New infra- red heater... Anybody use one?

[Rosaleen]

We just received an infra-red heater as a gift. We set it up in the middle of three connecting rooms and turned the thermostat down to 65 degrees. The unit heats up to 1000 square feet. There's no hot heating elements and the electrical usage is supposed to be equivalent to running a clock. I cannot believe how warm it is in here. We plan to use it for zone heating and keep the heating oil bill down. Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with these types of heaters?

 

[CarolJ]

I don't know anything about infra-red heaters, but after reading your post, I'm going to look into them. It sounds like a good way to provide some supplemental heat.

 

[dewey]

I don't know how reliable it is, but there's a calculator on this site to figure electricity costs based on applicance and your local kwh cost: http://www.solarcomfortheating.com/calculatecost.html

Generally speaking, I think they cost around the same to run as a window AC unit. In my warmish climate, that'd be around $120-$150-ish per month.

There's a formula to do calcs based on your local kwh cost. Your kwh cost should be listed on your bill.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

My uncle just got one after the heating units in his apartment broke. That thing works very, very well. He hardly has to turn it on at all to heat up the entire apartment! He ran it for about an hour the night I slept over there and it kept the apartment warm for quite a while after. I had to get up (I was sleeping on the couch in the room next to the heater) and turn it off in the middle of the night.

 

[lockedhearts]

My in-laws got us one and they use one, unless it is extremely cold out that is all we use and we have over 1500sf. I have definitely noticed a big difference in power usage, or lack of....