Running an Oil filled heater

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Originally Posted by L.West

The spyder robotics thermostat says it handles up to 1500 watts. I believe my heater is 1500 watts. Is that too close for comfort??

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No you are good all oil filled heaters are 1500 watts and all the thermostats used with oil filled heater are handling up to 1500 watts.

Great. I will order the spider robotics thermostat. Do you think they are expensive to run

Not trusting a thermostat on a space heater? Really? Can our wall thermostats be trusted. I will agree oil filled radiators are the best and no doubt the safest. They use oil as a cooling medium for the coils. A lot of them are rated for 1500 watts max which is 12.5 amp draw back to your circuit breaker. If you know how to hardwire a thermostat rated for a 15 amp resistive load for another 50 bucks go for it. If you hardwire a thermostat make double darn sure your connections are tight. A high joint that causes a fire, wired up to an ETL certified space heater by a non licensed electrician may be hard to explain to an insurance company. I'm not sure a certified electrician would be to keen on hardwiring a thermostat to an ETL certified space heater.

Funny you should mention that. Spyder Robotics makes a product to integrate a space heater into your current HVAC wall thermostat

http://www.spyderrobotics.com/index....jc5jumv7cli7f3

Then again fishing wire from another room back to your thermostat would not be my idea of fun.

I rent so hard wiring not an option. I will use a separate thermostat for the heater

I use an oil-filled heater and a ranco t-stat.

I got my t-stat from here. I purchased the pre-wired model with the heavy duty cable and have been very happy with it.

My heater does have a built-in heat setting, but I turn it all the way up and have the unit hooked to the ranco. The ranco has an accuracy setting that you can change, I have mine set to 1 degree and it does a great job. I'm running it in an ~10' x 14' room with an outside wall and it does not have to run all the time to keep the room at 75f. I'm not sure how much it costs to run each month, but I'm sure it is no more than I'm paying to run all my racks and heat mats, etc.


As for safety, I just make sure the heater is about 3-4' away from anything and have had no issues.

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Originally Posted by SDA

You would look at around $100-150 a month in addition to normal electric cost. This of course depends on the per kWh rate of your electric company so it might be less or it might be more. If you want to check my math, just google cost to run a 1500 watt space heater. Wattage is the cost, not design. All electric space heaters, of which oil filled is one, heat generally the same and will cost the same to draw power to heat a space.

Now as far as the thermostat controlling the wattage, it should be fine so long as that is the only thing plugged into the wall outlet. Meaning that thermostat with your space heater is not also running on a power strip plugged into other devices.

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I think this cost estimate is seriously overestimated. Yes, it would cost that if the heater ran at 1500 watts no-stop, but it won't. OP states that the room can be kept in the low 70s. This is equivalent to ambient temps I experience here in South Florida in the winter time. I use an oil filled heater (600 watt) attached to a proportional tstat set to 80 degrees. My entire electric bill in the winter is about $80, most of which I'm sure is not the heater. Of course, room size will impact that, mine is about 1050 cubic feet. Also, many oiled filled heaters have two settings, mine has 600/900 and you can choose one or both for a full 1500 watts. I've found 600 works for me. If you have a model that works in that fashion, I'd say start low and see how it goes.

I've been using these heaters for many years without problem. I don't think they're any more of a fire hazard than letting your refrigerator run all day.

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Originally Posted by DennisM

I think this cost estimate is seriously overestimated. Yes, it would cost that if the heater ran at 1500 watts no-stop, but it won't. OP states that the room can be kept in the low 70s. This is equivalent to ambient temps I experience here in South Florida in the winter time. I use an oil filled heater (600 watt) attached to a proportional tstat set to 80 degrees. My entire electric bill in the winter is about $80, most of which I'm sure is not the heater. Of course, room size will impact that, mine is about 1050 cubic feet. Also, many oiled filled heaters have two settings, mine has 600/900 and you can choose one or both for a full 1500 watts. I've found 600 works for me. If you have a model that works in that fashion, I'd say start low and see how it goes.

I've been using these heaters for many years without problem. I don't think they're any more of a fire hazard than letting your refrigerator run all day.

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I was not aware that South Florida got as cold as Deerfield Michigan in the winter.

I could be wrong but I don't think it gets below freezing in South Florida. L.West will find out after running it for a few months what the cost is but $100 is not overestimating Michigan winters at all especially if they don't have the best insulated home ;)

Yeah, time will tell. I keep my house at 72 so the heater only has to compensate a couple degrees.

Does the heater have to be digital or can it have disls??
Mine has two dials. One for power out put and one for temp.

How do I set my dials.

Personally if you keep your house at 72 I would not even bother with a heater. It would be a waste of electricity to heat a room just a few degrees above what you keep it. Really You would only need that space heater if you didn't heat to that temp.