Stand by electric fire 'carbon heater'

[john west]

When our central heating boiler failed we were recently left perishing cold. To forestall this situation again, i have just set about looking at small electric fires as a 'back-up' to heat only one small room.

From experience years ago we found that the fan heaters seemed to warm up a small space more quickly than the radiant type filament heaters did.

Looking now afresh i see what seems to me a new type of electric fire, a carbon-heater.

i also notice it gets a lot of good reviews. Is this new type now the best way foreward to heat one small room quickly with electric? thanks.

[Andy Bennet]

Watts is watts, radiant heaters are ok for very localised heating but not very good at heating the whole room airmass, and the overall heat 'quality' is poor - stratified heat.

In order of quick heat - best to worst, I would say radiant heater (although very localized), fan heater, convection heater, oil filled radiator.

In order of heating comfort - best to worst, I would say oil filled radiator, fan heater, convection heater, radiant heater

Andy

[Andy Burns]

I think "Carbon" is just the model name, looks like a radiant type to me

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I really don't think you'll beat a fan heater as a standby for when the boiler is down. Small to store, too.

And that 1kW Argos is going to be at a big disadvantage to a 3 kW fan heater before you even start.

[Chris Hogg]

Surely it's just another type of radiant heater with a gee-whiz space-age hi-tech impress-the-masses element. I don't think you can beat a fan-fire for rapidly warming a room.

[tabbypurr]

It's just a radiant heater. Even if it did/does use carbon as the heating element, it really makes no difference. Other than the fact that such elements wouldn't last too well.

NT

[harry]

And if the electricity goes off neither will work. You need to be looking ar a solid or portable gas/liquid fuel heater

[Brian Gaff]

Also anything with a fan tends to get annoyingly noisy after a while. I have one here and yes, its fast and good, but oh the noise it makes. The ones with normal fans inside are a little better but bigger of course.

I've not heard of carbon heaters. Oil filled are ok for keeping background heat in a room say when storage eaters are cooled down before their next boost. Brian

[Max Demian]

perishing

heaters did.

There was a company selling electric radiators supposedly containing graphene that were supposed to be 70% more efficient than other electric heaters. Obviously bollocks as electric heaters all have a thermal efficiency of 100%. And they kept overheating and going up in flames. It was on one of those TV consumer programmes.

[Chris Hogg]

I wouldn't be surprised to see 'digitally controlled' in an advert for heaters such as these, meaning that you turn the knob with your fingers!

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris Hogg used his keyboard to write :

A fan heater, or oil will warm the air in a room - a radiant heater will warm up what ever the IR land upon. If that is you, you will feel warmer quicker, but 1Kw of heat is 1Kw of heat - only the delivery method will vary.

[Vir Campestris]

Alternatively, the thermostat is binary. On or off...

Andy

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Surely they must be smart by now? The most important thing for a backup, heater is to be able to switch it on and off from the train?

[Roger Hayter]

Why not switch on a small incendiary device only protected by a cheap fan and a crude bimetal strip with potentially welded contacts remotely? What can possibly go wrong?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Discover the use of smart fridges. They have an electronic calender on them. An essential for any fridge.

What we need now is a smart washing machine with a built in camera. So you can watch the washing go round from anywhere.

[dennis]

Bosch do a fridge with cameras inside so you can watch stuff go off if you want.

[whisky-dave]

I thought it was power that was measured in KW rather than heat .

[Chris Hogg]

LOL! Watching mould grow! A new slant on 'watching paint dry'.

[whisky-dave]

Could upload it to yuotube or FB or twitter rather than store mit locally

[harry]

Power is measured in KW. Energy is measured in Kwh. Heat is just one form of energy.