Small heater for Otago student flat bedroom

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#3267832 3-Aug-2024 12:14

Danite: If the goal is biggest bang for buck in that hour and she has space could do oil and a fan heater. Fan would get the room warmed up in that hour and oil heater then back the heat for the longer term.

instead of the fan heater, just buy a normal fan (that might be in handy for summer). both heaters produce the same amount of heat. a big fan going slow is great for moving the warm air around quietly.

neb

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#3267862 3-Aug-2024 17:14

Danite: If the goal is biggest bang for buck in that hour and she has space could do oil and a fan heater. Fan would get the room warmed up in that hour and oil heater then back the heat for the longer term.

The OP mentioned "miserly with power", running two multi-kW heaters at the same time probably won't work with that.

tchart

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#3267877 3-Aug-2024 19:13

I have a 10m2 wooden cabin for an office - in Wellington.

Best mix I’ve found is a convection heater and a dehumidifier. I’ve got a 10l dehumidifier which actually puts out warmish air - it’s runs about 150w an hour. The convection heater input has a thermostat and I just leave it on low. Keeps the office around 16-18C.

Biggest difference is the dehumidifier which massively improves the environment.

Wakrak

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#3267879 3-Aug-2024 19:27

cddt:

All resistance heaters have the same level of efficiency: 100%.

I'm not a fan of fan heaters, I think whatever is directly in front of them quickly gets too hot while the rest of the room remains cold.

I recommend an oil column heater (they have small sizes too), sometimes they have a timer built in but maybe not on the cheaper models.

E.g. https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/goldair-7-fin-oil-column-heater-1-5kw-white/p/399513 1500 W is plenty for a small room.

Not sure what benefit a timer has, surely using the thermostat is more appropriate.

PS check your daughter has discussed heaters in rooms with her flatmates. Some are known to be quite stroppy about power bills and secret room heating...

I grabbed the Nouveau Oil Column Heater 2.4kW today from Mitre 10 Ruakura (Hamilton). A lot of the heaters had a decent discount on em (except for Dimplex column heaters) which isn't mentioned/advertised on the website. Could be the same elsewhere. I got the Nouveau for $89 ($139 online).

tweake

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#3267883 3-Aug-2024 19:43

tchart: I have a 10m2 wooden cabin for an office - in Wellington.

Best mix I’ve found is a convection heater and a dehumidifier. I’ve got a 10l dehumidifier which actually puts out warmish air - it’s runs about 150w an hour. The convection heater input has a thermostat and I just leave it on low. Keeps the office around 16-18C.

Biggest difference is the dehumidifier which massively improves the environment.

+1 many years ago you used to be able to buy combo dehumidifier and heater, nice and compact. one of the flats i was in many decades ago my trick was the have the dehumidifier blow through the oil heater fins. i still have the heater and i gave the dehumidifier away (tho its still in use). not bad for nearly 30 years old. the 1900w heater was plenty for a 80's bedroom until i got the heat pump in.

cddt

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#3267941 4-Aug-2024 09:55

tweake:

tchart: I have a 10m2 wooden cabin for an office - in Wellington.

Best mix I’ve found is a convection heater and a dehumidifier. I’ve got a 10l dehumidifier which actually puts out warmish air - it’s runs about 150w an hour. The convection heater input has a thermostat and I just leave it on low. Keeps the office around 16-18C.

Biggest difference is the dehumidifier which massively improves the environment.

+1 many years ago you used to be able to buy combo dehumidifier and heater, nice and compact. one of the flats i was in many decades ago my trick was the have the dehumidifier blow through the oil heater fins. i still have the heater and i gave the dehumidifier away (tho its still in use). not bad for nearly 30 years old. the 1900w heater was plenty for a 80's bedroom until i got the heat pump in.

We still do this when we use the dehumidifier (have it next to the oil heater fins) - reason being, dehumidifiers work terribly at low temperatures. If it's only 10° in the room, you can run the dehumidifier all day and it won't extract much moisture. May as well not bother with the dehumidifier unless you're also warming the room up at the same time.

