Econo heaters
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Category: General Chat
Forum Name: General Chat
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URL: https://www.ohbaby.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=42090
Printed Date: 24 August 2025 at 9:42am
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Topic: Econo heaters
Posted By: Bizzy
Subject: Econo heaters
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 1:34pm
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Does anyone have one? Are they any good? Economical? My house is really cold... We have a heat pump but it only really does the lounge/dining room if the door is shut to the rest of the house. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker"> 
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Replies:
Posted By: AnnaShev
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 2:49pm
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We have one in our hallway and its very good. only just put it in a few weeks ago so dont know how economic it is but before we got it i asked my parents about theirs and they said it only added maybe $20 dollars to their power bill. we found ours doesnt make the hallway/bedroom area really hot like a heat pump but it is definately more pleasent temperature. we also found that that end of our house was drier too. ------------- http://daisypath.com" rel="nofollow">   <
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Posted By: KazS
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 3:44pm
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Hmmm we put one in our sons bedroom a few days ago - the smaller one but the room size is within the size they recomend for the heater and i am VERY disapointed with it!
Maybe we have it in the wrong position or something though - who knows! |
Posted By: Jaune
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 3:44pm
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We have put one in each of the bedrooms and while they are good they don't really heat the room, more like take the chill off. We got down to -2 the other night and the bedroom was about 14C in the morning...which is pretty cold but better than it used to be! That room has huge wooden windows too and no wall insulation so it gets pretty cold.
We have them on every night from about 6pm to 7am on a timer and I think it works out to about 10c an hour which over the course of a month is a wee bit, but better than the $200 the oil fin added last year! Really easy to install. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Isabella
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 3:47pm
My very money conscious MIL put one in her bedroom, she said it was just awful, did nada and was actually more expensive than she thought.. Shes ended up buying an oil column 
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Posted By: squoggs
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 4:00pm
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we have the ones from mitre 10/bunnings in the kids rooms...they are actually too hot. I have to put them on a timer and only run them for an hour around bedtime, then a couple in the early morning. But our house is fully insulated, so maybe that's why I find them too efficient? When I say that, they aren't too hot to touch, they just heat the bedrooms up a lot - i checked my babies room the other night - 25.6degrees...eeek! ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: AbzandH
Date Posted: 23 May 2012 at 4:11pm
| Ours takes the chill off but doesn't heat the room at all, we do have a heat transfer kit in the house though and its brilliant. Once the lounge/dining area is heated by the heat pump you can set it to a certain temp and then it'll start suctioning the heat and pumping it through to wherever the vent is in the house. So much better than the panel heater. |
Posted By: LG
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 9:12am
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We have them in our bedrooms as well. We got 2 of the smaller bedroom sized ones which dont do much, the rooms are still freezing so we put an oil column heater in our younger daughters room instead. In our eldest daughters room we put the bigger sized one and that does keep her room warm. We have a really cold, badly insullated house though.
AbzandH, we've looked at the transfer kits, is the air still warm by the time it gets to where its going? -------------  Angel Baby Aug '12, Feb '13 |
Posted By: lisame
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 10:42am
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LG, we have a heat transfer kit too. The piping is all heavily insulated, so yes, you get significantly warm air coming out the other end. We have a wood burner in our lounge, and pipe the warm air from up by the ceiling to the three bedrooms. The smaller two rooms get really quite warm. Our big bedroom isn't warm, but definitely isn't cold. It comes on once the lounge and dining are up to 18 degrees (thermostat on the wall at head height), and by that time the air up by the ceiling is really quite warm.
We have a Dimplex electric heater with a thermostat and timer. Perfect for picking up the slack in the early hours without overheating. doesn't come on unless it needs too. |
Posted By: EmDee
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 12:29pm
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We have an Econoheat panel in the smallest bedroom (about 9m2) and it works well in there - it doesn't heat it but takes the chill out. The walls and ceiling have been insulated, we have thermal lined curtains and I put towels over the gap at the top of the curtains. ------------- DS 8 DD 6 DS 4 DD 2 |
Posted By: JoJames
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 1:51pm
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We have them in the kids bedrooms and if we can keep the doors closed it heats them really well, but ds1 has to have the door open so it is a little bit pointless. But in ds2 bedroom it keeps the room really nice and warm.
