Scam Alert: Electrical Heaters - Edenpure, Sunheat, Amish Miracle, etc..

It's that time of the year again. Where deceptive and outright scam on electrical heater floods the newspaper and magazines.

Let's set one thing straight..

All electrical resistance heater are 100% efficient. That is, all the electicity used is converted to heat. Your 1500 watts hair dryer is just as efficient as a 1500 watts Edenpure heater.

You can buy good electrical heater from Home Depot, Lowes, or WalMart for under $100.

Thank you for posting this - there is just a few more things to note. To heat an area with electricity is usually about 5 times the cost of heating with pipeline natural gas, about 4 times the cost of heating with oil, and about 3 times the cost of heating with propane. Insulating a room from drafts can also reduce heating costs greatly.

J3T said: everyone knows that amish electrical engineering is superior to everything Home Depot and other box retailers carry.

Good post! Seems like every year, there are discussions about what type of electric heater to buy - oil filled vs. ceramic forced air vs. radiant and so on. Might as well drop a couple tips here now...

Oil filled is best for nice gradual heat, and is very safe since the radiator temperature of the unit is never really hot. Perfect for adding extra warmth to a childs bedroom.

Radiant, which is getting rare, is great for spot heating as you feel the heat radiating from the unit. Great for the garage or the "mud room" - not great around kids.

Forced air ceramic and nichrome heaters are by far the most popular. The appeal of a ceramic element isn't what it used to be, and upgraded safety requirements for nichrome (good old resistance wire) have made them safer than they used to be. These are nicest for safe short term warming of, say a bathroom in the morning or a home office/den that is used only in the evening. Nice general purpose type of heater. Also cheapest to buy - but watch out for the ultra cheapies as you'll be lucky to get a season out of them.

ZenNUTS said: It's that time of the year again. Where deceptive and outright scam on electrical heater floods the newspaper and magazines.

Let's set one thing straight..

All electrical resistance heater are 100% efficient. That is, all the electicity used is converted to heat. Your 1500 watts hair dryer is just as efficient as a 1500 watts Edenpure heater.

You can buy good electrical heater from Home Depot, Lowes, or WalMart for under $100.

Great statement but needs further disclosure.

Using AC "in reverse" for heating (where climate allows) may achieve more than 100% efficiency as AC running in reverse cools down outside air in theory leading to more heat getting inside than you get from the power-grid. That said the difference may be negated or even reversed by the effect of pushing warmed air out of the building via downdraught. Needless to say neither of the above collers use these principles.

jolma said: Thank you for posting this - there is just a few more things to note. To heat an area with electricity is usually about 5 times the cost of heating with pipeline natural gas, about 4 times the cost of heating with oil, and about 3 times the cost of heating with propane. Insulating a room from drafts can also reduce heating costs greatly.

This is true, however, most homes are either equipped with single or two zone heating systems (1 or 2 furnaces)

Even with multi-zone systems, sometimes it pay to have a little space heater (oil filled radiator heater) in the room where heat is needed, while keeping the rest of the house/zone at lower temperature.

We have a 3 bedroom home, and there are just two of us and a cat. There is no need to keep the whole house at 68°F, where we can keep the house at 62°F and the master bedroom at 66°F. We have minimized the air flow to the other two bedrooms, but at night, there is still the whole living room, which is not occupied that would be heated.

berkeleyman said: ZenNUTS said: It's that time of the year again. Where deceptive and outright scam on electrical heater floods the newspaper and magazines.

Let's set one thing straight..

All electrical resistance heater are 100% efficient. That is, all the electicity used is converted to heat. Your 1500 watts hair dryer is just as efficient as a 1500 watts Edenpure heater.

You can buy good electrical heater from Home Depot, Lowes, or WalMart for under $100.

Great statement but needs further disclosure.

Using AC "in reverse" for heating (where climate allows) may achieve more than 100% efficiency as AC running in reverse cools down outside air in theory leading to more heat getting inside than you get from the power-grid. That said the difference may be negated or even reversed by the effect of pushing warmed air out of the building via downdraught. Needless to say neither of the above collers use these principles.

I assume you're talking about heat pumps. It's true that they can be extremely efficient in mild climates, but because they rely on pulling heat out of the outside air, their performance drops tremendously as the outside temperature gets colder, unless you couple your heat pump with a geothermal well.

diplomastore said: J3T said: everyone knows that amish electrical engineering is superior to everything Home Depot and other box retailers carry.


I wonder when the amish will start selling better cars than Detroit???

Well based on recent events and gas mileage perse, I believe they already do.

I keep my place at 60F and use a little parabolic radiant heat dish from costco for spot heating (cat position in ad is parallel to reality). Seems to work great for me....

Some of the lines in the product details are very cheesy though:

"Infinite Switch technology: provides a virtually infinite choice of heat settings, allowing you to select with precision the level of warmth desired" -- i.e. it's an analog dial

"Costs a third less to operate than 1500 watt heaters" -- because it is a 1kW heater

jolma said: Thank you for posting this - there is just a few more things to note. To heat an area with electricity is usually about 5 times the cost of heating with pipeline natural gas, about 4 times the cost of heating with oil, and about 3 times the cost of heating with propane. Insulating a room from drafts can also reduce heating costs greatly.

Can you back this up? 'cuz I live in Kentucky, where electricity is, at most, 7 cents a KWH. Electricity works out cheaper for me.

Ive been using micathermic heaters and they work very well.. I prefer them over the oil filled heaters..

How dare you criticize the Amish fireplace look alike units. The company is only trying to make a reasonable profit. Their shipping costs are what makes their units so expensive. Per the infomercial they have to get their heating units all the way from China and who knows how remote a region the Chinese Amish live in. The shipping out of the American factory must also be very expensive what with the one unit at a time in a horse and buggy method shown in the infomercial.

I cant believe you suckers BUY heat, is there no National Forests around you can help thin to protect against extreme wildfire?(also grab a Real Christmas tree while you are there. You can also make a sweet stove from an old 55 gal steel drum, and some angle iron just look it up.