PRINT THIS WINDOW
CLOSE THIS WINDOW

Over the last two winters, whenever we have had a member with a question pertaining to what they feel to be excessive kilowatt hour usage, invariably there is a portable electric heater involved. “At least 75 percent of the high bill complaints that we receive in the heating season involves a portable electric heater,” said Steve Shoot, Manager of Member Services for FEC. “The advertising on these products is so misleading, but people still buy these heaters.”

Shoot said misleading advertising claims and misinformed salespeople promote the portable heating units as “miracle heaters” that will save you up to 50 percent on your heating bill. Over the last couple of years a wide variety of claims, ranging from “exclusive design” to“ Amish farmer discovers heating secrets” to manufacturer claims of cutting heating costs with “space-age technology.”

Here are the facts pertaining to these false advertising claims. There are three types of electrical portable heaters. They are the high-temperature radiant heaters, fan-forced heaters and the natural convection heaters.

Each of the three designs uses the same process of electric resistance heating. Because all of the electric heaters use this same process they all have the same efficiency - 100 percent.

You may think that 100 percent efficiency is great, but when you take a closer look at the numbers you can save a lot of money by investing your money in appliances that heat much more efficiently than these portable units. Most air source heat pumps operate well above the 300 per cent efficiency mark over 80 per-cent of the time they are in operation. The absolute lowest a heat pump will ever run is 100 per cent efficient. Remember, when dealing with electric resistance heating a Watt is a Watt, no matter how it is delivered.

Whatever the heater’s size, shape or marketing claim, the amount of heat coming out is the same as the amount of electricity going in. Therefore, any heater with a rating of 1,500 watts on the nameplate will deliver the same amount of heat, no matter what they look like. What is different is the method used to transfer the warm from the heating elements to the area the unit is located in.

Two years ago we received a telephone call from a member pertaining to what he felt was a bill that was too high as a result of the six “high efficiency” portable heaters he had purchased. One of the employees in our member services department showed the member just how much those units cost to operate. Under this year’s rate the costs to operate the units are as follows:

One of this member’s portable heaters had been placed in a crawl space where there was no other heat to support the unit and it probably operated close to 24 hours a day for an extended period of time. Just remember...all three types of portable heaters are rated at 1,500 watts, so they all deliver exactly the same amount of heat energy. The only difference is how the heat is conveyed to the user.

PRINT THIS WINDOW
CLOSE THIS WINDOW