Space heater vs Ceramic Heater

[imot]

Pretty close to it. You'd lose some heat from light escaping, but it should be minimal.

also coil heaters are technically really similar to light bulbs so the idea is definitely viable.

 

[ShawnD1]

That said, I'd then base my decision on which unit is safest to operate. Does it have a tip-over switch? Does it have exposed elements that are hot enough to set a piece of paper on fire (or accumulated dust)?

The safest electric heat I know of is called a "baseboard heater."

I have one in my room. It has a thermostat so it switches on and off as needed. It also has tip over protection. The heating elements themselves do not get hot because it's a fairly large heating element and it zig zags across the entire length of the device, and it's about 3 feet wide. I can put my hand on top of it while it's running and hold it there for several seconds before it gets uncomfortable. It has no active cooling like fans or pumps, so there's nothing that will fail and cause the house to burn down. It's also very silent. It makes a bit of a humming noise similar to a light bulb.
The down side is that this type of heater is designed to heat the room. It's not directional. I can't put a chair in front of it and bask in its heaty goodness, which is something a cheap $15 fan heater does well. My baseboard heater was something like $80, so it's easily the most expensive type. My awesome Costco parabolic radiant heater was more like $60. Regular ass 1500W ceramic heaters are only $15.

I also have an infrared parabolic heater in my living room.

That thing is awesome. It's all about focused heating. Great for warming up 1 person. Be careful not to buy a shitty one though. A good radiant heater runs COOL. It should not produce visible light. Anything that uses vacuum or halogen tubes to contain the tungsten is a pile of shit because that means it's too hot and will generate a bunch of light. My radiant heater has exposed elements, it glows red hot, but it doesn't really make any light. My parents have one that uses an 800W halogen light which sucks because it's hot enough to emit a ridiculous amount of visible light. Why would anyone want that? That's like having a spot light blast your eyes. Retarded.

 

[qliveur]

Another vote for oil-filled radiator.

 

[Jeff7]

wait... a hair dryer is as efficient as a space heater?
those things are dirt cheap at walmart

Yup.
Pass electricity through resistance, and you get heat.
Heat generated = Current² * Resistance
Watts = Amps² * Ohms

A hair dryer of course is intended to put out a high-speed stream of air, with a lot of noise along with it. It's also likely that they're not built for continuous-use applications.

 

[ShawnD1]

Yup.
Pass electricity through resistance, and you get heat.
Heat generated = Current² * Resistance
Watts = Amps² * Ohms

Pretty much everything is >99% efficient at generating heat. My computer is making heat, the monitor makes heat. Server rooms have huge hvac systems to deal with all the heat. It's nice because it means any electrical device can be used to heat a room. It also means the only difference between different heaters is their other features like thermostat controls, fan speeds, timers, etc.

A toaster oven would make a good room heater. It's small, it's fairly high energy, it's built to run continuously with temperatures exceeding 450F, and it requires no active cooling. Start it with a 5 minute timer and the room will get nice and toasty :awe:

 

[Red Squirrel]

Put a sterling engine in your heater to produce more electricity to produce more heat then add another sterling engine and keep going.

Unlimited heat.

 

[ShawnD1]

CO poisoning?

Actually, you could run the exhaust from a car through a heat exchange in the house. Its like a gas furnace :-D

 

[DrPizza]

wait... a hair dryer is as efficient as a space heater?
those things are dirt cheap at walmart

Yep. I've used a blow dryer and a heat gun to heat a room in my basement when it got reallllllllly cold outside and I had a water line freeze.

 

[lxskllr]

CO poisoning?

Actually, you could run the exhaust from a car through a heat exchange in the house. Its like a gas furnace :-D

aka VW heat :^D

 

[IcePickFreak]

Put a sterling engine in your heater to produce more electricity to produce more heat then add another sterling engine and keep going.

Unlimited heat.

The world has been saved! :awe:

 

[Gooberlx2]

Ceramic heaters are some of the newest convection heaters on the market. These heaters have ceramic plates and aluminum baffles. When electricity passes through the ceramic, it is heated. The heat is then absorbed by the aluminum and a fan blows the hot air into your room.

Ceramic heaters are easily portable and give off a great deal of heat from a small box. These heaters tend to be more energy efficient and safer than many heaters, so even though they heat up quickly, their plastic casings stay cool. A great use for this type of fan would be in a small office or tabletop.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/09/earlyshow/contributors/dannylipford/main672592.shtml

It's more about safety and, to a lesser degree, efficiency vs heat output.

 

[Jeff7]

Pretty much everything is >99% efficient at generating heat. My computer is making heat, the monitor makes heat. Server rooms have huge hvac systems to deal with all the heat. It's nice because it means any electrical device can be used to heat a room. It also means the only difference between different heaters is their other features like thermostat controls, fan speeds, timers, etc.

A toaster oven would make a good room heater. It's small, it's fairly high energy, it's built to run continuously with temperatures exceeding 450F, and it requires no active cooling. Start it with a 5 minute timer and the room will get nice and toasty :awe:

The only downside then is if you've got an available heat source that's cheaper per-watt/hr than electricity.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/09/earlyshow/contributors/dannylipford/main672592.shtml

It's more about safety and, to a lesser degree, efficiency vs heat output.

