The Best Electric Heater

Buying Guide

When temperatures dip for the winter months, your power bill typically goes up. The bigger the house, the more exponential that rise tends to be. Luckily, most of us aren’t obligated to spend time in every room of the house, and that makes the solution an easy one: An electric space heater.

Electric heaters aren’t just great at warming up a small space more quickly than central air. They also keep that warmth in the room that you need it most, meaning you can save money by easing off your thermostat for the rest of the house.

Mind you, all rooms aren’t the same, and neither are all heaters. Choosing the right one has a lot to do with the environment it will be used in.

Let’s say you’re spending most of your time at a distance from your heater, or moving around the room. That’s the ideal situation for a convection heater, the most common kind of unit. These heaters use electricity to warm up coils or wires of conductive material, and that heat is blown out into the room by an internal fan. These fans are great for creating a uniform temperature throughout the room, and that warmth will typically last longer without a lot of excess power use. Some convection heaters might also have an oscillating fan that spreads the heat out even more evenly and quickly.

If you’re the only one in the room and you plan on being stationary, you might consider a radiant heater. The heating element here is usually an infrared bulb that simply radiates warmth in a narrow area in front of the unit. Place it close by and you can expect to be cozy in short order. Since there’s no fan, this type of heater tends to be quieter, which can be another perk for home office use.

If you’ve got a large room to heat, you may want to consider a ceramic heater. This type of product can be a little more pricey, but decent models will last a long time. They emit heat by way of ceramic plates, which can retain that heat for long periods of time at consistent levels.

You can usually measure the power output by wattage. As a general rule, you can take the wattage of a heater and divide it by ten. That’s the square footage it can be expected to heat efficiently. (For example, a 1,500-watt heater can handle a 150 square foot space.) Again, this is a general guide, and performance can vary widely by model and type.

Safe operation is key with an electric heater. No matter what type of heater you use, never place it where it might come in contact with curtains or paper. If you have small children, take additional precautions by placing it on a shelf or countertop. There are models that have additional safety features like mesh guards to keep out little hands, or sensors that turn the unit off when it tips over — all definitely worth investing in if you can’t be there to monitor the heater.