Space heater

David Stifle

David Stifle

Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
10,188
I got rid of my kerosene space heater, and need to get a good electric one for my shop. I was wondering if any of you fellas have some recommendations. Appreciate your advice.
 
David Stifle said:
I got rid of my kerosene space heater, and need to get a good electric one for my shop. I was wondering if any of you fellas have some recommendations. Appreciate your advice.
Click to expand...

Check out a Vornado whole room heater Chief. They are a little pricey but worth every penny.
 
Get yourself one of those oscillating dish heaters. They put out good heat and move so you don't get cooked. They run under $50.
 
LEGION 12 said:
Check out a Vornado whole room heater Chief. They are a little pricey but worth every penny.
Click to expand...

Rich, I went on line and checked out the reviews. People either hate it or love it. The best price I found was $124., which isn't bad, but a lot of the reviews revolved around the heater breaking or quit working after a short while. Others, though, said they'd had theirs for years. Typical net responses, I guess.
 
RevDevil said:
Get yourself one of those oscillating dish heaters. They put out good heat and move so you don't get cooked. They run under $50.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Charlie, I'll take a look. I actually have a woodstove in my shop, but some days it's not really cold enough to light or I'm too darned lazy to do it. It would be nice to be able to just plug in a heater.
 
I mentioned that heater because I've had one for a few year's now it's only used when it's really cold. Below zero and my wall unit's can't keep up. The way the fan's designed it puts out a even heat floor to ceiling. Can't say I've had any problems with it.
 
Make sure when heating with open flames --trichloethylene will break down into nasty dangerous stuff !!!
 
I use 2 heaters in my shop up here in Wisconsin the main one is 30,000 BTUs propane/natural gas that can keep my 300 square foot shop warm down to -10 in the winter and will heat my shop up on cold days in a bout 30 minutes,I bought this last year after my old one burned out after 15 years,I got it from Northern Tool and they go for about $199.00.I run 100 pound propane on mine if I use my shop 2-3 days a week during the winter I go through 2 tanks of gas at about $56.00 per tank for the entire winter.Oh and I almost forgot I always get the thermostat control with the auxiliary fan and that makes them way more efficient.




The 2nd is a 220 volt electric heater from Farm and Fleet it it can produce up to 17,000 BTUs it has 3 wiring configurations you need to know for the gauge wire your running,it's something like 14 gauge wire will give you 13,000 BTUs,12 gauge wire will give you 15,000 BTUs and 10 gauge wire will give you 17,000 BTUs.If you have a 30 amp 220 volt circuit wired with 12 gauge wire you can only run it at 15,000 BTUs or you will over load your wire capacity an it will act like a fuse and it WILL heat up and start on fire.So run 10 gauge wire with it.This heater will heat my shop nicely if the temp is above like 45 degrees.Price new nowadays at F & F $249.00,it's not cheep but it's reel nice warming things up I'm working on.





The gas is a lot cheeper to use but hauling around the tanks and having them filled is kind of a pain in the ass,but then again the electric heater doesn't have the BTUs to heat my shop if cold out.Of the 110 volt heaters I've looked at the highest BTU rating was 5,000 and your not really going to heat anything with that I don't think.But if you do go electric use 10 gauge wire or better.
 
Last edited:
RevDevil said:
Get yourself one of those oscillating dish heaters. They put out good heat and move so you don't get cooked. They run under $50.
Click to expand...

I first learned about these when talking to an electrician who we called to check out some weird intermittent issues in the upstairs of our house. Although not the cause, he noted that a space heater in an upstairs bedroom - like many used for that exact purpose - was horribly inefficient, consuming a ridiculous amount of power for the limited amount of heat it actually provided. He said that most space heaters are a huge draw on a residential circuit, and that people try to use them to heat entire rooms when most of that is wasted on areas where nobody is actually present. The oscillating parabolic/reflective heaters can be "aimed" and are much lower wattage, so the areas that need to be heated will get warm faster with lower power consumption.

No joke, replacing two existing space heaters with parabolic heaters showed a significant drop in our winter heating bill, paying for the two new heaters the first winter we used them. Both have since died (only bought one replacement for this winter) and now they seem to cost a few bucks more in the past, but I can't complain.
 
Inazone said:
I first learned about these when talking to an electrician who we called to check out some weird intermittent issues in the upstairs of our house. Although not the cause, he noted that a space heater in an upstairs bedroom - like many used for that exact purpose - was horribly inefficient, consuming a ridiculous amount of power for the limited amount of heat it actually provided. He said that most space heaters are a huge draw on a residential circuit, and that people try to use them to heat entire rooms when most of that is wasted on areas where nobody is actually present. The oscillating parabolic/reflective heaters can be "aimed" and are much lower wattage, so the areas that need to be heated will get warm faster with lower power consumption.

No joke, replacing two existing space heaters with parabolic heaters showed a significant drop in our winter heating bill, paying for the two new heaters the first winter we used them. Both have since died (only bought one replacement for this winter) and now they seem to cost a few bucks more in the past, but I can't complain.
Click to expand...

I've never owned one, but a friend that works on motorcycles out of a small garage has one. That thing works really well, and it doesn't trip any of the circuit breakers. It makes the shop 15'x20' feel comfortable to work in without a coat on. What really works well is using a small oscillating fan opposite the heater, it moves the hot air and can circulate it without cooling. I saw them at Costco too, walked by one at one point darn near singed my eye brows off. :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top