Electric Heater for one room

randombar

Hi All,

Just looking for recommendations for an electric heater for the WFH office. Want to avoid putting on the heat for the whole house just to keep the chill away while working.

IR/Oil what are peoples recommendations?

Thanks,

Gary

EarWig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058272663/electric-heater-for-one-room

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Warmlite-WL42008N-Portable-Radiant-Heater/dp/B07HHMV54F/ref%3Dsr_1_3?keywords=Radiant+Heater&qid=1669030410&sr=8-3

This one can be got in a lot of stores too for €40.

slave1

Have you looked at far infrared, this is a renewable forum so you may get better traction in the heating forum

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901164#Comment_119901164

Sorry should have said looking for a lower power solution that would work well with PV etc.

DC999

Hey, I do just that to heat 2 rooms downstairs. Links in this one cover it. Heating with electric rads and no gas boiler for now — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

I've just ordered an infrared 360w version that someone recommended (but they use a larger version): Klarstein Wonderwall Smart Infrared Heater, Infrared Heater with App Control, Infrared Heater with Thermostat, Electric Heater for Wall Mounting, CO2-Free Electric Heater, Heating 360 Watt : Amazon.de: Home & Kitchen. Haven't got it yet to and never used infrared heaters before. I wanted low wattage so I can soak up the solar (don't have a battery). It will be on the wall beside me, so I reckoned a smaller watt would be ok.

400w of oil filled rad is loads for a 3x3meter WFH room (it's a cold one). Up to a week ago, when it was mild, 200w was fine.

It's using 700w now the sitting room 5 x 5 (less when sun warms the room in the morning). Up to a week ago, when it was mild, 400w was fine. So as the temp drops, the rads struggle.

Both are very 'leaky' rooms that are badly insulated. Doors need to be closed to keep heat in. Get a thermostat to control the rad so room temp stays perfect for you.

randombar

I probably need to do some maths on how much heat is lost during the day.

e.g. nightsaver storage heater option

vs

Low power Infrared or oil

My concern over nightsaver option is heatloss. My meter clock is wrong so it goes to expensive rate at 5. Starting work at 9 means 4 hours of heat loss basically. (in my head this makes sense)

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902921#Comment_119902921

Good idea. Test it and see. Our room can lose 2 degrees in the first hour when the heat goes off. And it can drop 5+ degrees at night. I tried heating the sitting room over night to a lower 'setup' back temp (as in theory some of the heat moved into the walls as thermal mass), but room is too leaky. Others here with A rated houses lose 1-2 degrees overnight - so overnight heating on a cheap rate is a winner for that.

EarWig

I have the heater I posted above. But each bar is 600w.

I'm considering something like this.

https://powercity.ie/product/67394

unkel

Far infrared panels are very effective if you sit at a desk WFH. You can stick one right beside you, or under your desk. It heats you, not the room as it is proper radiating heat. This means it is very efficient, a small 300-450W panel does wonders. You can buy a smart one with an app, or even get a dumb one and have it on a smart plug with a motion detector, so you would never even have to think about switching it on or off

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119905949#Comment_119905949

I'm guessing you sit at home on a mining rig of some sort 😁

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119905990#Comment_119905990

Not right now 😁

But yes I do use mining rigs as electric heaters (on night rate, solar PV and battery only). But even with 8c night rate and efficient GPUs, they are loss making, but still making coin, so basically you could see it as either cheaper again heating or some free coins as a bonus, who knows they might be worth something, some day. At the moment for every €1 of coin I get, I have to put in €1.50 of heat. But this is 100% efficient electric heating, so in other words, it only costs me €0.50 to create €1.50 of heat, so effectively a 3c electricity rate 😁

Heating with gas costs me 5 times as much...

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119906094#Comment_119906094

But what is the kwh output of the heat? That's the way to compare it to gas cost.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119906986#Comment_119906986

1kwh of electric = 1kwh of heat.

