In place of a Lamborghini, I now only have a small 55-gallon aquarium in my garage here on Beveragely Hills that I got off Facebook market for $40. My cat loves coming out and watches the fishes every night, while I’m fixing up my Ferrari. I truly believe that this cat is planning aggressively to eat all the neon tetras whenever an opportunity arises.
Now the tropical tank has its own heater but it sometimes struggled to keep up with the ambient temperature, since the garage didn’t have any air vent from the HVAC nor any attic insulation. So it was always freezing cold in the winter evening, as we sat here and watched each others like the most dedicated members of the Nightwatch. It’s pretty relaxing and torturing.
Yet I was afraid that the consistent sub 30°F would eventually kill all my aloe plants. Hence as the Tom Kirkman of my own garage, I decided last morning that this had to stop. And a few trips to local home improvement stores later, I got myself 7 rafter vents, a bottle of foam sealant and 30 big bags of greenfiber cellulose to insulate the 20’x 20′ garage’s attic area.
Here they are, next to my AMG convertible for scale. The Ferrari was parked outside because the SLA battery is completely dead.
Half an hour to position the ladder securely and 14-ft off the ground later…
It’s surprisingly quiet and serene up here. For a moment, I thought I should have had my aquarium in the attic instead.
Another 90 minutes passed, rafter vents were now in place, insulation depth rulers were up and ready to go. I also had to air-seal every single electrical box and hole with the Great Stuff Foam, otherwise all these insulation works would have been in vain.
You need to look up your climate zone to figure out an optimal R-value for the attic insulation. It is usually recommended to be anywhere between R38 and above. However since my garage is fairly small, I went all the way to R60 just because reasons. Well do it right and only have to do it once, right?
Total cost after everything is only about $350. Perhaps even if there is a dismissive return somewhere, it wasn’t a lot.
Keep in mind that adding a thick layer of insulation is only to help retain the current temperature of the area underneath it longer, not stopping it from gradually going back to sub-freezing degree in the winter or burning up like an oven in the summer . This change can happen even faster if there are air drafts in the room. And for that reason alone, we still need an air conditioning unit.
Content |
*This table of content also appears again on the right sidebar on your desktop screen to accompany you along the article, whenever it feels more lucky. |
Buying a Heater
Now it’s time to look at some 110v electric heaters to keep this place warm when we needed. In your case it might a different room, but the garage is the most difficult area to keep comfortable in the winter –hence I use my own as the testing place.
There are also 240v heaters out there, such as the well known Fahrenheat/NewAir G73 model. Unfortunately that is a review for another day, since not everyone has a 240v outlet readily available on the wall. But if you do, you know exactly which one to look for now.
If you are a super careful person, you might be interested in Ventfree Propane Heater which we reviewed here. It’s often two to ten times more powerful than electric heaters and also usually cheaper to operate.
On the other hand, there are hundreds of different types of 110v heaters in the market and it varies from a little $30 portable one to a fancy $600 fireplace that can also cook and fold clothes for you. I only need a simple machine that can bring my garage temperature to above 68°F and accurately calculate the quantum physics energy of a Tessaract as it travels two times the speed of light inside the Black Hole, so nothing really crazy. Also my budget is $20.
With that in mind, a couple of our editors set out to scout Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon, Walmart, Costco and other retailers for one year to look for the best heaters and put together an important list that we can work on. Unfortunately, we accidentally lost that list to the wind when we opened the window at the McDonald drive-through.
The good news is that list is empty because they couldn’t find any good heaters for $20 anyway…
So that incident asides, one significant factor you need to know about these 110v heaters is that they always max out around 5,100 BTU or 1500W –until the future changes otherwise. And the difference is they use different kinds of heating elements as the heat source, thus they warm up the room or an object in their own particular way.
I eventually ended up with a little more than 10 heaters for the experiment –but a handful of them crapped out faster than a Black Friday sale TV leaving the store, while couple others just didn’t do the job well enough –hint: ’em oil filled heaters.
Hence what you see in the photo here are the 4 final contenders and I think they are the great buys for $100 or less.
These space heaters are perfect for a small and enclosed room. In open-space areas, they should only be used as a supplementary heat source. Also in a highly drafty area like the garage, you might need a combination of different kind of heaters to quickly raise the temperature to a comfortable level due to air leakages.
