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At the moment I'm heaitng the bedroom with a little main electricity fan blower.
30 bucks to buy 300 bucks a year to run. Occhhhhh.

No gas fitter will install a gas heater in a bedroom. Too dangerous.

My proposal is a wind generator directly coupled to one of those oil filled coloumn heaters.

Skip the batteries and inverters. Too expensive. The wind doesn't blow and the heater doesn't heat. No problem here as the only time the wind doens't blow is the summer.

The problem is that these comoumn heaters run off the mains at 240 volts while most domestic wind generators run at 12 volts.

Can anybody point me at a soloution.??

I think you might have your work cut out trying to make a 240v heating element do much with only 12v trying to push through it - I think the resistance will simply be too great.

Is it possible to get the element out and replace it with something that might work - a 12v travel kettle type thing that works from a car's electrics, f'rinstance?

Muddypause wrote:I think you might have your work cut out trying to make a 240v heating element do much with only 12v trying to push through it - I think the resistance will simply be too great.

Is it possible to get the element out and replace it with something that might work - a 12v travel kettle type thing that works from a car's electrics, f'rinstance?

Quite possibly is muddy . Nice and cheap too.

I could use a hand though.

Do these oil filled heaters actually use a 240 volt element to heatthe oil in them.

And is there any problem using a heating element, which was designed to heat water, to heat something like oil.???????

Dont but ye boiler rushing mate. Winters six months off here.

Today was 35degC and its still about 30.

I would have thought they used a 240v element - can't really see the point of losing efficiency by stepping down the voltage. But I've not got first hand experience of them.

I guess whether the element would be suitable for heating oil depends upon what type of oil it is. Maybe if it has a low boiling point or something, it might not work. You can get electric deep fat fryers, so the elements must work in oil, but of course thay are intended to make it boil, which is not really what you are after. You may make any thermostat work hard to keep the temperature down.

My solution to an expensive electric heater in bedroom: Woolly jumper and socks in bed, feather duvet, and hot water bottle... Hardly ever use the heater at all - I think once or twice last year, when I was sick.

Ina