t have dead spots where the air isn’t circulating. It’s kind of like a potbellied stove without the mess.
One thing I didn’t mention is a portable heat pump. I don’t know that it is really much more efficient than a ceramic heater and considerably more expensive, but you can use it both for heating and cooling (the later requires dumping the hot exhaust outside through some vent) so they are convenient for workshops or ‘portable’ use in campers, and safer than propane heaters provide you have an electrical source.
Stranger
My grandmother had one that she had used from an indeterminate time before I was born up until I was in my 30s and she was in her 80s. I happened to be there and nearby when the power cord for it caught by and I had to rip it out of the wall and toss it outside. Still, not too bad for probably close to 50 years of use.
(It looked pretty similar to this. Googling shows that there were many of them pretty similar to this.)
No, they’re still very common and widely sold. I have one myself. Here’s an example where you can actually see the resistance coils inside. I checked the labeling on mine and it’s ETL certified which means that it meets all applicable UL and CSA requirements. One of the safety requirements is that they must have a tip-over switch that shuts it off if it tips over.
ETA: That said, ceramic is probably preferable but the one I got was super-cheap and has good build quality (I love the smooth feel of the control knobs) and is thermostatically controlled.
Huh, color me surprised. We used to have one in the basement when I was a kid and it was always smoking because some insect or piece of fluff got on it, and one day it made a big “BZZZT!”, threw out an astonishing display of sparks, and then stopped working forever. Admittedly, it looked more like the “SUPERELECTRIC” (although a different brand) than what you linked to but I would have thought that they’d stopped making those in the ‘Eighties when people really started suing the shit out of companies for making dangerous and defective products.
Stranger
There was no shortage of dangerous products in the good ol’ days, but modern space heaters – even the ones using red-hot resistance coils – are a lot safer than they used to be, due to features like the tip-over switch. Also, the one I have (though from the looks of it not the one I linked to) has a fine-mesh grill on the air intake side at the back, so it’s hard to see how anything of any size could be sucked in there.
Ironically, my old space heater was becoming an electrical hazard but it had nothing to do with the heating coils. The fan bearing was starting to go and finally one day it made horrible sounds and emitted a burning smell, and that’s when it made its acquaintance with the garbage bin outside.
It kind of scares me now, thinking of the space heater we used when I was a kid. It looked like this, and it would have been so easy for something to burn or melt if it got through that metal cage or even just got too close to it.
A friend of mine lost his guitar to one of those old hot-coil space heaters - he left it too close to it on the floor while he slept. He was lucky he didn’t lose his dorm room, or his life.
It occurs to me that I have a small “metal coil and fan” forced air heater now that I use. Except it is called an “air fryer”.
That’s not what that is.
https://www.amazon.com/oil-filled-heater/s?k=oil+filled+heater
Exactly. An oil-filled space heater doesn’t actually burn oil; it runs on electricity. It’s essentially a radiator-shaped tank, filled with some sort of oil medium (mineral oil, I believe), which uses the electricity to heat up the oil, and provide radiant heat. They’re typically shaped like an old-school steam-heat radiator, with “fins.”
Ah. Thanks for the clarification.