Thoughts on portable electric heaters
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Temps in the single digits by the end of the week. Time to bust out the portable heaters.
Every house has a room or two that needs a little supplemental heat. Big windows, outside walls, distance from furnace, etc. Portable heaters work great to even up temps but you need to pay attention.
Nearly all portable heaters offer a 1500 watt setting that provides 5120 BTUH of heat. None offer more than that no matter what the ads say, some offer less. Many are adjustable but 5120 BTUH is all you’re going to get when set to high. 1500 watts is all you can draw from a household receptacle.
Even 1500 watts can be problematic. It’s right on the edge of the capacity of a household receptacle, and that’s a receptacle that’s fairly new and perfectly installed. With time things get loose and the connections deteriorate. What worked fine for years may one day get hot - sometimes even start a fire. It happens more often than you’d expect and I’ve seen it more than once.
Vigilance, then. No need to get crazy, but feeling the cord/plug connection for signs of heating from time to time is a good practice. If it’s warm, figure out why and fix it. It doesn’t hurt to lay your hand on other receptacles on the same circuit to see if they’re getting warm as well. There are related connections in those boxes too. Same for the associated circuit breaker - if it’s warm, it’s failing.
Best practice is not to run them at 1500 watts at all. Most are adjustable - 500w, 750w, 1500w is typical. Low, medium, high. 1, 2, or 3. Running them at the lower settings eliminates most problems and is much safer. They’ll run longer cycles but will probably heat the room just fine and won’t put as much stress on the connections. I set the one in my basement to 500 watts and after a few hours to stabilize the room temp it works perfectly.
Note to Daniel: This especially important in manufactured homes. They’re wired differently than stick built homes and the receptacles are not as robust. A lot if them (60’s/70’s) are wired in aluminum which is especially problematic.
Keep warm out there!
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Good stuff, @steve-miller !
We only use space heaters occasionally. Our house has some drafty areas but I think both Mr wtg and I are probably used to living with that.
We adjust the registers in various rooms when we do a switch between heating and cooling. Seems to help with the evenness of temps across all the rooms and between the first two floors; basement is pretty much steady state summer and winter, and we don't use it as living space, just a laundry room.
And in the winter, we tilt the blinds on our south-facing living room windows, especially on sunny days. The thermostat is in that room and if the sun warms up the space the furnace doesn't go on and the rest of the house becomes a refrigerator.
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I just bought an electric oil-filled slimline freestanding panel heater.
We already have a 400W Dimplex that is 20 years old, in the 2nd bedroom for guests. The new one is an 800w Amos brand, in the sitting room as we had to halve our central heating radiator to accommodate new double doors. £75.
