Electric heaters
On this page
Most electric heaters give a dollars worth of heat for each dollar of electricity they use as they convert all the electricity to heat. Different types of electric heaters suit different circumstances.
Running costs
To work out how much a heater costs to run for an hour in cents, take the capacity of the heater in kilowatts (1 kW = 1000 Watts) and multiply by 20[1.] .
Types of heaters
Radiant heaters
The familiar bar heater is a radiant heater. These heat objects and people rather than the air in a room, so can be useful in large rooms where you only need the heat in one area. These heaters can be a fire risk and are dangerous to children.
Fan heaters
Fan heaters can be noisy and are slightly less efficient as some of the energy they use runs the fan. They distribute heated air around the room rather than letting it form a layer at ceiling height. They are good for quick warmth, say in the kitchen in the morning.
Convection heaters
A convection heater warms the air rather than surfaces. Most have an element and a fan.
These are a good choice for a medium-sized room. They steadily warm the air by convection and provide background warmth. Their surface temperatures are relatively low, which makes them safer than hot radiant heaters. Note that they can be tipped over by children unless specially designed.
Night store heaters
Night store heaters store heat from cheaper off-peak night power and release it during the day.
They can be economical for houses that are occupied during the day, and where there is a cheaper night rate for electricity.
If your house is empty during the day, these are not a good heating option.
Their efficiency varies between 50 % and 95 % because sometimes they waste energy by producing heat when it is not needed.
Underfloor heating
Electric underfloor heating is similar to an electric blanket that goes on top of your floor but under any floor covering like carpet or thin timber flooring.
Any covering that goes on top of electric underfloor heating makes it harder for the heat to get into the room, and to counter this you need much better insulation underneath the floor to minimise the heat lost down through the floor.
If you use underfloor heating on a concrete slab floor that isn’t fully insulated from the ground below it, you will be spending money to heat a lot of soil and rock underneath your house.
Although underfloor heating can heat large areas nicely, it can be expensive to run, simply due to the size of the heater.
Note:
[1.] The average residential cost of a unit of electricity (one kilowatt hour, also known as 1 kWh) as at January 2008, MED Energy Datafile.