You'll not get 1kwh of heat out of 1kwh of gas. That depends on boiler if it's condensing, and also if the flow/return temperatures are low enough for it to be condensing

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119907005#Comment_119907005

Correct, and what's the price difference of a kwh unit of gas to elec? (lets says gas is 85% efficient, some more, some are less).

unkel

Depends on your electricity and gas plans. I currently pay 8c / kWh for night rate electricity (100% efficient) and 14c / kWh of gas (90% efficient with high efficiency condensing boiler)

So for me, heating with gas costs about twice as much as heating with electricity. And that's not the full picture. Heating was gas central heating is a sledge hammer approach compared to more fine tuned heating of individual rooms or just desk areas. So in reality heating with gas could well be 3 or 4 times as expensive

But beware, I do a lot of heating with night rate or via my large battery. If you heat with peak rate electricity, that is often more expensive than using gas

DC999

Deffo. Once people are aware of the cost difference, using a small amount of targeted electric heating can work well - or does for me anyway. Unless you have a large battery and fill on cheap night rate (the lucky ducks!!), you need to watch what is uses.

New day rates for electricity are much higher. Bonkers.ie shows 40c+ rates at the cheap end now 24 hour tariffs (I'm on 28.5c with Energia). And best I'll get from them for a D/N night rate when I move is 13c (but I've no battery to fill to use for heating later).

My gas is 13.5c. So electricity is more than twice the price for me (I don’t have a battery to charge on a night rate).

I've an infrared heater on the way, 360w, that will go on the wall 1m away from me in WFH room. Will mean the room won't need to heat to the temp it would need normally. That’s the theory anyway.  

+1 that electricity is a much more comfortable temp. I can keep the WFH room within 1 degree of a change. Gas heating ramps the room up several degrees (which is a waste), then it drops several. That’s even with TRV values, I find they are pretty hard to get to the right temp.

We’ve 2 electric rads on downstairs. And until the weekend, that was the only heating we’ve had on. Gas heating now comes on only in morning, afternoon when kids get back from school and close to bedtime. So gas is on 3 hours a day tops for now (might change as it gets colder of course). And that’s with the boiler at the lowest setting and rads turned down, so will be light on gas I hope. Really it’s to stop the rest of the house getting cold. 

My Outlaws in Germany have infrared panels upstairs, I don't like them, think of warm rays of sun on a cool day, the air is cold but the rays of the sun you can feel, I don't like it. I'd rather be warm and the air around me warm too. The only time I found I liked it was in the bathroom getting out of the shower standing directly beside the panel.

Best bet would be use the leccy heater and insulate the room you want to use the leccy heater in as best you can or install a wood stove, pellet stove ? I recently got a Klover pellet stove installed and heat the house for around 12 Euro's per day, heating about 11 rads out of 15, heat on around the same as we would have had the oil, around 4 - 5 hrs morning and around 6 or 7 later in the day.

I could see a space heating stove not heating rads to get a couple of days out of a bag of pellets, some you can even duct to 1 or 2 more rooms.

Of course the installation + stove would cost a lot more than a leccy heater then the cost of leccy vs cost of stove + insulation.......

I wouldn't be bothered with infrared heaters "in my opinion" they're complete and utter shyte.

unkel

EUR12 a day is €720 per billing period. I think your house is pretty big, but that is a huge amount to be paying for heating, isn't it?

Most people seem to disagree with you on infrared heaters as people naturally seem to like radiated heat, I guess it's in our genes

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119928598#Comment_119928598

Have to agree regarding the Infrared panel heaters, I find the ones I got (same ones as you) are keeping the O/H happy and she is an expert in being cold! As an added bonus I got on to Amazon when the panels dropped in price for B/F and got them to credit me the difference of £38.00 for my 2 so even better! I had a return window until 4th December and convinced the rep it was far better to just credit me rather than send them back and buy again. 😂

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119928598#Comment_119928598

The radiated heat is nice but the colder air/room temp is not. Not my cup of tea.

Can't rem how many Sq Mtrs exactly but it would be around 180 Sq Mtrs, it's' a 4 bed 80s bungalow with conservatory which is kind of inefficient, now we wouldn't really heat that part of the house much but it does take from the heat of the kitchen dining area. The attic is kind of converted, the previous owners made a room up there without raising the roof but it's a handy room and herself works from home there and I have all my Radio transmitting gear up there, still more space to heat.

Walls pumped, but attic insulation could be better, the Windows are decent. The heating this year was a priority to upgrade, most rads replaced and we're happy with the pellet stove, it is a lot of extra work compared to Oil or Gas but that doesn't bother me, it means getting bags of pellets and bringing them to the shed and then to the house but can store a week in the conservatory. I will investigate whether or not it's viable getting a silo, I could then save more by buying in the tonne and having them delivered.