Nonetheless, by the end of this article you’ll understand all the differences between Radiant, Quartz, Ceramic, Coil, Infrared, Oil-filled Heaters. You may wonder why there are only four heaters reviewed –What about the gazillion heaters out there and all the tech jargon they are associated with? No worries.
Essentially, it all comes down to two main categories: convection and radiant. There might be additional bell and whistle on top such as realistic burning flame effect, pretty fireplace design and sexy lingerie. But once you know them, it isn’t too difficult to pick out the best heater that fits your needs.
So let’s go over each one of these products and learn more about them now.
If you are a Costco members, you should have seen this heates everytime you walked by the entrance guy whose absolute duty is making sure you have your membership card and a well funded wallet to pay for all the shopping.
Now the Presto Heat Dish is a type of radiant heaters, as opposed to convection heaters.
It has a coiled wire element wraps around and heats up a ceramic cone, then a parabolic plate behind the heating element absorbs the heat from the cone and reflects this energy straight forward without relying on air movement. This works in a very similar fashion to a radiant infrared heater where infrared radiation passively and directly warms an object, small area or the person it’s pointing at.
If you are within the perimeter of the Heat Dish‘s projection, your upper body will really sweat even in 25°F weather.
The amount of heat this device generates is surprisingly impressive and it consumes the least amount of energy among other heaters, which is only 1,000W as advertised on the box. However upon further testing, our meter reports it only draws an average of 900W from the outlet (thanks Vegeta).
Now unlike convection heaters, radiant heaters like the this heater does not warm the air nor it depends on it. Though, that is a two-headed knife.
Since it does not rely on air to move heat, it delivers the supreme heat almost instantly at your demand. But once you step out of the heating path of a radiant heater, you will feel the chill again because the surrounding air has not been warmed and is a lot colder.
PROS
- Instant and direct heat. Not affected by ambient air temperature.
- Very hot even in the blistering cold.
- Does not consume a lot of energy (900W-1000W) to generate this tremendous amount of heat.
- Multiple heat settings: Low, Medium and High.
- Good cable management design.
- Has a spring-loaded tip over protection base at the bottom & loud alarm on the back. This black base also highlights my beautiful freshly painted gel nail, because when your young daughter asks for a nail paint & tea party, you join the nail paint & tea party. Apparently, TIL gel polish should last more than 2 weeks.
CONS
- Very concentrated heat area.
- Does not warm the whole room.
- Low coil-whine noise, might not be noticeable but it’s there if you are an elf.
- Must sit on flat surface, not wall-mountable.
- No remote control.
SUMMARY
Energy-saving, free-standing radiant ceramic heater, limited heating space but instant, extremely hot heatwave projects within its path, does not warm up room.
- The parabolic reflector focuses energy like a satellite dish.
- Warmth you can feel directly.
- Heats you rather than the air.
- Keeps you toasty warm even in a large, chilly room or open area.
First impression? This is a very good looking infrared heater enclosed in a nice and slightly heavy 27″ wood cabinet.
Infrared heaters could fall in either one of the two categories we mentioned above: convection or radiant.
In this case, the Infrared Tower Heater here is a convection heater where a fan is used to dissipated heat as well as circulating air around the room. Sometimes people also call it a quartz heater due to the fact that a thin coil of iron-chromium-aluminum alloy is contained inside a quartz tube and is used as the heating element.
So a couple frequently asked questions here are –are they dangerous? Yes, infrared heater can burn your house down if you keep pointing it at that stack of toilet papers. Is it gonna give you cancer? No, only cancer gives you cancer and the radiation energy here is basically a form of short wave invisible light that contains a large amount of heat. Just like ghosts, but ghosts are like infrared “cold” air conditioner instead.
Metaphysics aside, infrared heater could be considered the most healthy heating method that actually gives benefit to your body. Our skin can absorb infrared heat wavelength naturally and that helps detoxifying as well as giving the immune system a small boost. So clean air, energy efficient, magic pill for health and keeping you warm, what not to love? I also use them to purify my karma level when it starts to raise too high again.
Similar to the Presto Heat Dish above, this infrared heater also gets hot very quickly even it only has 3 quartz tube (heating elements) inside. As the quartz tubes absorb more energy, they also heat up the surrounding copper plates in order to transfer heat in the right direction as well as keeping the exterior of the unit cool to touch. Speaking of which, I would be very selective on where I touch the Presto Heat Dish when it’s hot.
