Do any of these buggery Eco Heaters work??

[DoYouWannaBuildASnowmanInMyHouse]

OK so not strictly an AIBU but I'm cold, miserable and irritable so shamelessly posting here for traffic.

I was seduced by these adverts about tiny little eco heaters, claiming to heat hectors of space in about 3 seconds for a penny a week...

Bought an EcoHeat one. It did bugger all!

Anyone have any success with any of these devices or are they a load of bollocks?

Load of bollocks and dangerous bollocks too sometimes they set on fire which while warming is not what you want to happen

Anything that transfers heat is going to need a fuck load of energy from somewhere and energy costs money so I recon it's just crap.

So as I thought then. Load of crap.

Very disappointed.

Anyone have any recommendations for cost effective heaters?

There's no magic, its a unit of electrical energy in for x heat out.

Except if you heat the person not the space eg infra red heater, heated blankets or bodywarmers.

My dd has a small oil filled radiator. Cheaper than her storage heater. She's also just bought a heated airer. The 2 make her living room cosy & the little dehumidifier I bought her works well.

A traditional water bottle is great. Classic for a reason

I see the ads for these and I just know mum will want one.
seems a con.

are you trying to heat a big room? Oil radiators are awful. If it's a big cold room, you need a good powerful heater or extra radiators

you've got me on a bad day as I was at mum's and it was bloody freezing but it makes me grateful for my small new build flat!

Oil filled radiators defo, I've got three on in the house today with snow on the ground 🥶 as central heating ancient and can't use, sat here with the 2kw one on which to be fair i inherited, and toasty! Sons have smaller two in their bedrooms, soon warm up if you keep the door closed 👍

We have one of those wheelable heaters that has a gas bottle. That chucks out loads of heat. Too much sometimes. We only use it when it's very very cold.

Yes trying to heat a conservatory with poor insulation. It's connected to the kitchen but is where we all eat and it's just bloody freezing as there's one small radiator to heat the entire space. Just trying to figure out how to keep warm in there without costing a fortune

You won't be able to if it's mainly glass windows.
Do they have curtains over them? Or magnetic thermal window covers? Fabric screen to go Infront of them?

The warm room air will just rise in the convection current hit the cold window and condense losing its heat. So you need to find a way of covering the windows to stop that from happening. You might have a little luck in experimenting with where you place the heater but not sure it's going to work.

Modern triple glazing is magic. My brother-in-law has it on his new build house and it's warm to the touch inside when it has frost on the outside.

Is there not a energy efficiency grant scheme that would help to pay for the cost of an upgrade?

This is actually really helpful advice regarding the windows. I hadn't properly considered these options but will look into it

If the room is very large and if you were particularly artsy, I think I'd attempt to make some sort of screen around the dining table to make a mini room to keep the heat in, a bit like how they used curtains on a four poster bed. It might be cheaper than trying to cover all the windows the windows.

You could make the frame out of wood or even plastic plumbing pipe and get some nice thick fabric or ringed curtains cheap off the Next sale and attach to the frame. If you are clever enough to add a roof and fairy lights it could double as Santa's Grotto 😁

There's loads of bollocks about the eco-ness of electric heaters, fair enough most electric claims to be renewable sourced, but a heater claiming to have '100% efficiency' is just being a normal bog standard electric heater. Same as any ancient plug-in. Energy in = energy out (heat pumps notwithstanding as they're up to 500% efficient).

When you compare the cost of 1KW of electric vs 1KW of main gas however, even if a boiler is 80% efficient, the gas will always be cheaper.

Oh jesus, we abandon our conservatory in the winter as it's hopeless to heat one. Just eat in the lounge on laps and wipe off the conservatory mould in the spring!