We'd need 2 - 2.5 tanks of Oil a year so currently that would be pretty expensive anyway but don't mind paying for comfort. The oil heating is still there anyway if needed.

I'd say if we were to leave the stove on from 6am for when the lads usually get up to around 10.30 at night we'd go through 2 - 2.5 bags of pellets costing around 20 Euro's, but that might only be a rare weekend if it's particularly cold, the price of pellets has gone up of course due to the cost of electricity to produce them, initial warm up eats through the pellets but once warm doesn't take a huge amount to keep ticking over + can turn it down lower and could turn off some rads but being a boiler stove keeping some rads open is essential. The kitchen dining area is around 22-23 degrees perfect for us as we like it warm, same in the sitting room + we're heating 3 extra rads as the 2 upstairs didn't work and we put a new one in the hall so the hall area is not as cold and the attic nice and warm. Of course if we were doing work in the house we'd be sweating but for sitting down it's comfortable.

In my old mid terrace 3 bed, we could get away with half a tank of oil a year, I got the walls pumped and attic insulated, windows upgraded.

I do like not having to depend on oil and it is nice to be using locally produced pellets from locally produced timber.

unkel

Ok your house is a bit bigger than mine, but not that much. I find €720 for a winter billing period to be huge. I wouldn't spend half that myself (aiming for not even a quarter), and that's in a house that needs to be heated all day as we have 2-3 people working from home.

Infrared panels are very efficient in that you'd only need a few of them to keep the people WFH warm at their desks, rather than having to heat the whole house with inefficient fossil fuel burning central heating.

Also going through several bags of pellets seems like hard work / messy to me. I know you don't believe in climate change (let's not let this thread descent into a discussion about that 😂) but heating a house with night rate electricity (already over half from wind) and with solar PV as much as possible should be preferable over burning stuff, causing cancer and all sorts of problems for people with breathing issues.

DC999

Thread has gone off in a different direction now on how to heat a whole house to 22C. For me, I wanna reduce the gas we use (and energy usage in general with energy costs as they are). But by also using rads in some rooms it gives us the temps we like. No way our gas boiler can stay within 1C of a temp change. It ramps up a down a few degrees when on and off. So we cook and freeze.  

My WFH room can stay are a comfortable lower temp a lot of the time with small changes. I’m not cold - lifes too short to be cold. Plug-in rad (which is gonna be an infrared one when it arrives). When needed a hot water bottle on my legs, a heated gilet that runs from a power bank. Close the curtains once the light is gone to keep in the heat. Ours is also a badly insulated house. 

Sitting room on 1 electric rad, which the OH and kids use during the work day is never cold. That’s set to a higher temp they prefer. But we do sit on the sofa with a blanket on us, even the kids. We did that as kids too.

So..we’re heating downstairs in the house for under 10 kWhs a day on 2 electric rads. That’s from 8am to bedtime. And even at my expensive 24hour rate of 28.5c, that’s €85 a month in juice (but solar provides some of that). And if I had a battery and night rate, it would be peanuts.

I do turn on the gas heating 3 times a day (since last week) so the rest of the house isn’t cold (morning, when kids get home from school and evening before bed). That’s a max of 3 hours on the lowest boiler temp to stop it getting cold. And my electric rads turn off at that time as they are on a thermostat so aren’t needed.

loyatemu

bought one of these for my office after it was linked on the Bargain Alerts forum. Seems to work well, it has a thermostat so it just cycles on and off and keeps the room at a manageable temperature. In eco mode it uses 900w, I'd say it comes on for 1 minute then turns off for 5 on average.

Turning on the central heating, which heats the whole downstairs, seems a waste when it's just me in the house and it takes a while for the rad in the office to start warming up anyway. But I haven't done the calculations on whether it's actually any cheaper, obviously electricity is substantially more expensive per unit than gas.

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119930537#Comment_119930537

+1 that turning on the central heating for a room or two, or person or two seems a waste.

