Heaters Unleashed

When planning to buy an electric heater for your home, you have to assess the capacity of the heater in terms of its wattage. Here are a few guidelines enabling you to assess the size of an appropriate heater for your home. The most important criteria to understand your requirements is the size of the room or the house that needs heating. It goes without saying that the larger the room the more is the wattage required.

However, there are a few other factors too that need to be taken into consideration while assessing your requirements of heater’s capacity.

Spaceheater: The first thing you need to know is how energy efficient the room is. For instance, the requirements of a modern fully insulated building will be about 10 watts of heat per square foot. On the other hand, if the insulation is insufficient or the home was not designed to be energy efficient, you would perhaps need to have more wattage of say 12 watts per square foot. Likewise, an older home without any insulation that has large drafty windows or not well placed you may be required to further up that requirement to15 watts per square foot.

Another factor that you need to rake into consideration while assessing the required wattage of the heater is the height of the room. Normal ceilings have a height of eight feet. Rooms with higher ceilings would necessarily require more powerful heaters and it will be safe to add 25% extra for every two feet of height above eight feet. Typical examples of such a room would be a conservatory or a house with old design.

Similarly, rooms that have many glass windows or say a living room with a large wall to wall window or a sliding glass door that may be leading to the patio would need more powerful heaters and it will be reasonable to add 25% or even more wattage, depending on the area of the glass used in the room.

In case you realize that you need a heater of more than 2000 watts capacity, it will be better to buy two heaters for such a room. That’s because even if you install such large a heater, certain parts of the room are not likely to get heated to a really comfortable level. However, if you buy two heaters and position them on the opposite walls, the whole room, including its corners will get heated as the heat gets distributed more evenly all over the room. Further, with two heaters working simultaneously you can afford to have lower setting of thermostat, whereas in case of just one heater, the thermostat will need to be left at maximum setting and yet it may never get turned off.

Here are some practical examples enabling you to assess the capacity of the heater:

1. Heating of a 12 x 10 foot room of a modern day, energy efficient room would necessitate a heater of at least 1200 watts.
2. Heating a 12 x 10 foot room, with 10 feet high ceilings would require at least 1200 + 25% or a 1500 watt heater.
3. Heating a 12 x 10 foot room of an old house that is not properly insulated would require a heater of 1800 watt capacity.
4. Heating a 22 x 15 foot room of a house with large glass windows all along one side: As the area of the room comes to 330 square feet, it will require a heater of 3300 watts and an additional 25% due glass windows, making it to 4,125 watts. Under such a situation it will be worth having two heaters installed on the opposite walls.

You may find it difficult to make a reasonable assessment of the wattage of the heater required for your room. In such a scenario, it will be good to buy one size higher than what you may calculate. It will be good to consult your local electrician for installation of an electric wall heater as one is required to provide an independent circuit breaker for the purpose. Sometimes, it is obligatory to have it installed by a licensed registered electrician. It will be desirable to know all such details before you venture to install it on your own.

There are quite a few brands and kinds of wall heaters. They are not too expensive to buy or run and are easily installed. Homes that do not have central heating often go in for these kinds of heating. At times, even if a house is provided with central heating, certain parts of the house may not receive enough heat or take too long to get heated, prompting the installation of additional heaters, and wall heaters come handy under such circumstances.

There are three types of wall heaters including electric heaters, propane heaters, and gas heaters. The benefit to electric wall heaters is that you just plug them in and feel its heat. On the other hand a gas heater necessitates the installation of a gas line. That adds to the initial expense and propane wall heaters would certainly need propane. You also get dual fuel sourced wall heaters that can heat using more than one energy source. In case you are concerned about environments, it should come as a relief to you that gas wall heaters are the most environment friendly of all the varieties mentioned here.

But if you prefer simple traditional convenient devices, your ideal choice will be the electric heater. It may be added here that of all the three varieties mentioned here, electric wall heater is probably the most popular.

There are two primary designs of wall heaters. The first one is fixed on the wall using hooks or fasteners, and plugged into a source of electric energy. The advantage of this model is that you could move it if you so desire by just unfastening the fasteners and re-fasten them to their new positions of your convenience.

The second design is known as an ‘in wall heater’, but that does not mean it is built into the wall at the time of constructing the house, but is inset into the wall. Irrespective of the design you may choose, this kind of a heater would cost you about U.S. $100, though it also depends upon the model and brand you may prefer to have.

The wall heater would usually come with a ten year warranty on the heating element and one year on rest of the components that go to make it. The price noted is for a 2000 watt heater that is most likely to heat up your room speedily. Most heaters come with a built in thermostat but you need to confirm it at the time of buying one. Thermostat is included to help you control the temperature of your room, without causing it to get too hot or leaving it too cold for comfort.

Another desirable feature to have in an electric heater is the provision of an inbuilt blower. The blower helps to evenly spread out warm air all over the room, thus heating the entire room quickly. Many heaters don’t come with a blower and you may have to incur extra expense, should you like to have one at a later date.