Wall panel heaters for childs bedroom?

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timmmay

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#251555 1-Jul-2019 06:04

We have a 1000W oil heater heating my 3 year old's bedroom. It's been there since he was born, and works well. High wall heat pumps in the lounge / kitchen heat the whole house including this room, but the oil heater comes on to keep it warm overnight with the door closed.

My wife is concerned that our toddler may pull the oil heater down on himself and hurt himself. She's asked me to look into panel heaters.

Are panel heaters effective for keeping a well insulated, double glazed room warm? I had a quick look at Briscoes and found the panel type are mostly around 425 watts, if you want more you need to get something that's more like a standard convection heater. Right now the oil heater is in the corner of the room near his bed, a panel heater would have to be across the room, perhaps behind a rocking chair.

Questions

How effective are panel heaters? I imagine about the same as oil heaters, the heat goes straight up and the room warms from the top down.
How are panel heaters for safety? They won't fall on him, but there's a fair bit of heat quite close to a wall. Would we be better with a more traditional heater that looks like it would have something solid between the heating element and the wall?

I'm an engineer and understand the different types of heaters well, I'm looking for practical experience.

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#2267615 1-Jul-2019 07:40

Here is a brief summary of the different heater types available with pros and cons - https://www.energywise.govt.nz/at-home/heating-and-cooling/types-of-heater/electric-heating/

Also, I presume your column heater has multiple settings, ie 1, 2 or 3? The heater will only use 1000W of power on the max setting so it may already be behaving as a lower wattage heater if you only have it on 1.

Edit: Not having luck with links today...

timmmay

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#2267620 1-Jul-2019 07:58

Yeah, it says panel heaters not very effective. I think a standard wall mounted convection heater would be a better idea. Just not 100% confident mounting a really hot heater right onto a wall that's painted wallpaper. Some kind of stand-off would be good. Any suggestions there?

nickb800

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#2267625 1-Jul-2019 08:12

We have two of these heating our small house - lounge and bedroom. Initially wall mounted down low, I moved them up to head height when our daughter turned one year old and started playing with it. Obviously not the best arrangement for quick heating as heat rises, but its fine provided you turn it in an hour before you need the room warm. We have them on 24/7 - keep the house at 22 degrees.

Our walls are newly painted, but there's little heat projected backwards. There's reflective foil inside the unit, behind the heating panel, presumably to divert heat from going behind

https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/kent-micathermic-panel-heater-1-5kw-white/p/297051

Senecio

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#2267632 1-Jul-2019 08:32

If the oil column heater is working well and doing what you want then I would look into ways of securing it so it can't be pulled over rather than change the type of heating. Some type of a hook back to a solid wall or piece of fixed furniture or something like that.

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#2267654 1-Jul-2019 09:16

I installed two 425w panel heaters in the bedrooms of two of our kids. I went for the ones with a digital thermostat. They aren’t too bad, but wouldn’t expect them to be as effective as other options. I set the thermostat to about 23 degrees and that usually keeps to room to about 18 degrees through the night. (House built in 2007, single glazed windows, insulated and thermal curtains, located in rural south of Auckland each room is about 14m2).

Our youngest (child 3) has a cheap 500w oil heater in her room as there wasn’t a wall suitable for a panel heater. But her room being only 9m2 is heated better, mainly being a smaller size.

If money was no option, I’d be putting a multi split heat pump solution in all the bedrooms as the rooms do get quite hot in summer and having the ability to cool as well as heat would be nice.

timmmay

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#2267737 1-Jul-2019 12:50

Sounds like some kind of wall heater will do the job better than a low power panel heater. Thanks all :)

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jbrook3708

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#2268502 2-Jul-2019 14:08

We installed Noirot panel heaters in all of our bedrooms a few years ago (1930's bungalow), they're not cheap but they are very effective and cheap to run.

https://www.harveynorman.com.au/noirot-1500w-spot-plus-electric-panel-heater-with-timer.html

Prior to that we had Econo Heaters.. they were average in terms of heating a room with cracks appeared on all of them after a year or two... but they were inexpensive

Disrespective

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#2268546 2-Jul-2019 15:14

Have you looked into IR panel heaters? I like the feel of the heat from them personally but it is different to a column heater as it's not heating the air, rather the items in the room.

https://www.theheatingcompany.co.nz/infrared-ceiling-panels/

The link above is one brand but they're generally all the same.

timmmay

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#2268575 2-Jul-2019 16:24

Interesting option thanks. I think I prefer to heat the air.

gbwelly

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#2268603 2-Jul-2019 17:12

Most important thing I've found is use an accurate thermostat located well away from the heater. I made one before the Heatermate was available. Once the room is warm and you have broken the back of the problem you'd be surprised how little wattage you need to maintain it. If you are planning to heat the room 24/7 you might find a 400 watt panel fine. Might have to start the room using a fan heater though!

timmmay

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#2268669 2-Jul-2019 18:02

The 1000W heater doesn't spend much time on given the area is pre-heated by heat pump, so 400W may be sufficient. If the heat pump fails I guess we can bring on other heaters we have as well. Good point :)

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NightStalker

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#2268784 2-Jul-2019 19:46

timmmay:

Yeah, it says panel heaters not very effective. I think a standard wall mounted convection heater would be a better idea. Just not 100% confident mounting a really hot heater right onto a wall that's painted wallpaper. Some kind of stand-off would be good. Any suggestions there?

I have a Delonghi heater I got from briscoes a while back. It came with wall mounting metal U shaped brackets about a hand-width wide I think. I haven't wall mounted it so cant speak as to how good the brackets are.

It was similar to this one. Looking at them it seems like most of the Delonghi convector heaters have this bracket included.

Also looks like Goldair have some wall mountable ones but not sure how they do it (may not come with brackets)

timmmay

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#2268808 2-Jul-2019 20:03

Mounted off the wall makes sense. The DeLonghi heaters look good, there's a version without a timer that is on sale at Noel Leeming (I think) as well.

M10 links never work - they always go to the home page. Weird website. I found what you linked to though.

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#2268810 2-Jul-2019 20:08

Something to keep in mind, that is starting to bug me, is that if you ever want to use a third party timer or smart switching then the heater needs to be pretty dumb. We have a micathermic panel heater that when turned on still requires the unit itself to be turned on and also has a timer feature that is rubbish as it only actually is a countdown timer that can max out at 18 hours. It's bizarre and annoying.

timmmay

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#2268827 2-Jul-2019 20:46

Yeah good point, that's why I like manual controls rather than the fancy digital ones. I use plug-in digital timers on four different heaters, my ventilation system, plus better quality timers on hot water, heat pumps, and built in timers on dishwasher and clothes drier. Got to make good use of that free hour of power!

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