When Not to Use a Space Heater

Space heaters are easy. Space heaters are (relatively) cheap. Good space heaters, like this Bionaire model, can warm up a room quickly and keep it warm very efficiently, used in conjunction with your central heating system.

But sometimes they’re a bad idea.

The simplicity and ubiquity of space heaters has given rise to misuse. Some people use them to “save money” in ways that wind up costing more. Some people just use them too much. This micathermic space heater is lightweight and highly efficient, easy to move to any room and fill it with heat. And with 1500W of power, we mean any room this side of Wayne Manor.

Good space heaters like this are very good at that job. They suck at other jobs. Like heating your entire house. Unless you live in a studio apartment, space heaters are a lousy replacement for central heating.

If you’re generally moving around the house all day, with nobody spending too much time in one room, space heaters don’t make much sense either. Either it’ll be sitting there warming an empty room some of the time, or you’ll have to move it around with you, which will not only be annoying but it’ll have to work extra hard to start from cold every time it heats a new room.

Speaking of which, space heaters aren’t really made to run at full blast all day long. If you find yourself needing to do that to stay warm, you’re probably not only taxing the heater, but using a shit-ton of electricity - again, costing more than you would with a space heater.

So how should you use a space heater?

Somebody did the math. Use a space heater if you’re going to be in one room for a while, like at your desk to work, or on the couch for family movie night, or sleeping in your bedroom. Turn the house thermostat down. Crank the space heater until the room is warm, then set the space heater’s thermostat to hold the comfortable temperature steady.

There are too many variables to say for certain how much money you could save like this. The author of the piece linked above figures $3 a day, or a few hundred through the course of a typical winter. We can neither confirm nor deny that calculation.

Obviously, we’d love to sell you this space heater. And we think it’s a really good one at a frankly fantastic price. But the truth is, for any use that strays too far from the one-room-for-a-while approach, you’re probably better off not bothering with a space heater. Not even this one.