Yes, Yes I know. This isn’t in any way related to refrigeration. That being said when winter begins to approach the refrigeration industry starts to die down, which I’m sure you are all aware. When it stops getting hot we stop getting calls. I was contemplating on ways to market refrigeranthq.com for the winter months and it occurred to me to do a few posts about heating technology and heating units. I mean why not? Most of us are in the HEATING and air conditioning markets and business doesn’t stop when it’s ten degrees outside. I will admit that my knowledge on heating technology needs some fine tuning and I have plans to dig into research on the varying products and offerings.
I would like to take some time and go over the somewhat new infrared space heaters. I only really noticed these rising on popularity about five to ten years ago. I was visiting my parents house over a winter and noticed their living room was significantly warmer than the rest of the house. I was curious so I asked what they were doing since I didn’t hear the furnace. My father, all proud of his new purchase, wheels out the infrared heater from behind the couch. (It was tucked into the corner of the living room, you wouldn’t even recognize it as a heater due to the wood exterior finish.)
Anyways, he started telling me about it and said that he keeps the furnace thermostat at sixty degrees now and just uses this heater as his main source of warmth. He boasted that it heated his living room, kitchen, and the heat even drifted upwards and heated his master bedroom that was above the living room. It definitely got the job done. The only drawback that I could see was that the exterior rooms of the house were quite a bit colder than the main living room. (The bathroom was a good ten degrees lower than the main living area.)
Right about this same time my wife and I had just purchased our first house in a small town neighborhood. We purchased it in September and as the months went on we noticed that our master bedroom’s heating capacity was near zero. The house was a California split and the master bedroom sat above the garage. So, you can imagine all of the cold air snaking it’s way into the garage and then drifting up to our master bedroom.
There was a night in November where it was so cold we ended up sleeping in the living room. At this point I started looking into the infrared heaters that my father had purchased. I browsed around online and found all kinds of different sites to purchase from. I’ve always been one to shop on the big box sites as there is less chance of something going wrong. (And if something does go wrong they will fix it for you.) Well I found what I was looking for on Amazon. This heater was almost an exact match to what my parents had running in their house. (LifeSmart LifePro LS-1001HH 1500 Sq Ft Infrared Quartz Electric Portable Heater )
I purchased it and had it in hand in a few days. It came pre-assembled and was ready to be plugged in right out of the box. I hooked it up against the far side of our master bedroom right next to the exterior windows. (I was hoping to negate any wind coming through the windows with this heater.) I turned her on and set the temperate I wanted and then walked away. (This was late afternoon.)
I checked on it a few hours later and I noticed a HUGE difference right when I entered the room. No longer was the master bedroom the coldest and draftiest room in the house. It had become the warmest room in the house after just a couple hours. I was amazed at the difference. My wife and I slept perfectly that night and I even had to take off my sweatshirt because I got TOO hot.
I fell in love with the unit after that night but I was a little scared to see the power bill after having the unit run constantly. (We left it on all day while we were at work and all night.) At the end of the month I received the power bill and all together it was only another fifteen to twenty dollars more per month. Not bad, not bad at all. I held onto that unit for a good six years and had it running constantly during the winter months. It was a life saver, but after six years it died on me.
After the first unit stopped working I knew I had to buy another, so I went shopping again and again settled on the same unit from Amazon. (LifeSmart LifePro LS-1001HH 1500 Sq Ft Infrared Quartz Electric Portable Heater ) I figured why not? It did it’s job for six years and it worked great. On top of buying the heater for our master bedroom I went ahead and bought another for our living room. Our main living room has vaulted ceilings so during the winter all the heat gets trapped on the top leaving the ground floor colder than the rest of the house. I plugged the second heater in the far corner of the exterior wall and turned her on. Same results as the master bedroom. It kept the living room at a perfect temperature and now I didn’t have to waste the gas money using our gas fireplace. The fireplace worked well enough but it was just so darn expensive to use. With this new heater I’m only paying fifteen a month to have the house heated perfectly.
I had mentioned that the previous unit lasted me six years. Know how much maintenance I did on it over the years? I cleaned out the filter on the back of the unit twice a year. That’s it. I literally did nothing else to it and it kept trucking along for six years. I spent one-hundred dollars on the unit and it lasted me six years, pretty good trade off I’d say.
Oh, and did I mention that these are kid friendly? I have a three year old and a one year old and they both did fine with the heater last year. The only part that gets somewhat hot are the metal grates that the heat comes through, but even then it’s not hot enough to burn. (I put my arm on it for a good minute and nothing.) My three year old would occasionally poke the holes in the metal grates as well with her finger. I’d get after her about it but the unit did not burn her.
I’m looking forward to this fall and winter. I’ll pull my two units out of the basement storage, dust them off, clean the filters, and fire them up.
If you haven’t purchased one of these before I would highly recommend that you do.