Now the specification differences between this heater and the Presto Heat Dish are the fan, the oscillating vent, smart digital thermostat and a remote control.
The Presto Heat Dish raises the temperature in a focused area very quickly but it cannot warm the whole room, this infrared tower heater does the exact opposite.
It evenly distributes warm air throughout the room thanks to the functioning oscillation vent –but it takes time. If you walk into a cold room/garage, it may need more than an hour to bring the temperature up.
In fact, it might be a perfect heater for a bedroom or small living room because you can define the shut-off temperature as needed to keep the area warm consistently. You can also set a timer to let it run for a desired period of time, or simply send it commands from across the room via a remote control.
We also find that fan isn’t very loud, more like a subtle white noise. Most of the time we weren’t aware of it, only the bright orange from the quartz tubes gives away that the heater is actually working normal.
PROS
- Heating elements gets hot very quickly under a minute. However, that greatly depends on the ambient air temperature.
- Oscillating vent.
- Fan moves decent volume of air.
- Digital thermostat with temperature control.
- Thermistor is positioned at the right location: in the back, at the bottom. If it’s installed at the wrong place, it may capture the heat from the heater itself and returns inaccurate reading of the room temperature.
- Has timer.
- Has remote control.
- Child safety lock to prevent kid messing around with it and committing arson.
- Multiple heat settings: 1500W, 1000W and ECO.
- Overheating protection and tip over protection.
- Supports fan only mode.
- Fan continues to run a while longer when the unit is turned off to fully dissipate the remaining heat.
- Washable filter. Not a lot convection heater comes with this feature.
- 3-prong electrical plug.
CONS
- Though it gets instantly hot, the output air stream is effectively a few degrees cooler due to the cold air input is drawn in from the back of the heater. Meaning it’s not burning hot as Presto Heat Dish at the beginning, unless you get really close to the heater or the room has gotten a lot warmer.
- A little bulky and heavy. Won’t make your guns grow any bigger though.
- Maximum 1500W of power draw, efficient but it does consume more energy for the same amount of heat the Presto Heat Dish outputs. Yet this feels like comparing apple to orange –though they are both fruits (heaters) but one is sweeter (focused heat) and one is more sour (broad-range heat), and one is cheaper than the other (power consumption for different purpose).
SUMMARY
Smart Infrared Quartz Heater, convection style, board-range heat distribution, warms surrounding air over time.
- STAY COMFY ANYWHERE: Don't heat your entire home, just the areas you're using at the time
- POWERFUL TOWER HEATER: LifeSmart LifePro 5,100 BTU, 1,500 watt infrared quartz tower space...
- LOW COST, HIGH OUTPUT: Infrared technology effectively uses less energy to produce even...
- SAFETY FIRST: Auto shut off over heat and tip-over safety features
Step-up and Similar Products
- 6 quartz infrared heating elements
- 3 heat settings: 1,000w / 1,500w / and ECO-maintains a constant 68º
- Overheat safety switch
- Tip-over safety switch
- Electric Infrared 8 element
- Three heat settings: high, low, Eco
- Commercial grade easy Glide wheels
- ☀【INSTANT HEAT & Energy Saving】- No need to preheat. Turn on this space heater for...
- ☀【LED DISPLAY & REMOTE CONTROL】– This space heater for indoor use was equipped...
- ☀【INTELLIGENT PROGRAMMABLE THERMOSTAT】 – Our indoor use space heater carries the...
- ☀【CONVENIENT TIMMER SETTING】– Our portable space heater for indoor use carries a...
- Touch Screen Setting & Thermostat Retention: Our electric room heaters carry the...
- Multi-places & Smart Modes: The indoor space heater carries 3 heat modes; The high heat of...
- Stay On Your Couch & Have The Job Done: The indoor space heater is equipped with a LED...
- Tip-over Shut-off & Overheat Protection: The electric heater comes with a variety of...
You should be able to tell what kind of heater this is and how it functions easily.
This overhead radiant heater has dual extra-long quartz tubes as the heating element and they generate heat by emitting short wave radiation energy that comes from infrared invisible light. In term of whether it’s convection or radiant, since it has no fan hence this is a radiant heater where an object, small area or a person is heated directly and passively without relying on air movement for energy distribution.
It’s very easy to mount this heater on the ceiling as long as it’s securely attached to the beam. The heater is about 12-ft above my workbench but it gives off a huge amount of heat that even my brain can tell. I hope I don’t go bald due to this.
