It's getting chilly and time for an energy efficient heater to put in the hallway to take the edge off the cold. I have heaters in each room but not in the hallway.
What's my best bet for economy? Something that could be left on regularly but not kill the energy bill?
Unless you can arrange for night storage on cheap rate electricity, nothing will be any cheaper AND more practical than a simple electric convector heater -
Barring exotic solutions like heat pumps, basic physics - all the electrical energy will become heat in the point of use.
I suspect bottled gas will cost more plus generate a boat load of condensation as will any sort of oil burner (if any exist for internal use, even if they might be a little cheaper to run (are they?).
However, beware of cheap crap oil filled rads like the ones B&Q sell. I have one, rated at 1kW and my energy meter shows it actually only puts out 500W due to cycling and it cannot get rid of the heat fast enough (even if the room is 12C).
DeLonghi ones are good in this respect.
Off the wall - what about a de-humidifier? Energy usage around 300 to 700W but as well as converting the energy to heat it takes moisture out of the air making it feel warmer.
Also, consider a separate plug-in thermostat. The thermostats built-in to many heaters often suffer from self-heating and are hence inaccurate.
Lateral thinking - that is a good suggestion and it will almost certainly make a difference if the OP's air is a bit on the damp side.
Beware of over drying the air though - messes with the throat and nose somewhat
Agreed, though I prefer oil filled as they don't smell of burn dust after not being used for a while. Ours is a Delonghi though ...
15 kg bottle of butane is £34.99. 1 kg of butane contains about 13.6 kWHr so you have about 200 kwHr or 17p/unit. Lecky ought to be about 12p/unit or less but the huge range of tarrifs also means a huge varitaion in prices.Each kg of butane produces 1 l of water. So a gas heater running at 1 kW produces about 80 ml/hour (4.5 table spoons).
I've not seem oil (paraffin) based room heaters on sale for ages. Green house heaters excepted.
Yes. I have to be a bit careful with very dry cold air entering the house which then warms up and thus becomes super-dry. May cause nose-bleeds.
Interesting suggestions so far. What about this - Vertex heaters. Expensive, so any use?
*Exactly* the same as this:
Unless you want a permanently installed one.
IME - the Delonghi Vento and Dragon models have extremely good convection and can realise their plate ratings at 100% duty cycle.
So youu can get away with a smaller one, subject to total power needed.
1kW would probably do a hall OK.The only fault I have had with 4 is I had to replace one plug as it was running hot after 3 years.
Interesting point - was considering one of these a few months ago, but instead a resurected an old oil filled one that had been my grandmothers, probably from 1950's.
I took the thermostat control apart to clean it all up and make sure it was safe. Interestingly, I saw it uses a bog-standard immersion heater element inserted along the bottom of the radiator. It also has a well designed thermal break between the radiator and the room stat, something which is often missing in modern heaters.
Plus the latent heat of any water it condesnes out. Providing you chuck the condense water out (ie prevent it from re-evaporating.)
All electric heaters are 100% efficient.
Radiant heaters direct the heat so you can sit in front of /under them. Convectors just let a mass of warm air rise to the ceiling.
Depending on what you actually need, the least expensive way of feeling a bit warmer in the hall is an infra-red "lamp" heater. Something like this:
In days gone, when people had one telephone and stupidly placed that in their cold hall, such a heater would have made all the difference.
It does not warm the space very much at all, but can be surprisingly effective even though the wattages are usually low.
All elec heaters are 100% efficient. Unless it has a proper compensated stat it will be wasteful; portable stats are generally uncompensated.
NT
I've been in a few workshops that have used electric radiant heaters to good effect, typically with ceilings 12 foot or higher and often not well insulated roofs. Also found these days in pub smoking areas.
Where it gets pushed along by more warm air rising. It then reaches the other side of the room, and having cooled a tad is pushed down by warmer air behind it. This cycle repeats as the room warms up.
Yep - mine heats the room fairly quickly. Not as quickly as a fan heater, but way safer (especially with the shit dangerous designs of fan heaters these days, with their overheating elements and melty plastic cases (had one, seen that).
They are very one-sided, although the use of multiple ones in large area can overcome that.
When I was at school, we had gas ones hanging from the ceiling of the old biology labs, and I still occasionally see those in other countries, usually in covered outdoor spaces such as pavement cafes. (Tried to find a picture on google, but can't find anything old enough.)
Thinking about it, some old industrial sites and, I think, nuclear power stations with steam heating systems have a steam loop around large open areas with big wings of steel plate welded each side, angled downwards towards the working area presumably to improve the radiant contribution. The old GEC Whetstone machine shop and Sizewell A pile-cap come to mind.
That's right, you said it:- "having cooled". Push the hottest air to the coldest/most unwanted part of the room where the heat is dissipated. And it takes time and promotes draughts.
This is one reason why we move to underfloor heating.
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