This year, I have been getting a number of junk mail ads for these quartz heaters, making all kinds of claims (obviously).
They seem pretty expensive at $300 ti $500.
Anyone have any experience with them, or ideas about them?
Thanks, Bob-tx
There isn't any free lunch from a "miracle" heater. All electrical heaters are 100% efficient, in the sense that 100% of the power that goes into them comes out as heat. Depending on the type of heater, the proportion of that heat that is radiant, conducted, or convected varies.
The big energy savings claimed by these "miracle" heaters really boils down to turning your thermostat for the house way down and then using some type of electrical heater to warm the space you are sitting in. Electric heat is virtually always going to be significantly more expensive than other sources, ie gas, oil, heat pump, etc. But if you only heat one room or better yet the area you are sitting at constantly and keep the rest of the house significantly cooler, it can save you money.
And the type of heaters that produce mostly radiant heat, which quartz is an example of, will do a good job of warming you as long as you stay in one place directly in front of it. In fact, that kind of radiant heater doesn't even warm the entire room, just what's directly in front of it. So, if it works for you, get one. But don't fall for one of the $300 miracle widgets. I recently got a nice 1500W radiant heater at Costco for $60.
Andy comments:
I agree with 100% with the other poster, and you can pick up a portable heater at a garage sale for $2 that will have exactly the same efficiency -- 100%
But that being said, I personally prefer the oil filled radiator types. They do not get hot enough to ignite anything, cost about $40, and have a nicer look than some space age gadget.
The types that use a fan blowing air over a hot coil can be very dangerous if a shirt falls on them, or the fan stops for some reason.... They will last a few years, then something will go bad, usually the fan, and unless you want to take them apart and oil the bearings to make it last a few more seasons, they get thrown out. I have retrieved many, and fixed them, but if I were going to buy one, I'd go with the oil filled radiator type...
That type relies on low heat over a large large surface area instead of very high heat over a small surface area. The effect is the same --- to deliver 1500 watts into a room..... But it's like comparing a 100 watt laser pinpoint at 10,000 degrees to an electric blanket (also about 100 watts)..... A lower heat over a wider area is much safer....
Andy in Eureka, Texas retired engineer
Quartz is radiant heat that heats objects not air, you can get them for 35$, radiant is what is above you in HD at the checkout they are good for directing heat at you.
Turn your furnace up, it's cheaper.
Thanks for the comments - sure going to pass on them. Bob-tx
When the ceramic ones came out, they were supposed to be safer, and more energy efficient. Electric heat is expensive, any way I slice it. The last ceramic heater I bought was when a friend ran out of propane, and froze pipes. It was about $20.
I wish somehow I could tell the world that any electric 115V consumer electric space heather, whether $15 or $500, can only produce a maximum of 5200 BTU. Outlandish claims for the Evenpure and others are totally fraudulant!!! Frank
It appears that 'science' education is woefully inadequate in many North American school systems! It doesn't matter if one is using degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius (Centigrade), or volts and amps and the equivalents in BTUs (British thermal units) or kilo-joules or calories etc. there should be some 'basic' understanding about heat flow, conversion of energy, combustion efficiency, change of state (e.g. water into steam or ice into water etc.).
With an uniformed public it's just too easy for some advertiser to claim that their electric heater is 'More efficient'. More effective maybe, just like the 2 litre hot water bottle I'll be using shortly to warm my feet in directing the heat where it wanted and maybe felt; but NOT more efficient.
An anecdote; shortly after WWII an uncle produced chick hovers (pronounced "hoe-vers") using parabolic covers identical to microwave dishes. The principal was that with a heat source placed at the focal point of the parabola, heat was evenly distributed over the whole area beneath the hover.
Consequently all chicks were kept warm after hatching, were not crowded into the centre of or up against heaters placed on the floor and their survival rate was much higher. The heaters were not electrically more 'efficient but they were more 'effective'.
Maybe like a 'Sun lamp' over a bathtub, warm, as long as it shines on your skin.
Would that be true even if the cord is oxygen free copper like they use in Monster Cable?
For those not in the know, Monster Cable makes obscenely expensive component cables and they don't sell very many.
That's okay, because they make their money by suing others for trademark infringement (over 400 to date). Their latest public foray is against "Monster Mini Golf," as if anyone would confuse a glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course with a hunk of wire.
For a hoot, read the letter sent by the president of Tartan Cable to Monster when the latter tried to extort money under the threat of a lawsuit. It reminds me of a line in a movie no one has seen yet ("Taken" starring Liam Neeson):
"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
I particularly liked the part where Neeson's charcter drove railroad spikes into a tied-up terrorist's thighs and, with jumper cables, hooked him up to the mains. "I need you to focus..."
It's a bit like these miracle weight loss devices/pills: They always add in small font "along with a healthy diet and exercise", which of course is where the weight loss comes from.
Most of the major companies marketing these heaters are careful to say that the energy savings comes from switching from whole house heating to spot heating, while implying that there is something special about their spot heater.
Original OP comments snipped ........
My 84 year old MIL got a brochure from Eden Pure the other day in the mail. We pick up her mail at the PO. My wife said, "Oh, look at these. They look wonderful. Maybe we should get one for Mom." She then looked on and found the price and asked if they were worth it. I told her that they didn't heat as well as the concave one we got at Costco for $25. She asked how the company could claim they worked 10 or 30 or 50 x better than standard heaters, whatever that brochure claimed. I told her they didn't, and that they were being sued by a lot of people.
Paul Harvey has been a favorite commentator of mine for decades. But when he went to endorsing the Eden Pure, he was just another Bob May pitchman shrieking his line and collecting his checks.
To me, it works from the bottom up. I hear people repeatedly say, "this or that is the best kind of XXXXX product you can buy." I don't listen to the manufacturers of sellers making the same claims.
Save your bucks and just go get one of the $25 or maybe $30 now concave reflector heaters. You CAN really feel them across the room, and I like them. Eden Pure is an overpriced heater you put out to impress company and in-laws.
STeve
Of course, don't forget the phrase in tiny tiny print, or uttered inaudibly,
"RESULTS MAY VARY."
Steve
LOL I need to clean off my monitor now, thanks.
There is certainly a lot of BS in the marketing, however some portable heaters really do work much better than others. For a while I heated a downstairs room with a space heater and it shot the bill through the roof. I later installed an electric baseboard and it was significantly cheaper to keep the room comfortable. The baseboard is much longer and keeps the air gently circulating, the space heater would make one corner very hot and had to be run a lot more for the rest to be comfortable.
i lost some respect for paul harvey selling them on the radio.
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In the past there have been posts here and in HVAC about the "HeatSurge"
-- a "fireplace" with flameless fire or fireless flame or similar BS, with a "real Amish made mantle" that instantly blasts out 5000 btu of heat for something like $295. The recent poster in HVAC saw the ad in his local paper, but now they are advertising on TV-- the ones I have seen were on A&E between 7 and 8 am. It is a wooden box that looks a lot like an old 25" console tv on rollers with a sheet metal insert with some fake logs and a little electric heater. In all fairness, I have seen a similar thing made by CharmGlo at HD for $100 more, but they don't make any outlandish claims about it-- just that it is an "ornamental fireplace" that puts out a little heat. I remember seeing cardboard ones with a little color wheel to simulate flames that people used to put out for the Holidays. Those $300-400 ones don't look much less fake. BTW, I have a couple of the oil filled electric radiators-- they are great IMO. Larry
Sounds like my kind of guy!
Hi,
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