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Room heaters

India is a vast country and not the whole of India gets enough cold weather in winters to be able to use room heaters but almost all of North India gets enough chilly to use some kind of heating.

Traditionally North India has never used heating in winters with an exception of Kashmir where they have been using coal fires and those small buckets with coal in in and that kind of traditional stuff as those places get sub zero temperatures but as you come down to Punjab, Himachal, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh all they have been using is warm clothing and heavy quilts at night to keep themselves warm.

You wont find central heating in homes in India and the simple reason is that heating is only needed for about 3 months every year and the cost of electricity is just too much for a middle class family to be paying for heating up their homes so people normally resort to portable room heaters to heat up small pockets in their homes to save up on electricity.

I will leave out central heating as its just too costly and not many people would be interested in it here in India so we will just keep it to portable room heaters for now.

There are different types of room heaters and the most commonly used are radiant type and convection room heaters.

Radiant room heater :



This is a picture of a radiant type room heater and is the cheapest room heaters available in the market and could be anywhere from 500 watts to 1500watts or even more. The cheapest ones are available for Rs800-1000 going upwards with different brands and build quality and features. I hae always hated these heaters as they make the rooms very stuffy and burn the oxygen in the room as well and makes me feel dizy if I would stay for more then 15-20 mins in a room heated with these kind of heaters.. There is a way to keep burning of oxygen to a bare minimum and that is keep it to the lowest heat and dont let the element go red so when it comes into contact with air it would only heat the air and not burn the oxygen in it.
All in all its a cheap option but the worst when in comes to the health part.. apart from being unhealth it is also a potential fire hazard due to the exposed element which is red hot and can also lead to electric shock due to the fact that these kind of heaters are poorly built to keep the prices low.

Convection room heaters :



This is an image of a convection room heater which I would say is a little better then the radiation type room heater due to the fact that the constant flow of air around the heating coils inside keep the temperature of those coils a bit lower and doesnt let them burn as much oxygen as they would have burnt in a radiation type room heater and this makes it a better choice them those radiation type room heaters.
The fan in these heaters makes it a lot more better because now the heat distribution becomes a bit more uniform and with time it makes the air inside the room warmer which is not the case with a radiation type which only keeps the area right infront of it warmer and once you are not exposed to the radiation you will be feeling the chill once again.

Oil filled radiator room heater :



These are by far the best type of room heaters in my opinion as they do not make any noise except for a little crackeling noise when you turn them on for about 5 mins and then you wont hear anything atall and there is no exposed heating element or fan or anything. Due to the oil inside the heating is very uniform and it has blades with large surface area which keeps heating the air around it. These heaters normally have an auto cut off so you can control the heating temperature acording to your liking. These heaters come in a lot of varitions like 6 fins ones are the smallest ones I hae seen and are enough for a very small room but you can get one with 17 or even 21 fins for a very large room.
These oil filled radiator room heaters are the safest ones in my opinion as there is no exposed heating element or anything which could cause a fire and these ones dont burn oxygen in the room. One of these room heaters will cost you anywhere from Rs 3500 to 15000 depending upon the size, brand and features.




I myself use oil filled radiator type room heaters for my home and office and find they to be the best options what do you guys use and think about different types of room heaters?

just4kix

Room heaters, and especially radiating and convection type, make the air extremely dry. In winter, the air is dry anyway. This could lead to minor issues such as nose bleeding, chaffed lips, etc. Not to mention the extreme discomfort caused by dry air.

Heaters and dry climate introduce anions or positive ions in the air. This gives rise to discomfort. So I will highly recommend room ionizers or at least humidifiers along with any heating system. Ionizers enhance the environment with healthy negative ions or cations.

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Preeti_20

I quite like the Convection room heaters, although they are not good for health or like J4K said they make the air dry, but I find them affective and make the room cozy quickly!

bubble

We got some new flat panel electric heaters last year. They did a brilliant job, but I almost fainted when I got the winter electricity bill.

With children in the house, we cannot really afford not to put the heaters on, especially on a night time when it does get very cold here.