Safety, and the concentration and delivery of the heat.
Efficiency, again, is going to be as near to 100% as you can get.
1500W in, and you're going to get damn close to 1500W out. (Where else would the energy go, anyway? Minute rearrangements of a few atoms in the crystal structure of the metal in the wires?)

Concentration: Tiny, fast fan vs a large slow one.

Delivery: Radiation, natural convection, or forced convection.

 

[lxskllr]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/09/earlyshow/contributors/dannylipford/main672592.shtml

It's more about safety and, to a lesser degree, efficiency vs heat output.

How does that work? It sounds like magic.

 

[Jeff7]

How does that work? It sounds like magic.

Maybe it also replicates bacon - and cooks it.

 

[brandonb]

I have an infrared heater. Unlike most heaters which are sort of like a toaster, infrared generate infrared rays which heat the room like the sun vs burning the air... That means you don't lose any humidity in the air, which is common in winter because most heating systems are burning the air and result in dry skin, etc.

(Thats what it said on the box, can't say if it was the truth or not)

 

[ShawnD1]

I have an infrared heater. Unlike most heaters which are sort of like a toaster, infrared generate infrared rays which heat the room like the sun vs burning the air... That means you don't lose any humidity in the air, which is common in winter because most heating systems are burning the air and result in dry skin, etc.

Actually, burning the air would make it MORE humid. Hot air can hold more water than cold air.

 

[imot]

What do you think about the EdenPURE? Do you believe in its air purification feature? That heater is a way more expensive than the other ones and I don't get why since it is just a 1,500 Watts infrared heater with some air filter attached.
They call it air purification tho they say in both EdenPURE review on the Electric Heaters Review site that they don't believe in effectiveness of the air filter in it and recommend buying a cheaper space heater, but don't mention why and any other details about it just only that it removes some bacteria from the air.

 

[slpaulson]

Actually, burning the air would make it MORE humid. Hot air can hold more water than cold air.

Hot air can hold more water, but when you heat cold air the relative humidity, the ratio of water in the air over the amount of water the air can hold, goes down.

Relative humidity is what affects dry skin. That's why the inside of your house is very dry in winter. You're heating up cold air. The amount of water in the air stays the same, but the amount of water the air can hold goes up, which makes any water evaporate more readily into the air.

 

[Triumph]

Safety, and the concentration and delivery of the heat.
Efficiency, again, is going to be as near to 100% as you can get.
1500W in, and you're going to get damn close to 1500W out. (Where else would the energy go, anyway? Minute rearrangements of a few atoms in the crystal structure of the metal in the wires?)

Concentration: Tiny, fast fan vs a large slow one.

Delivery: Radiation, natural convection, or forced convection.

Efficient? Yes. Near 100%? Impossible. Carnot efficiency rules, the ultimate efficiency of anything that does work is dependent upon the temperature of the heat source, and the heat sink. In this case, a 450 degree toaster and a 70 degree room, for example. Converting to Kelvins first, the equation is

Efficiency = 1 - (21/232) = .909 or 91% efficiency.

Purely academic, but true.

 

[Jeff7]

I have an infrared heater. Unlike most heaters which are sort of like a toaster, infrared generate infrared rays which heat the room like the sun vs burning the air... That means you don't lose any humidity in the air, which is common in winter because most heating systems are burning the air and result in dry skin, etc.

(Thats what it said on the box, can't say if it was the truth or not)

Or maybe it doesn't feel as dry. Where would the moisture go? The only thing that would change is the relative humidity, as the air in the room gets warmer.
Maybe that's what they were getting at.


Infrared = radiant heat = primarily used to heat objects directly, versus heating the air and then heating objects via convection.

Mental simulation says...
The radiant heater will heat you up before heating up the air in the room, so you're more likely to turn off the heater sooner, so the air in the room won't get as warm, so the relative humidity won't get quite as low. Since you're more likely to turn off the heater sooner, you're introducing less energy into the room, thus resulting in a lesser increase in temperature, and therefore a lesser drop in relative humidity.

But if you had a 1500W radiant heater and a 1500W convective heater and put either one into an insulated environment (a "system"), either one would be putting 1500W into the system, so the air temperature would change in the same manner, and the relative humidity would therefore also experience the same decrease.

So your skin dries out, you buy more lotion, fapfapfap, life goes on.

Efficient? Yes. Near 100%? Impossible. Carnot efficiency rules, the ultimate efficiency of anything that does work is dependent upon the temperature of the heat source, and the heat sink. In this case, a 450 degree toaster and a 70 degree room, for example. Converting to Kelvins first, the equation is

Efficiency = 1 - (21/232) = .909 or 91% efficiency.

Purely academic, but true.

Where does the extra energy go then?
V = IR and P = I²R

If I've got a 3-ohm resistor, and I apply 6V across it, I'd darn well better get 2A of current flow.
And if I've got 2A of current, I²R = 2² * 3, that should be 12W of heat generated there. My thinking then is that maybe some of that energy is going into increasing the temperature of the conductor? Is that then where that extra x.x% is going? Though even then, from a thermodynamic systems standpoint, it's still energy introduced into the system.

 

[Triumph]

i fail at thermodynamics, i haven't used it in 10 years. carnot efficiency is for a heat engine that converts heat into work, or work into heat. a working fluid is required. i should open my books once in a while.