Infrared Heaters

[starbuck]

anyone have an opinion on them? dad got us one because they are suppose to be great but this one doesn't do much at all. It ran all night and the house is still only 45 degrees this morning in the living room. do I just have a bad one or are they way over priced and over-rated?

[red66]

I don't think they are made to be your only heat source. I think they are made to supplement your heat pump, especially on real cold nights where otherwise the Aux Heat would be on all night.

I have one and I keep the Infrared heater thermostat on about 75 and my heat pump thermostat on about 68 and my heat pump doesn't cut on until it gets down to about 25 degrees outside and the Aux Heat rarely ever comes on anymore. My power bill for last month was around $90 where most everybody else I talked to was at least $200.

[imported_elp6n]

Read a consumer reports piece on those, it wasn't all that grand. Most of it focused on the misleading notion that it will heat your whole house with little effort. Even if it could it would cost you a small fortune, an arm, leg, and probably your firstborn child.

You can use it to sucessfully heat one closed off room with no other heat source, but if you have a heat pump you can already do that by closing the vents in rooms you dont use.

We have one that we use in the living room, but only when we're in the living room and awake. Otherwise it's unplugged. I'm a complete pyrophobe, and space heaters make me nervous. At nights I leave the interior doors open in the house so the heat circulates properly from the heat pump (and sometimes wear an extra layer of clothes lol). Circulation makes a huge difference for proper heating if you have a heat pump.