Energy Efficient Halogen Heaters

in_over_my_head_2

Hi, maybe this is the wrong forum but...

My mother has a gas meter that's given her nothing but grief since it was installed, she regularly puts £10 and £20 on it which lasts from 3 to 5 days and is basically costing her (and me - she's on benefits) a fortune.

Anyway, she wants a halogen heater or some kind of electric heater for the winter so that when there's no gas credit she can at least have a warm room in the house.

So does anyone have any advice about the best electric energy efficient heater for her?

CLAPTON

virtually all electric heater are equally 'efficient'.

so select one on things like safety ... is it going somewhere where it might get knocked over (in that case an 'oil filled' one is probably the safest)

or do you want one with a fan heater...heats the room quicker but not everyone likes the fan noise.

how much power do you need

for a medium room you need 2 or 3 kwatts to be warm but obviously depends upon how well insulted.

but a kw hour costs at least 10p

so 2 kw on for 10 hours will cost at least £2 per day.

as far as the gas is concerned...have you read the meter and worked out what it costing?

in_over_my_head_2

Her living room and bedroom are both small to medium sized rooms I'd say, and something portable that she can move between the 2 would be best.

The gas co have been out and checked the meter. They put it in when she fell into arrears last year, so whenever she puts money on the gas card I think they take a cut till it's paid off - nice for them but not much use when it's freezing outside and she needs heating.

mh1923

We don't have gas in our flat... just the stupidly expensive and useless night storage heaters. We have two halogen heaters, one in the lounge and one in the bedroom. These are the ones you can usually find at the market for £10. We never leave them on when we are away from home.

Since we spend most of the evening in the lounge, we close it off and the little heater warms it up nicely. Generally about half an hour before bedtime, I turn on the one in the bedroom to warm up that part of the house. Unless it's very cold, we turn it off when we go to bed. We also have a heated mattress pad on only my side of the bed, because I get colder than DH. I'd rather have gas central heating, but between the halogen heaters and the electric mattress pad, we stay warm enough.

Edited to add: Our heaters have three settings: 400w, 800w, and 1200w. We mostly use the lowest setting, occasionally the middle one, and rarely use the highest setting. Our electric bill rises from £40/month in the summer to £80/month in the winter, but if she wasn't using it for her primary heating source, it would not be that much for her.