I have been looking into heating options for my home this winter, to find something that is cost effective (cheap) yet still heats the house fairly well. My house has a natural gas furnace, which works well to heat the house, but with gas prices so high I did alittle research and found that heating just certain areas of your home with electric heaters can be a cheaper option.
This makes sense, seeing how you are only heating the areas of the house you are actually occupying at the time. From what I have read, electricity is cheaper than gas, if you compare btu to btu generated by the two. But even if they were the same, since you are only heating certain sections of the house, you are still using less btu's.
One of the main things I had to research and try out, is what type of electric heater to use. Pretty much every heater out there is rated for 1500 watts, which is around 12.5 amps. your average household power outlet is rated at 15 amps, so thats probably why you wont find any heaters rated any higher.
The differences in the heater types is mainly how they deliver the heat. Some radiate infrared heat out in one direction, some radiate heat in all directions, some have built in fans, etc.
I already had a tower heater made by Lasko that had a ceramic heating element and a built in fan. It was about $40 and even cam with a wireless remote.
This heater works quite well for a fairly small room, especially if you sit it near you and facing you. But its not all that good at heating a room, and not good at all in an open area. having it right next to you keeps you quite warm, but you end up getting too hot with it blowing directly on you, and if you turn it off, you realize the room temperature isnt very warm.
I think one of the main problems I had with this heater is the fact that the actual air temp in my house was pretty cold. And since this heater had a fan in it forcing the heat out, that it was moving too much air, that ended up making the warm air it was putting out cool too quickly to really do much.
The next type of heater I tried was am oil filled heater, that had no fan. It was about $60. Its designed like the old radiator style heaters. It heats and circulated the oil inside it and the heat is radiated from it in almost all directions, but naturally more of the heat goes up.
The oil heaters are supposed to me the most efficient but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was going to heat the house the best. But in my case at least, it turns out that it does heat my house much better than the blowing tower heaters. There seems to be more more overal heat radiating from the oil heater. Its not as intense as facing the blowing tower heater right at you, but thats due to the heat radiating in all directions. Its hard to measure, you are basically doing it by feel, but I would say there is much more heat being generated by the oil heater.
I usually have the oil heater in my living room. Which is approximately 11 by 15 feet. There is an open doorway off the living room to the dinning room and kitchen. So alot of heat escapes into those rooms as well. If I leave the oil heater on high it can keep the living room about 60F with an outside temperature of 30F.
Even the few times I could get the room temp up to about 60F with the tower heaters I didnt feel quite as warm as with the oil heater. The heat seems to saturate the air and items in the room better.
The main downside is that it takes a bit more time to feel the heat from the oil heater. Another nice thing about the oil heater is that it is total silent.
Over all I am very happy with the oil heater and might end up buying another one to put in other areas of the house. My bedroom is slightly smaller than the living room, and with the door shut at night it will easily maintain 60F to 64F with the heater on the Low setting, with an outside temp of 30F.
Here are some comparison specs I tested on both heaters.
Lasko Tower Heater: High= 1,528 Watts - 12.39 Amps
Low= 905 Watts - 7.23 Amps
Honeywell Oil Heater: High= 1,572 Watts - 12.74 Amps
Low= 939 Watts - 7.57 Amps
