Heaters Unleashed

While thinking on the lines of buying a portable ceramic tower heater, you need to consider a couple of things so that you end up with the perfect product. Here are the points needing your consideration and you won’t regret your decision if you decide to keep thee in mind:

Safety – Nothing should be more important in mind than safety while weighing the option for buying any electric ceramic or gas ceramic heating unit. It should automatically turn off on getting knocked down accidentally. It should be safe for your pets and children. The model should be stable and sturdy. You also need to check if it comes with a thermostat that switches it off after the desired temperature is reached.

Reliability – Of course, any household equipment should be reliable and of the many ways to assess the reliability of the product, perhaps the easiest one is the reputation of the manufacturer who is concerned about its brand. You should also enquire if the manufacturer offers replacement of component in case anything goes wrong during the warranty period. Does it offer easy installation after you have removed it from its packaging?

Cost – That’s one factor you just can’t afford to overlook. It’s good to be spending a little extra for a better product that is safer to use and comes with features that make it more reliable, adding to its life.

Usability – How easy it is to operate the equipment? Does it come with a users’ manual? The operation should be easy and the operating instruction contained in its manual should be an easy to understand language.

Features – Other important features you should look for include: its consumption of electricity, provision of a thermostat, and a base that remains stable even when its fan is switched on to work at any of the specified speeds.

As you go shopping for a heater for your home, you are sure to come across a large variety in different designs and styles, each having its own plus and negative features. You have to look for something that most suits your specific requirements.

Why Go With A Ceramic Based Heater?

There are many advantages of using ceramic based products. First of all, these are not made from any organic material, meaning they don’t rot or get oxidized. As they don’t contain any metal or metallic parts, they don’t get rusted or lose color. Again, the absence of any metals in their construction makes them lightweight. Their capacity to reflect and insulate heat is encouraging for domestic applications, particularly heating.

Buy Ceramic Tower Heater

It’ll be wise to buy such a heater before winter really sets in, when you don’t really need to switch on your central heating, yet it’s desirable and comfortable to have a small heater in your room. That way you’ll save on your electricity bills.

A space heater may be electric, infrared, ceramic, baseboard, quartz, micathermic, natural gas, kerosene, propane etc. It may become baffling. Nonetheless, basically there are only two types namely, convection and radiant. Which type best suits you, is decided by the circumstances you are faced with?

Radiant space heaters employ light energy for heating an item which on getting heated transfers heat to the rest of the room. The experience is comparable to being in the sun on a cool day. Though the sun warms you up, you can still feel the cool air around you. As the sun begins to go down, the temperature begins to fall quickly. Infrared, quartz and halogen type heaters are categorized among radiant space heaters.

Heaters that warm the surroundings thru setting up of convection currents are known as convection space heaters. The heaters falling in this category are baseboard electric heaters and oil or water filled radiator style heaters. One can safely say that any space heater that delivers heat by direct burning of fossil fuel comes in this category. To get a better understanding, imagine being in front of the outlet of the centralized heating system at home and feeling the warm air flashing over you, yet the kitchen counter tops continue to give a cool touch. This kind of heating is known as convection heating.

You should understand that the three factors which affect your comfort level are heat, humidity and wind speed. You can feel heat very easily. But, when the humidity is low, your body releases more moisture which on getting in contact with blowing air causes it to evaporate and we all know that evaporation causes cooling effect. This can easily be experienced on a cool day when you feel like having an extra layer of clothing if the wind is blowing versus a still day, with the same temperature.

Radiant space heaters neither bring down the humidity nor create wind speed. This is their strongest characteristic. But, as already mentioned, they first heat objects which in turn heat the room, therefore they raise the temperature slowly, you may though feel comfortable even with a lower room temperature. If you are looking to heat a small area, a radiant space heater should be your best choice. On the other hand, a large living room may be best heated for a shorter period by employing a convection space heater.

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.