Need advice regarding infrared heaters.

Self | 2/3/'11 | Zionist Conspirator

[Zionist Conspirator]

The seven hundred gallons of propane we pre-bought last summer is almost used up and this means buying more (at these prices!) to last the rest of the winter.

I've heard about these infrared heaters that allegedly pay for themselves in the money they save. Do any FReepers use them? Could anyone give me any advice on the advisability of buying an infrared heater instead of more propane?

Will a portable heater be sufficient? Is it better to get an electrical or a gas/propane heater? And what about all these "sales" one reads about so often in the papers and circulars? Can they be trusted, or is it better to pay full price?

I await your answers.

[Doogle]

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2008/11/edenpure-heater.html

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If something sounds too good to be true...

[mdittmar]

Bought this from amazon last year,
Vornado EH1-0034-06 AVH2 Vortex Full-Room Electric Heater,
works amazingly well.
My place is small,a freind bought 2 for his place and is very happy with them.

[Sawdring]

What are you heating, how many square feet, and what kind of infrared heater are you using? A supply house I frequent installed Reznor tube infrared heaters and their gas bill came down from $2,200 to $450 this December compared to last December.

[Octar]

Electric heaters, no matter what they're called or how they're touted, cannot put out more energy than they take in. Energy is energy; whether it is electrical energy or heat energy does not matter. They are equivalent. With slight losses inherent in the conversion, of course.

So if you want to try electric heat, don't waste money on expensive things. Go to a farm supply store and look at milkhouse heaters.

[TomGuy]

Consumer Report on the Amish heaters — they aren’t quite as miraculous as advertised.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/02/amish_heaters.html

http://www.amishheater.org/

[lacrew]

Those heaters plug into the same outlet as an ordinary space heater...so I’m guessing they’re 1500 watts...just like an ordinary one. So the only variable is - does infrared convert electric energy into heat any more efficiently than resistance coils.

I don’t know the answer....but I’m skeptical of a product sold at event sales in the lobby of a local hotel...or by mail order. Since there seems to be at least two manufacturers, I’d guess there are no patent issues....so why aren’t these sold at Wal-mart? My guess is they don’t perform as well as advertised.

[Zionist Conspirator]

[W]hat kind of infrared heater are you using?

I'm not using one at all. I'm trying to learn if I should start using one (or two).

[old curmudgeon]

If you moved it, why not tell us where to?

[mrsmith]

Look on your electric bill and get the cost of a kwhr.

Then the cost of other fuels can be compared.

[Doogle]

HUH?

[terycarl]

we had one, worked very well, problem was, we spend our time in the family room and that is where the house thermostat is....room very warm, rest of the house very cold because the furnace did not fire up!!!good product, just not for us

[wheathead]

I bought an infrared heater for my pool house/rec area. The temp here was -10 this a.m. My thermostat was at a cozy 70 degrees and the gas furnace never kicked on. 1600 square feet for less than fifty dollars a month. Sounds Like a good investment to me.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Using infrared heaters is a different concept from the air convection heaters most people are used to.

Heating a room by heating the air in the room is quite inefficient.

First of all, air is not a particularly good conductor of heat, compared to other things, so you need a much hotter heat source.

Second, hot air does not actually rise—it is pushed up by cold air. So when you heat the air in a room, an air current results if there is cold air about, it will flood in to replace the hot air being pushed up. And this also creates height temperature inequalities, hot near the ceiling and cold near the floor.

But infrared heating uses the same dynamic as a light bulb. As long as there is a direct line between you and the light bulb, the radiation will warm you, even as the air remains cold. But if you are in a shadow, you will be cold.

And instead of the instant warm of hot air, infrared heats a room by heating the objects in the room. And only when they give off heat does the room start to warm. So it takes much longer for the room to warm. But it does so thoroughly and evenly.

For the ultimate in infrared heating, using much less energy, there is the oven stove, or tile stove. If you lived in a mostly cold area, with limits on your fuel, this would be the way to go.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/12/tile-stoves.html

[MountainDad]

This is my third winter with an EdenPure Generation3 Model 1000. I live in a very old, small farmhouse. Maybe a little over 700 sq. ft. to heat.

I keep the heater in the center of the house. Runs great. The propane furnace I have has to help on really cold days. I've only used a little over 100 gallons of propane this winter.

Works great for me, but I don't think it would work well in a large home.

[old curmudgeon]

That was not meant for you, but for the administrator.

This story was in the que just ahead of “Who Has the Big Knife Out for Meridith Whitney?”

If you start FR from scratch, you will see that it is no longer there.

That means that it has either been zapped for moved to the blog section or somewhere and that we will not see any replies from posters in that group.

I think.

[old curmudgeon]

Sorry.

I see that it originated in the general chat forum, so I guess that it was moved back to there.

[Wissa]

I'm not using one at all. I'm trying to learn if I should start using one (or two).

It's not a simple yes or no question. It mostly depends on how you'd be using it.

Myself, I've gone from using over 1,000 gallons of propane per year to 700 last year to about 175 so far this year. I expect to use less than 250 gallons total this winter. My electric cost has gone up about $100 for the winter so far this year as a result of my changes. My next step will be getting rid of my propane furnace and replacing it with an electric furnace using electric at off peak rates (about 60% of regular rates in my case). I also plan to extend my use of solar heating and expand into thermal storage to cut my costs further.

So to boil it down, replacing propane with electric as your energy source CAN pay off if you manage to do it right. In a lot of cases it won't though. In general, you'll get a lot more BTUs per dollar spent on propane than per dollar of electricity purchased.

[Rebelbase]

I've set the gas furnace to 50 degrees and have used two of these to heat 3/4 of my house this winter. The other 1/4 is closed off as it's not used. :

Honeywell with digital thermostat.

And one of these

Quartz heater.

Also use a small fan that blows to the ceiling to circulate the air. The electric bills have been about about 35-40%/month less than what the combined natural gas and electric bills were per month for last winter. This winter's nightly temps have been below freezing in the upper 20's and a few dips into the low teens and it's never gone below 65 in the house unless we were away and turned off the quartz heater and just ran the radiator heater. Also have a small ceramic heater under the desk for when the toes get chilled.