Winter is here and in some parts of the country temperatures have dropped to freezing or even below freezing point. Without adequate heating inside your home it could be uncomfortable to move around the house and do stuff. You probably would just want to stay in one spot where you can comfortably warm yourself up under a nice cozy blanket.
If you look around the stores there are actually several portable heaters that you can get to heat up your home. They come in different shapes and sizes and they are normally selling below $100 or even below $50. The problem with these portable heaters though is the fact that they could be a fire hazard because they suck in too much electricity which can really pose a problem especially if your house wiring is not updated or you still have old non-standardized electrical setup in your home. These portable heaters though small in size can consume as much as 1500 watts per heater. Imagine fifteen 100-watt bulbs all lit up at the same time. Take three heaters and run them at the same time and bam!...your fuse will blow up or your circuit breaker will trip off especially if you are using other appliances at the same time. You could be lucky if you have a circuit breaker in your house. What if you don't and you live in a house wherein the wires used are old and not meant for high-powered appliances? That's where the risk of fire comes in because the amount of electricity pulled out from the source is too much more than what the wires can handle, thus, causing the wiring to overheat and who knows what's going to happen next? Imagine small pipes with a strong surge of water pressure going through it. It can't withstand the pressure, thus, the pipes burst open. Do you get my point?
Don't take the risk especially if you don't have a circuit breaker in your home. Fires triggered by faults in electrical wiring can easily spread throughout the house in seconds.
In our case, we don't use our central heating unit because it's too much to heat up the entire house. Instead, we opted to use several portable heaters for the different rooms. When we had two 1500-watt heaters everything was fine but as soon as we added one more heater of the same power rating the circuit immediately shut off. Power overload--that's what it was. So now I was left with a dilemma as to how I can keep my room warm enough for me to sleep comfortably at night.
After searching the internet I found another form of heating that uses low electric consumption and doesn't dry up the air unlike typical heaters. What I found was Econo-Heat panel heaters. It's basically just a panel made from a heat conductive material that you can mount on your wall and it uses less than 500 watts. I experimented with it and I'm actually happy with the result. I replaced one of my portable heaters with two panel heaters that I installed in two separate rooms. What this heater does is, it dissipates a low but constant heat while it's ON. And that heat really keeps the room at a comfortable temperature. Besides the heat that is emitted from it does not really suck up the moisture of the air because the amount of heat dissipated is at a constant low. You have the option of plugging it through a timer so it automatically turns ON and OFF at certain times of the day or you can also plug it through an automatic temperature sensor so it does the same thing once a desired temperature is set. This panel heater can be easily mounted on the wall but make sure that you put it in a strategic location away from windows or openings with cold draft coming in. It is best to put it on the part of the room which is properly insulated so the heat can bounce off across the room. It is best if you make sure that your room is properly sealed from small openings where cold air can come in. Insulate. Insulate. Insulate your room properly. If you have a bigger room you will most likely need more than one wall panel heater. Keep in mind also that when you install these panel heaters, you don't put them too high because heat rises.
These panel heaters are a little more expensive than the portable ones that you see around the stores but they could be more cost-effective in the long run. And perhaps they maybe the only solution you can get if your household electrical circuit cannot handle too much electrical load.
I also needed another portable heater for my computer room because it can really get so cold at times so I shopped around for a low-power heater. Luckily, I found one at Sharper Image and it only takes 150 watts of power. It's good for its size but you have to keep it really close to you because you cannot expect it to heat up the entire room. They refer to it as the big small heater because it really is able to dissipate enough heat for its small size enough to keep you warm.
There are other heaters in the market and they claim to be safe, economical, efficient and effective but they are way too expensive at more than $400 for a unit.
For now I'm happy and warm with my choice of heating our home during this really cold season. I hope you are warm and happy too.