Has anyone used any of the edenpure heaters or any others similar to it? Just wanting to find out if they are any good and what type of space they will heat, pros and cons.
FWIW, Consumer Reports tested them and an assortment of other make quartz infrared heaters. The very expensive Edenpure did not fare all that well. You can find highly rated Honeywell and Holmes quartz heaters at less than 20% of the cost of an Edenpure. Maybe the woodgrain MDF Edenpure is prettier. ???
As for the claims that it will cut your heating bills, maybe. Maybe if you really turn the furnace thermostat down and live in one room, and then only if your main furnace burns something expensive like fuel oil and your electricity is cheap.
I see mixed user reviews....
http://www.wcpo.com/content/news/localshows/dontwasteyourmoney/story/EdenPure-Other-Space-Heaters-Tested/PdondT-tOkKTOuXc3gCxLw.cspx (http://www.wcpo.com/content/news/localshows/dontwasteyourmoney/story/EdenPure-Other-Space-Heaters-Tested/PdondT-tOkKTOuXc3gCxLw.cspx)
http://www.infomercialratings.com/product/edenpure_heater_reviews (http://www.infomercialratings.com/product/edenpure_heater_reviews)
That's basically what I was thinking, I figured the electric bill would go thru the roof, I was looking at one for a upstairs bedroom, there was another on in the new Mother Earth that seemed a little lower priced, but it is still rather high for an electric heater.
thanks for the links.
To expand on this a little. We have a quartz fan heater, a small 1500 watt unit with a thermostat that I got a few years back at HD, IIRC. We use it to take the chill off the masterbath shower/tub area. They are not radiant heaters, they don't seem to cost much to run in their limited use role.
One of our neighbors, a single guy, kept his house fairly cool last winter. He hardly ever used the gas furnace. He used a wood burner stove and an electric heater in his bedroom which was his main use room. The heat from the wood burner didn't easily make it to that room, the house not being designed for that purpose. Last year about March the subject of our heating costs came up. We keep our house at a comfortable level. The guest room, our son's old room, is kept quite cool, no direct heating, only whatever seeps through from the rest of the house. With the 90% efficient furnace our combined gas and electric bill was less than our neighbor's combined gas and electric, even though we kept most of our space warm and warm for more hours of the day than the neighbor. Part of that could be blamed on the fact that even though our neighbor did not use the gas furnace much or at all, he still had to pay the meter/connection fee to the gas company. But I believe mostly due to the higher cost per heating unit for the electric vs the natural gas. He thought he was saving money, but he was not.
electric resistance heating is about the most inefficient heat that can be chosen for a home. While the ease of installation and low space usage are a benefit to the average do it yourself person they will use a lot more of your dollars over the life of the unit than say a warm air gas fired furnace. Also looking at their specifications I believe it would require quite a few of them to heat even a 900 sq. ft cabin when the temperatures drop below 32 degrees. Based on the house I am building (1.5 story 20x30) I would need between 4 and 5 units to heat to 70 degrees on a 32 degree day. That is a constant amp draw of between 50.4 and 63 amps constantly being drawn. That is a lot of power to be used to heat a home. I think it would only take one to two years of using them to heat the house to cost at least as much as putting in a gas/propane heating system, and after that it is just costing you.
Isn't it funny that because the Electric Baseboard heaters meet the government mandated good ol' boy system requirement that everything be tested for outrageous amounts of money and regulated, approved, stamped and taxed, that their inefficiency doesn't matter and they can be approved for a permanent heater rather han a wood stove.
Then again some people won't take care of themselves enough to get wood in for the winter. Hopelessly sucked in by the take care of me system.
Note that most wood supplies can be maintained just by taking care of dead and down on a couple acres of land. Of course city folks are SOL as they may be soon when or if the cities collapse.
We had the electric baseboard heaters in all the rooms in Washington state... don't know why all the homes had those installed - our electric bills were at least $200/mo (25 yrs ago) even with keeping the house really cool. We had a fireplace, but that actually took all the heat out of the livingroom, it seemed... couldn't afford a fireplace insert at the time, but actually it would have been much more cost effective if we'd saved & put one in...
The walls & windows in the bedrooms would get mildew on them - I'd have to use bleach to kill the stuff... I really disliked the baseboard heaters >:(