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raytaylor

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#3267963 4-Aug-2024 11:28

johno1234:

I like oil heaters but the main need is quick warmup in the morning so sounds like fan forced heating will be better.

I still recommend an oil heater.

I have a 5-fin 1200 watt oil heater in my bedroom.
The bedroom is 3.5 x 5 metres in size. standard height stud with a large full height double window (planned for a sliding door).

It still brings the room up to temperature from cold in about 10 minutes.

Sure its not as fast as a fan heater, it does it silently and still within an acceptable amount of time.

A fan heater, while efficient, will be less useful. It is noisy which makes it hard to study with.

An electric blanket is also very cheap to run - they only use about 60 watts but can mean you dont need to heat the whole room while in bed.

If the flatmates really want to save power, switch to the contact good nights plan - 3 hours of free power in the evening. They can do their washing, drying, dishwashing and a bunch of heating during that time. They can also manually turn on and off the hot water cylinder so their water reheating is done during that time too.

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raytaylor

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#3267968 4-Aug-2024 11:39

gzt:
Ceramic heaters are the most efficient form of fan based heating and come in personal and tower versions. Ceramic heaters have no glowing parts, making them very safe to use.

I would love to see someone actually back that up with data. I think its borderline false advertising. I dont see how its possible to get more watts of heat out from a ceramic heater than a standard resistive fan heater, when supplied with the same number of watts of electricity (or cost)

I cant find any tables or data either when searching on google other than helpful home advice blogs which just make claims that ceramic heaters are more efficient - again without any data.

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tweake

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#3267981 4-Aug-2024 12:08

raytaylor:

gzt:
Ceramic heaters are the most efficient form of fan based heating and come in personal and tower versions. Ceramic heaters have no glowing parts, making them very safe to use.

I would love to see someone actually back that up with data. I think its borderline false advertising. I dont see how its possible to get more watts of heat out from a ceramic heater than a standard resistive fan heater, when supplied with the same number of watts of electricity (or cost)

I cant find any tables or data either when searching on google other than helpful home advice blogs which just make claims that ceramic heaters are more efficient - again without any data.

its all false advertising. its simply more profitable to make false claims and get fined, than to be truthful. there are companies suing scientists because their studies disprove their claims.

RunningMan

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#3268034 4-Aug-2024 13:09

The only argument I see for differences in efficency from the various resistive heaters would be ones that glow are emitting some of that energy as light rather than heat, so the efficency in terms of heat output is slighly less than 100%, but this is really splitting hairs and so close to 100% the difference is negligable.

neb

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#3268035 4-Aug-2024 13:11

raytaylor: An electric blanket is also very cheap to run - they only use about 60 watts but can mean you dont need to heat the whole room while in bed.

It's even less than that, I measured a single electric blanket at 15W on medium setting.

tweake

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#3268040 4-Aug-2024 13:31

raytaylor:

An electric blanket is also very cheap to run - they only use about 60 watts but can mean you dont need to heat the whole room while in bed.

lack of heating a room is often why so many end up moldy.

SpartanVXL

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#3268047 4-Aug-2024 13:55

If theres a fan lying around you can always put it in front of a oil heater to get the same effect. Same with the dehumidifier.

On the insulation side, even just pinning the curtains against the windows or temporarily sealing gaps as best you can helps a lot in keeping a room warm.

blackjack17

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#3268074 4-Aug-2024 14:58

Dehumidifiers work well in heating small rooms.

They remove moisture so the room feels warmer and any energy used is lost as heat.

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cddt

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#3268175 4-Aug-2024 19:14

RunningMan:

The only argument I see for differences in efficency from the various resistive heaters would be ones that glow are emitting some of that energy as light rather than heat, so the efficency in terms of heat output is slighly less than 100%, but this is really splitting hairs and so close to 100% the difference is negligable.

Once the light hits an object in the room it is converted to heat anyway.

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