------------- http://www.alterna-tickers.com"> 
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Posted By: Nikki
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 9:41pm
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We've just put them into the kids bedrooms (the big ones) and our small lounge, and with the doors shut they heat all three rooms fine. We also have a home ventilation with a heat transfer kit --- so when we have the fire on in the living area we can pump the heat back to the bedrooms, it takes the chill off but doesn't make them really warm (especially later in the early hours when the fire has died) so we find putting their heaters on when we go to bed works well. Haven't had the power bill yet though. ------------- DS (5yrs) and DD (3yrs) |
Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 01 June 2012 at 10:34am
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i talked to the guy at bunnings and he said they are good for small rooms. I dont shut the kids rooms and certainly wouldnt shut them in with a heater going so that rules that out. I am going to see about a heat transfer kit instead i think. thanks for the info though, its such a pain trying to think of the best way to heat the house lol. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 01 June 2012 at 11:54am
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Interesting I was never sure if a heat transfer kit would work for heatpump air, for some reason I always thought they only work with the heap put out by a fireplace. We are looking into getting a heatpump installed so will def consider that. I am also interested to hear how differnt people find econo heaters. We are thinking of getting one for our daughters room which is quite small and we leave the door slightly ajar so it would possibly work. Need to ponder this some more, ideally before winter is over ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way! 
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AbzandH wrote:
Posted By: tictacjunkie
Date Posted: 01 June 2012 at 8:30pm
| Does anyone know if any of the panel things have thermostats on them? |
Posted By: Flossie
Date Posted: 02 June 2012 at 6:07am
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Sem - we have one in our sons room which is a small room, that is fully insulated and the heater is well away from the window and is actually opposite his cot - it works well in heating the room but is really in prime position especially as it is opposite the cot, we only have the door slightly ajar, if you had the door open it wouldnt work. I found that they dont really add much to the power bill - I have never noticed a huge difference just the usual price increase over winter and I have the heater on all night and then for the first morning nap so goes off about 9ish and back on at 5ish. Tictacjunkie - there is no thermostat on them ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: mummymonster
Date Posted: 02 June 2012 at 12:31pm
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We've got 4. Each of 3brms & hallway. They came with the house and we don't use them!
I'm actually planing on removing one this weekend. Our rooms are small and a wall heater limits where you can put furniture. I'd rather have an oil column heater with a thermostat. ------------- http://lilypie.com">  http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: AbzandH
Date Posted: 02 June 2012 at 6:59pm
| Sorry LG have just seen your response, if you have the good quality insulated ducting it definitely keeps the air warm while traveling. Our ceiling space gets really cold but it's never affected the heat of the air by the time it comes out at the end of the hallway. If we didn't have the transfer kit we'd almost need another heat pump down that end of the house, and our place is pretty small! |
Posted By: Nikki
Date Posted: 02 June 2012 at 8:38pm
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IsaacsMum - we have a friend who is a fireman and apparently the oil heaters cause heaps of fires, so if I was you I'd stick with the econo-heaters for safety reasons if it is in a childs room. ------------- DS (5yrs) and DD (3yrs) |
Posted By: denny25
Date Posted: 03 June 2012 at 3:18pm
| Does anyone know how much an average heat pump plus heat transfer kit costs? |
Posted By: SophieD
Date Posted: 03 June 2012 at 7:00pm
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Hi Denny, I have just been getting quotes for a heat pump in our place, so can give you an idea :-)
we are looking at a pretty small unit (between 4kw and 6kw) and the quotes have ranged from $2199 - installed with the EECA subsidy through to $3450 for a 6kw Daikin model. we ended up going with a mitsubishi model, installed for $2528. Heat transfer kits (have been looking at them too!, you can buy kits from places like Mitre 10 for around $400 (3 outlets) and to get a heat transfer kit installed on our SmartVent (like DVS,HRV) its around the same. Hope that helps! Oh and I got given a whole lot of info re running costs for heat pumps and the models we were looking at would cost us approx $1.20 a day to run over an 8 hour period, so adding approx $40 to our monthly power bill :-) ------------- http://lilypie.com">  http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: lisame
Date Posted: 05 June 2012 at 12:40pm
| but don't forget to also factor in a roughly 7 year replacement period. |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 06 June 2012 at 11:30am
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We are looking into under floor and ceiling insulation as well as a heat pump at the moment. I found out that you can get $1300 towards insulation plus $500 towards a heatpump. You can also get a loan from the council for up to 5k. This gets repaid over 9 years with 7% interest. The repayments get put on to your rates so when you come to sell your home the new owner will take over! ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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