On another note, there isn’t much option to control this overhead heater. You simply pull a string to cycle through four different mode –OFF, lamp only, low heat 750W (one quartz tube on) or high heat 1500W (both quartz tubes on). There is no built-in thermostat or remote control.
Since the Presto Heat Dish cannot be mounted, this overhead quartz heater is the perfect alternative option for your garage. It does not stay in the way or gets blocked by tools and cabinets when it’s up top. It also does not rely on air movement so there is no pocket of hot air hovering by the ceiling while the floor is ice cold.
Another benefit of this overhead heater is more often than not, there might be already an electrical outlet on the ceiling for the garage door opener that runs on a separate 15-amp breaker, hence you should be able to run two heaters in the garage without overload one circuit breaker –one radiant to quickly warm where you are and one convection heater to heat up the ambient temperature.
PROS
- Instant and direct heat. Not affected by ambient air temperature.
- Very hot but not as hot as the Presto Heat Dish, but certainly few degrees warmer than the Infrared Tower Heater.
- Comes with a halogen light.
- Three heat settings: Low, Medium and High.
- Easy mount.
- Adjustable tilting bracket.
- Rotatable if mounted with one center screw, or fixed with set of of side screws.
- 3-prong electrical plug.
- Overheat protection.
CONS
- Once this overhead radiant heater is turned on, it’ll run all the times until you switch it off.
- Draws more energy than the Presto Heat Dish.
- Limited heating range just like the Presto Heat Dish and other radiant heaters.
- Once it’s on the light is also on in all modes. I have to physically remove the bulb to keep it off.
- Older model has plastic arms and housing and they could melt under certain circumstance hence the lower rating on Amazon. Newer model is enclosed in a steel cabinet.
- No remote control. If you have a high ceiling, the pull string might be too short.
SUMMARY
Powerful ceiling-mountable radiant infrared heater, limited heating space but very hot heatwave is instantly projected within its range, does not warm up room.
- Quick and instant heating (feel the heat within seconds, like the sun)
- Energy efficient heat, nearly all of energy converted into heat. Low operating costs,...
- Weather proof, it is approved for both indoor and outdoor use. Heat is produced not...
- Adjustable thermostat levels, for optimum indoor and outdoor comfort
While the infrared tower heater above is an extremely practical heater, it has a very minimalist design that may not look appealing to many folks. Hence I wanted to explore other options. And one that comes up most often are these kinds of electric infrared stove heaters.
Of the three heaters reviewed above, this one requires the most time for assembling.
Four legs and 12 screws later.
The flame effect in general is very pretty. It gives out a realistic glow that certainly looks attractive and soothing. However, it gets bored very quickly due to the repetitive pattern. It would have been a lot better if the flame dance more randomly. I guess you would love this as a background effect –a treat to the peripheral vision instead of staring at it directly for 3 hours like my other cat.
There are also 3 heating elements (quartz tube) to radiate heatwave. The tubes are a little shorter than those ones found in the infrared tower heater above hence the hot air output temperature is a wee bit lower, especially when the room is cold. However, that won’t be a difference once the ambient temperature starts to rise.
Keep in mind that the quartz tube’s temperature is absolutely much higher than what my Thermal Detector is capable of measuring. For instance, this is what I would see every time the laser guide accurately hit the heating elements of any of these heaters, or my wife when she’s angry.
PROS
- Nice looking convection infrared quartz heater.
- Pretty flame effect. Dimmable.
- Four operating modes: Fan only, 1000W, 1500W, Flame only.
- Has fan to circulate air and dissipate heat efficiently in the room.
- Has thermostat to set cut-off temperature.
- Heating elements gets hot very quickly under a minute. However, that greatly depends on the ambient air temperature.
- Fan moves decent volume of air.
- Metal frame, but cool to touch.
- Much lighter weight than the Infrared Tower Heater.
CONS
SUMMARY
Infrared Quartz Heater, convection style, stove design, board-range heat distribution, warms surrounding air over time with pretty burning flame and glowing log effect.
Step-up & Similar Products
- 5,200 BTU heater provides supplemental zone heating for up to 1,000 square feet to help...
- Patent pending 3D flame effect technology features realistic flames that dance on and...
- The infrared quartz heat helps to maintain the natural humidity in the air, resulting in...
- Overheat protection, heater will instantly shut off to prevent overheating. Volts : 120....
