Plug in oil filled radiators

[amtrakuk]

Afternoon,

I am looking to replace a 3Kw Dimplex convector heater in my 18 x 12 x 9ft front room mainly due to the rather noisy click from the mechanical thermostat and the dry heat.

I am looking at Argos and come across a £35, 750w Challenge electric radiator. Reading the customer reviews on the argos website people are generally very happy with it. I know it wont be as quick as the convector but I don't want to spent £100s on a designer radiator if I can avoid it.

I did some calculations and going on the basis of my Tier 2 tariff 10p/KWh and if the thermostat is on for 20 minutes an hour, I figured a ball part figure of 60p a day

Any thoughts on the matter would be gratefully received

 

[sparkyspike]

If your existing 3kW heats the room up ok, then replace it with another 3kW, not a 0.75 kW as you're suggesting.

You can get a Dimplex 3kW for about £50. If you use an underpowered heater, the room will take longer to heat up and you will pay for it in electricity bills in no time.

Dimplex do all sorts of convectors - you can link them all together with a single room thermostat (although this is much more expensive) which makes them as easy to control as having central heating.

 

[amtrakuk]

Thanks Sparky

I am looking at more traditional types of heaters than convector ones as I found them heating up the ceiling more than the room. I understand oil filled radiators spread the heat into the room rather than leave you with cold feet?

 

[ericmark]

To Electrical heat a room with thermostatically controlled convention heaters will cost the same what ever heater you use. But because heat is always escaping then to heat with small heaters will mean they have to be turned on earlier so will be running longer so will cost a little more to run. Also you can turn a big heater down but you can't turn small heater up. Once it is on continuous then that is it's limit.

However with radiant heaters you are moving into a different ball park. It is very hard to thermostatic control radiant heaters as they don't heat the air but heat objects in their path. So in a garage for example where doors are opened giving regular air changes radiant heaters are a lot better. If for example one person was in a large office a radiant heater directed at them would keep them warm even though the air is still cold. However if pointed at an outside wall it would send heat outside and not heat room.

By using tungsten bulbs for example you can provide both light and heat and because it is a radiant heat they will make you feel warm even when the room temperature as still low and can if set up correct save loads of energy especially in a room with drafts.

But in the summer they would waist heat and any energy saving would depend on positioning standard lamps behind your chair shinning down on you would likely safe energy as you can feel comfortable in a lower temperature but there are two major draw backs.
1) Where there are many people in the room some will feel warm and others will feel cold as happened with old coal fires.
2) Very hard to control the heat and as a result often you have over the heat required so are still not economic.

However mixing the two can work very well and a old style electric fire with red hot bars can be better then a pure convection heater and if you can manually control with 1, 2, 3, or 4 bars they will work well but most people with switch on 4 bars to start with and then switch down to three or two but even when whole room is at 80decF they have still not turned it down to one bar so in most cases end up costing more than a thermostatic controlled convection heater.

 

[amtrakuk]

Thanks for the very informative answer.

Due to the small 4ft wall the heater is mounted on and doing some googling this afternoon I realised I should be looking about 2-3Kw output.

It looks like the easiest option is to continue using the convector heater I have at the moment as there doesn't seem to be a cheap, small, powerful, wall mounted heater that give out the cozy heat a radiator does.

Thanks for you're input.

A

 

[JohnD]

Wickes were recently selling off their Winter stock. Oil filled radiators went at £4.10 each, various sizes, some with timers.

Bet you wish you'd known