Thinking of buying an oil filled radiator.

[Harry Bloomfield]

That's not true for the intermittent use the OP is enquiring about. Oil filled radiator would use more energy because of the latency.

I actually mentioned the lag from an oil filled, but they do both - convector and oil filled consume and give out the same amount of useful heat, for the same cost in Kwh. Both are equally efficient.

 

[cleggy]

well just my opinion only.I have a holiday caravan with a gas fire runs on propane gas,but never ever use it only time it goes on is when it is checked for the gas certificate every year.But my point is that instead of a oil filled radiator i have a ceramic radiator.it is almost the same as a oil filled rediator except i find it works out much cheaper in costs,its very quick to heat up,retains heat well when turned off, is fully programmable etc.just something else for you to look at.Mine is made by Dimplex

 

[ericmark]

I have seen and used combination heaters, which have some convections and some radiation, the typical bar fire.

But in the main either it heats up slow and cools down slow, or heats up quick and cools down quick, my caravan also had a combined gas and electric heater with ducting to ensure whole caravan warm, however since the fans were 12 volt DC not really an option for the normal home.

Also due to different supplies caravan site to caravan site it had a range of elements, from memory 250 watt to 1000 watt, so you could select low power setting if the site supply was low.

Often the heaters flue was through the floor, clearly not an option with normal house.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Also due to different supplies caravan site to caravan site it had a range of elements, from memory 250 watt to 1000 watt, so you could select low power setting if the site supply was low.

Probably the same as the blown air heater in mine - it does 500w, 1000w, 2000w.

Often the heaters flue was through the floor, clearly not an option with normal house.

It was one of those which set fire to the floor of one caravan I had, due to a rusted through part. Luckily, it was on my drive being tested and adjacent to a garden hose and I was able to extinguish it quickly Present one, draws air from below, with its flue going and through the roof.

 

[aptsys]

I actually mentioned the lag from an oil filled, but they do both - convector and oil filled consume and give out the same amount of useful heat, for the same cost in Kwh. Both are equally efficient.

Wrong, since the OP is asking about intermittent use ("a few bursts"), not continuous or thermostatically controlled. When it's turned off, the latent heat is not necessarily useful.

 

[big-all]

Wrong, since the OP is asking about intermittent use ("a few bursts"), not continuous or thermostatically controlled. When it's turned off, the latent heat is not necessarily useful.

your both right really
equally efficient if used correctly but time lag means not the best use overall but fairly close giving the added value off oil filled being child unattended friendly
where the orange glow and pencils pushed in on a fan heater may be less safe where as the oil though less efficient perhaps 5% overall more cost but not a bad trade

as an aside a fan heater is 400% more effective if you are only popping in for 10 mins to sort somthing out and its fully aimed where your sitting especialy under a desk

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Wrong, since the OP is asking about intermittent use ("a few bursts"), not continuous or thermostatically controlled. When it's turned off, the latent heat is not necessarily useful.

Why the hell are you arguing with me, when you are continueing to say exactly the very same thing, same point of view as me?

What you said above is more or less what I said in my original post in the thread..

 

[ericmark]

I have talked about this many times, basic idea is any resistive heater uses the same energy to heat a room, however if you need to switch on earlier or if there is a hysteresis problem this can also effect the energy used to a small extent, only if you can modulate the power used can one trim the heater to regulate without any over shoot, this is the whole idea of gas heating with OpenTherm and the like, using the TRV you can gradually reduce or increase heat output.

With electric in the main looking as switching on/off and the time between each on, the ratio is called the mark/space, but it could switch on every 2 minutes or every 2 hours, depends on the losses from the room, and method of switching.

With solid state switching one could switch on every minute. The heater could be on for 20 seconds and off for 40 seconds. But with mechanical switching the contacts would not last long, so not likely to be less than 6 minutes with 2 minutes on and 4 minutes off, but more likely 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off, the on/off or mark/space ratio is the same, but the sine wave of temperature would be very different.

The hysteresis can be damped down by heating oil or bricks main with a high iron content, or a larger room, or reducing loses. So if we said with my living room with x losses and x area which is the best heater, one may be able to say this is the best, but without that it is simply an unknown.

However the safety aspects are not unknown, we have loads of cases where paper has fallen onto a convection heater and caused a fire, so large firms having had loses due to fires have stipulated oil filled radiators to reduce the chance of fire.

Costing 30 units to heat or 31 units to heat is neither here or there, it is safety that matters, and the oil filled radiator in the main is safer.