portable heater whilst renovating

typeractive

Hi all!

I'm after some advice on choosing a portable heater to keep me and anyone else a bit warmer in the house whilst renovating it. I have no heating at all. I do have a supply of electric and I want the heater to be portable so I can move it around easy enough.

I don't want to spend a fortune, but I want something that will do the job at the same time.

Any advice greatly appreciated!
Cheers!

Browntoa

i've got one of those calor gas heaters , quick to warm rooms up and cheap to run

sure you can hire them

http://www.lpg-portable-heaters.co.uk/heater-hire.htm

typeractive

Browntoa wrote: »

i've got one of those calor gas heaters , quick to warm rooms up and cheap to run

sure you can hire them

http://www.lpg-portable-heaters.co.uk/heater-hire.htm

Cheers.

I remember growing up with a couple of those in the house, and the 'gas' man having to come along to replace the bottle every so often! Ah the memories!

I was thinking about buying something as I will need it for quite a while and I could always sell it or even keep it for the garage in the future!

Would anything liek this be any good? Or maybe it's too small?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3KW-ELECTRIC-INDUSTRIAL-WORKSHOP-CYLINDER-FAN-HEATER-/230526171608?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item35ac6e39d8

This one uses gas

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/52754/Heating-and-Ventilation/Workshop-Heaters/Propane-Space-Heater-10kW

Cheers!

ukmaggie45

How big are your rooms? Or do you want to try and heat the whole house? (I ask that as we kept the central heating running 24 hours a day :eek: last winter to dry the damp out in our renovation)

I would think a 2K electric fan heater would be OK to keep most rooms warm, I don't think you'd need as big as a 3K unless you live in a manor house or castle! Though you might be able to heat several rooms from it if you ran it in the hallway?

Be aware fan heaters are very good at giving fast heat, but they cost an arm and a leg to run if you leave them on. (My experience in bedsit when I was in my early 20s, I'm now 62 shock horror! :eek: )

We've used calor gas stoves in a caravan before now (thankfully we have proper gas fire and central heating too in current one), but I've never been terribly happy with them. I am paranoid about CO.

Sorry, not a lot of help, just some musings that I hope might help!

typeractive

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

How big are your rooms? Or do you want to try and heat the whole house? (I ask that as we kept the central heating running 24 hours a day :eek: last winter to dry the damp out in our renovation)

I would think a 2K electric fan heater would be OK to keep most rooms warm, I don't think you'd need as big as a 3K unless you live in a manor house or castle! Though you might be able to heat several rooms from it if you ran it in the hallway?

Be aware fan heaters are very good at giving fast heat, but they cost an arm and a leg to run if you leave them on. (My experience in bedsit when I was in my early 20s, I'm now 62 shock horror! :eek: )

We've used calor gas stoves in a caravan before now (thankfully we have proper gas fire and central heating too in current one), but I've never been terribly happy with them. I am paranoid about CO.

Sorry, not a lot of help, just some musings that I hope might help!

Thanks Maggie

I don't have any CH installed yet - well I have the pipework in place, but no rads and no boiler - so that's out.

Rooms are of average size I guess? I would only want to heat one room at a time where w're working really, just to keep us a bit more motivated and make sure our hands don't drop off!

I took a tiny fan blower over today and belive it or not it did actually help a wee bit, but I'd like something a bit more purposeful. I have no idea about the number of watts I need etc.

Your input does help and is appreciated.
Thanks for the reply!

leveller2911

typeractive wrote: »

Cheers.


This one uses gas

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/52754/Heating-and-Ventilation/Workshop-Heaters/Propane-Space-Heater-10kW

Cheers!

Space heaters are good but they do have problems, firstly its a fan assisted naked flame so they need to be placed carefully.They can easily ignite cobwebs and woosh your house goes up.
They also create water vapour/condensation and many people get a dry throat from being near them for any length of time and they eat gas bottles....

The good point is they warm up the room very quickly , nice n toasty...

I'm yet to find anything better for heating spaces but theyre not perfect.........Lastly many insurance companies don't like them

System

B+q sell the calor heaters for about £80

typeractive

leveller2911 wrote: »

Space heaters are good but they do have problems, firstly its a fan assisted naked flame so they need to be placed carefully.They can easily ignite cobwebs and woosh your house goes up.
They also create water vapour/condensation and many people get a dry throat from being near them for any length of time and they eat gas bottles....

The good point is they warm up the room very quickly , nice n toasty...

I'm yet to find anything better for heating spaces but theyre not perfect.........Lastly many insurance companies don't like them

Some VERY good points made there! think I'll be steering clear of them for the moment!! In places where it's quite small they may not be ideal (box bedroom etc).

muskoka

I'm also about to renovate a house that currently has a couple of storage heaters - apprantly on day rate, so very expensive to run, but I was concerned about frozen pipes if I didnt run them....any comments please?

27col

When I was building my house over 30 years ago we had to use a Calor gas portable heater until the CH was up and running. We were only heating one room about 11ft x12ft. It used to cost a fortune for the gas and that was only to heat the one room, never again! I don't know, but I suspect that Calor gas has gone up a bit in the last 35 years. The only other point that I might make is that if I was doing it again the heater would only need to be on a very low setting. I cannot work if the temperature in the room is at normal "sitting in the armchair" level. So, bearing that in mind, perhaps a gas heater might be economical to use.

optimus_primera

leveller2911 wrote: »

Space heaters are good but they do have problems, firstly its a fan assisted naked flame so they need to be placed carefully.They can easily ignite cobwebs and woosh your house goes up.
They also create water vapour/condensation and many people get a dry throat from being near them for any length of time and they eat gas bottles....

The good point is they warm up the room very quickly , nice n toasty...

I'm yet to find anything better for heating spaces but theyre not perfect.........Lastly many insurance companies don't like them

If you can ignite cobwebs with a space heater then you are doing something wrong. If you have flame coming out of the cowling then switch it off and throw it away ......

They can eat gas, but you don't need to have them at full bore all the time,by all means give it full on blast for 10 mins then turn it down to keep ticking over.

All chemical powered heaters throw moisture into the air (gas,paraffin,diesel etc etc) so you do need to take that in mind.

And as has been said, they do give you a dry throat,plus some people suffer from headaches with them. (I do,but as they are the only thing that will heat my workshop at work,then i have to live with it.)