Space heaters- oil filled, catalytic, forced air
 

Whats the best?

I have some nice forced air units, but am wondering what is more efficient.

I was going to buy one from Bestbuy but they only have a limited return policy, as they are not sold directly by them, just a marketplace seller.

My office is cool, can't crank the furnace because the wife is over 50. :scared0018:

Opinions most welcome

We installed a touch safe oil filled radiant heater in the walkout basement suite. Very quiet and does an outstanding job of warming 2 rooms totalling approximately 420 ft2. Advantages over the fan forced units is residual heat output, doesn't blow stuff around, and as already stated, it is quiet. Although, it is slower to get up to temperature.
Potential downside is catastrophic failure leading to oil leakage.

Having used both, I would take an oil filled over a fan forced unit for small room heating.

One of the best heaters I own is the Presto heat dish. Puts out a ton of heat almost instantly and is virtually silent. Mine is roughly 10 years old now and still going strong.

Mine works great. Easily takes 25 pounds of coal in a single charge. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any anthracite in Alberta yet. Anybody know who will sell me a half ton of sieved metallurgical coal?

Dont you mean coke?

Was asking about plug in space heaters, but ok

Nope, I mean natural hard coal. We're supposed to be exporting 57 million tons of it a year, but I can't find enough to fill a sock.

Anyway, am looking at getting a second one too because a coal fire burns down slowly like any solid fuel does. It will certainly burn overnight, or even a couple days, but doesn't seem to put out much heat anymore at the half-way point. Using wood or fresh thermal coal, it can cook you out of the place if you want. So it works really well, but needs some fine-tuning.

We have an oil-filled space heater in a downstairs bedroom, it does a superb job. We have an electric fireplace/entertainment unit in another room, and we’re no overly impressed with it. It is, as a bonus, nicer to look at than the oil filled one.

Parents and sister have the oil filled radiators. Wonderful warm heat and quiet. Does take a minute to bring a room to temp but I would prefer that over a ceramic heater any day. Unfortunately all I have is ceramic lol darn tinnitus makes any quiet quiet room somewhat of torture so I need a bit of background noise.

I can probably get you coal.
A guy here has a umpteen ton pile, I can ask if you want?

Heck yes. Would be awesome, thanks.. But it has to be anthracite (metallurgical). I can get the usual thermal stuff at Highvale for 73 bucks a ton, or sorted stuff at Dodd's - which will be my next attempt.

I use 2 of the oil filed radiant heaters in my garage, heat it nicely and like was said, no noise. I would recommend.

I bought one of those infrared heaters in the wooden cabinet from Canadian tire a few years ago, comes with a remote control to set the temperature etc.

I found it did an excellent job and threw heat nicely.

The oil filled heaters will not likely be as fast but they do have the advantage of being silent. If it’s just a little supplemental heat you need in a small space probably would be great and I think they can be had fairly inexpensively.

I have also been around those radiant infrared heat dish things and while rather odd looking found that they worked pretty well in a smaller space. Costco used to sell them maybe still does.

The other thing to remember is that when you are talking about 110v electric heaters you are generally limited to 1500 watts so don’t be fooled by marketing hype, a 1500 watt heater is a 1500 watt resistor and essentially one 1500 watt resistor gives off as much heat as the next but the prices in heater styles vary dramatically.

Last winter I bought a “milk house” style heater at Peavey Mart for like $27 or something like that, works fine, little bit of fan noise but not unbearable.

Walk around the railroad tracks, Ive seen coal laying there by our tracks

PIn

I bought a load of coal for the hunting shack last year from dodds or dobbs i think
They are out towards tofield

Oil filled
 

I've had all of them Ken and now only use oil filled. Oil filled appear to take longer to heat a room as they are non directional unlike a fan that you can point and focus on a certain area. But it's silent.......I tend to leave the oil filled plugged in and operating at least on a lower setting all winter. I have never heard of a catastrophic failure........oil leak?

As my gym is closed I currently work out in my old wooden garage (about 15x30 or so) - little to no insulation.