- 4,600 BTU heater provides supplemental zone heating for up to 400 square feet
- Metal construction with operational door with upgraded door handle
- Realistic flame effect with glowing log and ember bed can be operated with or without...
- Safe for kids and pets - stays cool to the touch. Maximum Heat Power- 1.35 kW
- Dimension: 26.75 W x 12.5 D x 30.5 H
- Unit Color: Black (Brown Wooden Mantel)
- Heating Area (Sq. Ft.):400
- Watts: 1400W
Heaters that didn’t make it?
Traditional ceramic heater is in many way similar to a convection infrared heater; with the exception of the Presto Heat Dish above which is a hybrid ceramic + infrared radiant heater.
It’s easy to recognize a ceramic heater every time it’s first turned on, because you’ll notice a burned smell coming out from the metal fins and there is no glowing orange coil wire. Ceramic heater can generate huge amount of heat just like infrared heater, even at a much smaller footprint.
The downside is, the heat dissipation happens very quickly depending on room temperature. Hence most of the time ceramic heaters are advertised for office, under-the-desk or personal use. Another potential deal breaker is they consume energy at all time high and hot air that comes out from the heater is sometimes a bit too dry for comfort.
The convection ceramic heater I bought at the local home improvement store died on me a couple days in due to a faulty wiring. I may revisit ceramic heater again when I have a chance to order these better rating units off Amazon. For now, the Presto Heat Dish will temporarily represent ceramic heater just fine.
- ☀【Stay Warm & Comfortable】: Do not worried about the cold weather during winter...
- ☀【Easy Control With Adjustable Modes】: The electric heater has three heat settings...
- ☀【Overheat Protection】: The indoor heater comes with an overheat protection circuit...
- ☀【Oscillation Function & Convenient Handle】: The portable bathroom heaters for...
- This ceramic tower heater fan will heat up instantly
- Occupy ground space of this ceramic tower heater is only A4 paper size
- PERSONAL HEATER UNDER THE DESK
- AUTOMATIC THERMOSTAT
Now of the 10 heaters that I purchased, the old school oil-filled radiators could be the worst type of heater in comparison to these infrared heaters and also the most disappointment.
- 【SUPER COMFORTABLE IN WINTER WITH LOWER COST】 This portable space heater is designed...
- 【AUTO SHUT OFF FOR YOUR SAFETY】 With a built-in overheating protection, the oil heater...
- 【WARM UP YOUR ROOM IN A WINK】 1500W high-level power enables you to warm up a large...
- 【REMOTE CONTROL FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE】 An oil filled radiant heater with multiple smart...
It radiates heatwave yet this type of conventional heat transfer is weak. It greatly relies on air movement to deliver energy but it has no fan!
When you put the Presto Heat Dish and an Oil-filled Heater in a fight facing off each other, the Heat Dish probably could heat up the radiator faster than the radiator could do that itself. This heater also struggles so hard from the start to finish just to bring the room temperature up by a few degrees. It’s also hot to touch, which makes it dangerous for children and pet. I have a feeling that I would trip on it and burn myself in the darkest nights.
Power consumption upon start-up is tremendous but that reduces gradually once the inside oil got heated up. In all honesty, I just can’t find myself placing this type of heater anywhere in my house and it’s a risk of investment for potential disaster returns, I’m losing money here. And for that reason.. I’m out.
I hope this article has helped you understand these electric heaters better. If you already decided which one to buy, please share a comment so that future readers could also take this bit of advice into their buying consideration. Meanwhile, care for another great article?
Vent-free Liquid Propane Heater for Garage – Cheaper to use than Electric heater? Is it safe? Can I be dieded? --...clean blue flame burns 99.9% efficient and generates little CO2 residual so it’s an ineffective way to commit suicide...
Battery-powered Snow Blowers Comparison from Greenworks, Snow Joe and EGO Power+
--...people couldn’t dig their way our to go to work and the maintenance team consisted of 2 old guys, couldn’t get their gas snowblowers to start even if their 401k entirely depends on it...
Affordable Robotic Vacuums Comparison : Eufy RoboVac 11S vs. Ecovacs Deebot N79S.
...hence I ordered two entry-level yet features-packed robotic vaccuum cleaners, hoping they could fight each other like what I saw them Battlebots do on Youtube...
I found a couple of oil spots under my heater. When I checked I found it was leaking from the heater. Should I get rid of the heater or is it easy to repair?
Nice nails.