Stupid question of the day

[PurpleDragon]

I am looking at oil filled rads from eBay.

There are some listed a 2kw and some listed as 2500kw. Do they mean 2.5 do you think?

Is that a lot of energy to heat them up, or are they efficient means of heating?

Help!

[Muddypause]

I would think they must mean 2.5kW (ie. 2,500 W). After all, 2,500kW would need a small powerstation to run it.

If you have something rated at 2kW, then that is a measure of how much energy it consumes, but in terms of a heater, it will also tell you the rate at which heat will come out of it. So, an oil-filled radiator, an electric (radiant) bar stove, a fan heater, a convection heater, each rated at 2kW will each output identical amounts of heat, they just deliver it in different ways. Obviously, a heater rated at 2.5kW will give out 25% more heat, but will also use 25% more electricity.

TBH, I don't know anything about oil filled rads, so I'm not really sure what the advantages could be, over, say, a normal convection heater. Some types of heater are better suited to certain situations - for example a fan heater is probably better at heating the air in a large space, a radiant heater is better for heating things up rather than the air. An oil rad. would be a form of convection heater, and should be fairly good at heating up the air in a confined space like a modest room. It's an air heater, not a thing heater, so you may not get particularly warm by sitting in front of it, like you would a radiant heater, but over a period of time, the ambience of the room should slowly warm up. Idealy it should be placed where the air can freely circulate around it.

In absolute terms, something that consumes 2kW will use up two units of electricity per hour (a 'unit' is one kilowatt hour - 1 kWh); your electricity bill will tell you precisely how much each unit costs. Roughly, electricity in the UK currently costs around 10 pence per unit, so if you were to use a 2kW unit for just 1 hour a day, then a quarterly bill would increase by around £20. Remember that many heaters have some sort of thermostatic control in them, so they are not necessarily using electricity all the time that they are 'on', but however you do it, electricity is an expensive way of heating a home - it's better as an occasional supplimentary to your main form of heating.

As with any form of heating, insulation and draught-proofing count for at least as much as the source of heat.

[PurpleDragon]

The reason I want them - we have oil fired central heating, and come about 2am, the house is baltic, the kids wake up cold, and then can't get back to sleep.

If I put the oil fired rad in the room, then hopefully the heat will sowly release into the room overnight, so if they *do* wake up, they aren't too cold to go back to sleep. Obviously, ideally, they wouldn't wake up cold in the first place.

[Shirley]

J wakes up cold too... mainly because he kicks off his covers... I'm thinking of making a sleeping bag type thing for him to try and avoid that... and also cut out some draughts too....

We've got an oil filled radiator that I have had for a few years... we rarely use it because it's so expensive to run, but our bedroom is above the garage and I don't think that the floor is insulated.

We need to look into the cheapest method of insulating the floor... either from below or above... above would mean taking everything out of the room and lifting the carpet etc... I was hoping that we could do it from below and directly onto the ceiling but David reckons that wouldn't work.

[PurpleDragon]

Well, I'm getting fed up of my man sleeping on a chair downstairs and waking up with three kids wrapped round me.
I love my kids, but they will fidget!

[Shirley]

Yeah... I guess that would be a bit of a crowd all in one bed... you could get out and pinch one of their beds instead lol.

[PurpleDragon]

No, coz their beds are all cold by then!
I have been known to get out and go to another bed in the past, though.

[Magpie]

We have used these, as long as they have a good thermostst on them, I think they are ok to use. Better than being cold, and somehow they seem safer to me in a child's room, with no exposed elements or anything. We had a little 5-fin one, which kept the chill off a small bedroom.

[baldowrie]

oil filled rads take a lot to get them warm but once warm they are very efficient, so in cold weather better to turn them down rather than off.They don't heat rooms like convector heater as they heat the oil inside the rad, like an immersion heater.

Shirlz you may be able to inject insulation into the floor between the joists, dependant on what it's made of. No point in insulating from below in the garage as it's not the garage you want to insulate but the room above from the garage.

[PurpleDragon]

I put in a bid for two on eBay and won them, so I shall wander along tomorrow or the next day, and collect them.

Typically, the child who set this whole 'warm the bedrooms' ball rolling is quite sick with a fever today She'll probably be all better by the time I get her room warmed up.

[2steps]

we have a couple of these as the central heating in this house is pants. find them really useful for extra heat or when I am at home on my own when OH at work and children are at school it saves me putting on the whole heating system when nones using any other room

[PurpleDragon]

Our central heating is okay, as long as it is on, then the house cools down really quickly.

We have an electric 3-bar fire in the living room but apart from that, the only other heating we have has to be dragged from room to room with us, because we have a 2-year-old bent on self-destruction.

[baldowrie]

I am currently in the process of splitting my big bedroom into two which means only one room will have the central heating rad, and it's a cold room any way. I have a 2kw oil filled rad in the barn, hung onto it after I moved just in case . Get that from my mother, might come in handy one day! So the other half will have the oil filled rad in set on low to medium and then the whole room should be warm. The room the other side will be warmer so that rad can be turned down, saving on the central heating oil via the Rayburn

We all suffer from the same problem so we can not be cold, detrimental to our health

[baldowrie]

purple dragon if your house is not that old as you say I would suggest that cavity wall insulation will help retain the heat when the heating goes off..there are grants available via your energy supplier for this and you will probably find that you will cope the costs within a year or 2

[PurpleDragon]

Do you mean internally or the external walls? I know the inside walls aren't insulated. The loft is heavily insulated, and I am fairly sure the exterior walls are as well, but I would have to check. Thanks for thinking of that