I like to be warm. I hate being cold worse than just about anything. In the past I’ve cranked up the furnace to what for me is a comfortable temperture and then bit the bullet when the utility bills came. Can’t do that this year. 
So, what kind of electric space heater should I get to heat a room of about 150 square feet? I need instant warmth, so the oil-filled radiator type is out. I’m hoping to spend less than $50.
Ceramic heaters with adjustable heat levels, thermastat and fan speed are very nice and compact.
They are very, very expensive to run. Take that into account. I ran one last winter for only a week to keep my back bathroom toilet from freezing when my radiator pipe froze, and my electric bill went from $45.00 to $175.00 for the month.
I have a Vornado Intellitemp. It’s great. You set it to the temperature you want the room to be and it automatically adjusts the heating element and the fan speed to do the job. It’s the only room heater that I could leave on all night; the other ones always made the room too hot after a few hours.
Of course, it cost $80, and I’m not sure they even make them anymore.
How do the oil filled convection electric space heaters that look like a radiator compare to the basic resistance heat fan forced space heaters?
The ceramic heaters are better, I think. I used one in the winter, just a few minutes out of each hour I was home, in the one room I spend the most time in. I kept the room temp about 75F, my electric bill was about the same as heating with a baseboard heater, and I got the heat right on my toes :).
Of course, it stays 35-45F here during the winter, so it’s not all that cold to begin with.
We figured the average cost for a space heater 1500w was a buck a day. That’s if on 24/7. In upstate NY they’re talking an increase of 30-40% for oil or natural gas to heat this winter, an average of $300 to $400 extra on the yearly bill. So I don’t think it makes much difference to use 100% efficient electric space heaters to heat the smaller rooms, for 3 or 4 months as opposed to burning oil or natural gas.
If you want to feel the sun on you then get a quartz heater and place it across the room. The wavelength produced by the quartz tubes reach beyond the airflow of the unit. If you want warm air blowing on you then get a ceramic.
Be advised that some of these heaters have nonstick coating (polytetrafluoroethylene, known under various brand names/trademarks) on their heating elements. When heated sufficiently, PTFE offgasses. These fumes are deadly to pet birds, if there are any in the house. I have read many tearful stories posted on pet bird websites.
The temperature at which this occurs is supposedly high, but many variables (such as the heating element itself getting hotter than the thermostat) make using PTFE-coated products a dangerous game if you have pet birds.
Can PTFE offgassing be dangerous to humans? Well, human lungs work somewhat differently from a bird’s respiratory system, but on a cellular level, the tissues are probably similar. Necroscopy of pet birds killed by PTFE shows lesions formed on their lung surfaces. I’ve heard claims both ways, but supposedly larger-scale tests on whether this is dangerous to humans are underway, so it’s probably too soon to state definitively.
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