No external heat so I use a Kero unit. It was -18 when I went in to warm it up the other day. Got it up to -5 over the course of an hour :sHa_shakeshout:

Just a comment re the milk crate heaters. Over the years I have had two of the Paton made ones (think it is only one 'T'). I would lug them around the house and wrap the cable around them when not in use during the summer. Both of them eventually failed where the plug exited the body of the heater at the rear. I reckon they lasted 2-3 seasons.

I had a pic of the one when it "failed" but may have since deleted it. I got up one morning and plugged the unit in and went into the bathroom to get ready. I literally heard a pop and saw a flash and ran into my room to see it arcing out. Ripped the plug out of the wall and threw the smoking unit in my tub. Still have a slight burn mark on the carpet to this day.

I suspect that this style of heater is made by one or two companies and simply branded differently.

Depends on the room etc. What I would use in a garage is different than what I would use in a large interior space, which may be different from what I'd use in a smaller interior room.

In a garage, I look for a heater that heats up the space quickly, so high BTU and a fan.

For the basement and bedrooms, the oil-filled heater is really the best that I have had, mine has lasted a long time - over twenty years. I like to place it near where there is some natural air movement so it distributes the heat better.

I have a milkhouse heater (don't use it much anymore as it generates more noise than heat). I have tried those dish radiant heaters, and they are decent, just not as practical if little kids are running around. They do feel nice, though.

I recently bought a twin-pack of personal heaters from Costco - they are mini-towers, they oscillate and have a fan-only mode as well. My thermally-challenged daughter keeps one in her bedroom and it's quite nice; it's quiet and heats well. We'll see how well it lasts.

My biggest heating challenge is the garage - Thankfully it's drywalled and insulated, so if I need to work in there, I will put a heater or two in the garage an hour or two before I intend to do some work. The downside is that it will cool down instantly (when someone opens the overhead door) and take a while to heat up again. When I am feeling a bit richer, I'll put a proper heater in the garage. :)

I have some big 240v garage heaters that I am never going to use, was thinking of possibly using in the seacan then realized I didn't know wth I was thinking, as the garage is warmer than the house in winter. Durr.

Need a big heater?

For a few years I lived in a camper year round.
The only way to keep warm in the colder weather was with additional heat, IE space heaters. Electric only. Up to four at a time.

I tried about every type on the market, Ceramic wire element, oil filled, you name it.

The ones that worked best and most efficiently as far as I could tell were the wire element types. The oil filled gave a more even heat but had no other advantage. the others took up more space then needed or were more expensive then needed. They all heated about the same judging by warmth and power consumption.

At present I have two in my basement/workshop. One conventional wire element and one monster ceramic/hypo-whatever filter programmable heater.

They put out the same BTUs but one is ten times the price and almost ten times the size.
The smaller one can be repaired although it wouldn't be worth it, cheaper to replace. The bigger one has a burnt out element and replacement elements are not available. It only heats on low now.

But it looks cool with it's LED temperature readout and imitation wood cabinet.

Have two of the oil filled heaters that look like old fashioned radiators. Used them to heat a triple car garage in Calgary that was attached with a common wall along about 1/3 of the total wall area and a single hot air outlet from the house furnace, I know it isn't code any more.. It was insulated but had no garage heater in it. To about -15 the garage stayed above freezing. With one oil filled at each end of the garage I never had a problem keeping it above freezing when it dropped below -15 nor any issues with the garage sink hot or cold lines freezing up. Silent, effective and safe.

Might take you up on that, Ken! Haven't decided whether to go with electric or gas - either way I'll need someone to come in to plumb it (gas) or wire it (electric)...

Oil
 

We have an oil filled and forced air. They both work but the forced air is a noise maker. As for efficiency on the wallet, i unfortunately cannot speak to it. We havent used one against the other for a metric.

What's the BTU rating and physical size of the 240v unit?

Get those electric heater fro Ken and get the wiring done. My welder and air compressor used the same outlets so the outlets won't be useless if you go to gas heat later.

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Guess I am going to have to go into the seacan and get some numbers.

I hate cold. I have several different types of heat sources in there, propane catalytic, couple little propane herman nelson style, diesel one....

Was thinking along the same lines as well. 220V to the garage adds value to the home, for sure!

If the garage is properly wired with a panel it should already be 220 capable. If there isn't a panel it may well have been wired off of only one leg and you would need to pull a 220 feed from the panel.