Counter to what seems to make sense, I reckon electric is cheaper for heating a small part of the house. That's even though I pay 13.5c for 1kWh of gas v 28.5c for electricity (have no battery and still on a 24hr meter at mo). I say that as god knows what the true efficiency % of my boiler is now per kWh burned. It’s 15 years old. While the % efficiency is very close to 100% for an electric rad in the room.  

My heating has uninsulated pipes under the floors. I could only insulate the ones I can see. Plus it’s a teen which is old for a boiler. The pump alone has to use 100+watts just to pump the rads (I haven’t checked the spec or meter, just a guess). There's got to be 15years of sludge in the rads now...Sure, you can argue it’s not lost heat once the heat is created somewhere in the envelope of the house. But I can’t use the heat between floorboards 😊 And I'd rather heat downstairs more and let it rise. Granted it rises in time but not in the places we want the heat maybe. 

loyatemu

ideally you would have smart TRVs on all the rads so you could just heat the rooms you want. That's an expensive option though, I have smart heating controls but the TRVs are €50 per rad and that's assuming you already have dumb TRVs there, which I don't so I'd also need a plumber.

What I do need to do is sort out the draughts from under the skirting boards and around the windows...

noahungry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119930537#Comment_119930537

This one seems like something I could consider, thank you. Not that it's crucial, but I like the design too.

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119931819#Comment_119931819

Yeah, the smart TRVs like Tado seem great. But are expensive. We've only the dumb TVRs which are pretty limited but still better than none. At the moment we've cut down on gas bills (using electric rads as I've said) so don't need the smart TRVs. But at the point we ever need major work done (like a new boiler) it would likely make sense to get them then.

I've also to sort out the draughts from under the skirting boards and around the windows... I'm putting that off as it's the less fun job :) I have the stuff from Screwfix. Just need to get off my backside and do it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929347#Comment_119929347

Ah here now, give over, if I was burning smoky coal I'd say you might have an argument but I'm out in the sticks hardly giving anyone cancer and I'm burning locally produced pellets with local timber, other than that we'd still be on foreign oil.

Where did my belief in Climate change come from ? what business is it of yours what I believe ?, do you want to mock me on my religious beliefs next ? you can be a really patronising git sometimes and worst of all is you get satisfaction in it.

You can be in a semi d or detached house this will make a difference, also you're in a much newer house probably with a lot better insulation.

Pellets are more work but I'm not lazy, I can deal with that no problem. You might have issues with more physical work, I don't.

It's not that expensive in reality, Oil would be costing us that or more needing 2.5 tanks a year. I don't mind paying for comfort, I like the Kitchen/dining area and sitting room at around 22-23 Deg C. Bedrooms around 20. I work in a warm environment.

Seriously, 12-16 Euro's a day to heat the house to a comfortable level ? Stuff infrared heaters, I'd rather pay for the comfort of real heating.

Oil and Gas boilers are not inefficient nor are pellet stoves........

Heating with solar PV in Winter ? how am I going to heat with night rate electricity when I'm asleep ? that's fine for charging the car.

I save tonnes with free work charging, if VW enable V2G I'll be powering the house with work electricity when at home, so I'd rather save over 3 K on diesel and let that then heat the house with pellets, nice warm cosy house and nice flame to look at.

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119931997#Comment_119931997

Smart trvs are the way to go. You can get a Drayton Wiser system for about 200e Inc two TRVs and then you only need additional TRVs for rooms with varying heat demands.

I am wfh three days a week now in the small office upstairs. We have smart TRVs in office, kitchen, living room, TV room and our bedroom. Circulation spaces and bathrooms just have normal TRVs set appropriately and guest bedroom has TRV set very low. The system is 7 day configurable so on the days I'm wfh, the office is maintained perfectly at 20C but isn't heated over the weekend for eg and when no-one is home heating isn't used and evening heat to suit us and depending on individual rooms actual temps.

For the 250 - 300 of kit involved it's really worth it and it really cuts down on heating demand versus just knocking the heat on for a few hours each day.

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933024#Comment_119933024

Ta. Good to know about that brand. Hadn't heard of them before

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933024#Comment_119933024

It depends very much on how well your boiler can modulate. Some are so poor at it that you have very little savings in heating just one room and it would be cheaper to use electricity, even at day rates.

graememk

There is nuance to just heating "one room" via traditional heating systems. It's mainly to do with condensing boilers though.

