Bit Ot: halogen heaters

[cupra]

lol - don't worry, the other half soon has the fire roaring as soon as she gets in!

[mick]

They exist. My father-in-law moved into a flat where this was the main form of heating. A single, large storage heater with a couple of thermostatically controlled fans. Still expensive to run and was soon replaced by a gas-fired boiler & rads.

Storage heaters suffer from the problem that they really need to predict the next day's temperature - a bit pointless in the UK!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed - but then not all have gas.

It's not an ideal solution but a well implemented one may be cheaper using off peak than conventional heaters - using those to top up when necessary.

[John Rumm]

They certainly do - I have seen the big industrial type that are designed to be hooked up to air ducting. The output is hence fan controlled. Smaller versions may well exist.

[whitely525]

Only if you have the correct dual rated electric meter. And even then I think the savings are not worth that much (last time I checked).

=A0 London SW

[whitely525]

Gas is not necessarily cheaper when you factor in capital cost and maintenance. If you are a landlord gas is even less economic sense. Also I believe gas prices have shot up more than electricity prices. However, gas is good if you like to keep things well ventillated (windows open, heating on full).

Storage heaters have a terrible reputation, and there seems little benefit with night time tariffs anyway.

But if you have a very well insulated (small) flat then electric heating is OK. My main heating is a 3kW heater which heats a decent sized living room/kitchen/bedroom, 90% on 1kW with a thermostat. Only use 2kW + fan early in the morning to get things up to temperature. It seems to work better than the 6kW electric boiler/wet CH system. And at 45quid from Argos it is also cheaper installation and maintenance costs (espcially since nobody knows how to fix electric boilers..).

[dennis]

Buy a halogen rather than the oil filled, but try and find one with a thermostat so it will switch off when the room is warm. All the heat from a halogen will end up warming the room just as an oil filled one will except the effect is quicker when you are in front of it. Don't under any circumstance buy a bottled gas heater or an oil heater as neither works very well once you ventilate the room enough to avoid the condensation.

[Pete C]

You could have bought SWMBO a =A310 halogen heater for crimbo.

My folks love them, they have one each!!!

They prefer them to listening to the boiler short cycle :|

cheers, Pete.