The other rooms will suck heat out of the heated room, the heat demand for that room increases. The radiator in that room might not be able to output the needed heat, can increase the return temperatures out of the condensing range, losing efficiency, and also the room still being not warm!

Although if the night rate is low enough, it can maintain a base temperature and take the edge of the gas bill. (And onto the electric bill!)

DC999

How can you tell if the boiler is good for modulation? Noob queation, what is it? Have heard the Heat Geek mention it but don't know what it is.

loyatemu

Drayton Wiser is what I already have but I think I would have add TRVs to every room in the zone for it to really work and start saving money. For downstairs that would be €300 for the TRVs plus the cost of the valve bodies and a plumber to install them all (a day's work?). If you already have manual TRVs then obviously you can DIY it but I'd be slow to try doing such a job myself (regardless of how many YouTube plumbing videos I've watched 🙂 ). All vs. €60 for a single room heater.

Jonathan

We've had great success in our house with Home Assistant's Generic Thermostat integration. In short, it allows you create your own thermostat by integrating different sensors and switches.

I've created two of these thermostats, and find they are working very well. I'm using BLE temperature/humidity sensors in each room, and a smart plug connected to a fan heater in one room, and an oil radiator in the other. The fan heater is keeping the room to ±0.3°C of the setpoint. The delta for the room with the oil radiator is a bit more (due to the thermal inertia of oil), closer to ±0.5°C.

The graph below shows room temperature, the set point, and periods where the radiator is on. Being able to configure the setpoint from your phone is a major advantage, achieving the holy grail of wife acceptance factor.

Also worth pointing out that both oil radiator and fan heaters do have integrated thermostats on them, but only an arbitrary 1-5 scale, so hard to convert those to temperatures, and very easy to lose the sweet point once found.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933440#Comment_119933440

It means that the boiler can "slow down" depending on heat load.

Eg a boiler is rated at say 14kw. If it can't modulate, it will run at 14 kw no matter what and turn on and off once the water gets to the set temperature.

Modulating, the boiler can instead run at 3 kw, matching the heat demand instead of turning on and off. This is good for condensing boilers as that keeps it in the condensing mode for longer.

unkel

@Jonathan - "achieving the holy grail of wife acceptance factor"

😁😂 so true

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933542#Comment_119933542

Class, good to know I can do that in HA. Thanks for including the kit that works for you. At mo only I can easily change the temps by changing the numbers on the plug-in thermostats. Which understandably impacts the 'holy grail of wife acceptance factor.' :)

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119930416#Comment_119930416

Have you looked into weather compensation for your gas boiler?

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934220#Comment_119934220

Yeah, we have extensive weather compensation features now. It’s called me 😊

Weather compensation is not something I really know about. What’s the gist of it? That the heating somehow knows it’s going to warm up later in the day (higher than the average or day before) so doesn’t blast out the heat in the morning and then have the house cook? I can imagine that would be a big help on underfloor heating (which we don’t have). When we got the Nest years ago I thought it might have something like that. But not that I’ve seen.

Boiler is 15years old so not sure what it’s capable of. And as @graememk said above if the boiler can modulate (don’t know if mine can). We don’t use the Nest now really as the rooms on electric rads have a separate thermostat to control them (rads plug into it and it’s very accurate, not the rad thermostat itself). Well, the Nest is being used simply as a timer to bring the boiler on for X times a day. We don’t care about the temp it gets too (it’s set to a low temp). It’s to stop the rooms without the electric rads getting cold. Or damp (though we don’t have an issue with damp now. We open the windows to vent and don’t dry clothes in house anymore. We did have some damp when didn’t do those things before). So the house is broadly the temp we want it by 'zones' - but it's all manual at the moment.

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934618#Comment_119934618

You had mentioned that the gas was struggling to maintain a comfort temperature, weather comp aims to do this. The boiler communicates with a temp sensor outside and will adjust the boiler flow temp based on if the weather is getting cooler or warmer. You can normally set a desired curve (plus or minus degrees) based on the outside temp. This can be used in conjunction with room stats as well.

I actually have weather comp on my boiler but don't use it as I just have manually set the flow temp 43c and let the room stats which are Nest turn on or off the heating. Any flow lower than 43c causes my boiler to cycle too often.