Convection heater
Convection heaters
These are designed to provide background warmth. They warm the air near the element or body of the heater. The warm air circulates by natural convection around the room. Many have a fan, which our tests have shown provides faster warm-up and more even heating.
The most popular type of convection heater is the upright oil-filled column heater. Less popular, but cheaper, is the box type with a heating element in the bottom and a grille at the top to let the warm air out.
Fan heater
Panel heaters are convection heaters that mount permanently on a wall and are designed to provide background heat. They are permanently wired and usually use electricity at the normal daytime rate.
Night-storage heaters are also permanently installed convection heaters, but they use off-peak night-rate electricity. They store the heat for slow release during the day. Therefore, as a background heating option for a living area, they are more suitable for people who are home most of the time. For a bedroom area, a night-storage heater in the passage can spread warmth into several rooms.
Portable fan heaters
Radiant heater
Fan heaters squat on the floor and provide a blast of warm air directly onto your body. They're not as good as convection heaters for providing general background warmth, as the fan can be noisy and cause draughts.
Radiant heaters
These have glowing electric elements with reflectors to radiate heat directly onto you. They provide quick directional heat to a small area of a room and also provide some convection heat.
Heat pumps
Heat pumps collect heat from the air outside the house and release it inside. Although they run on electricity they collect far more energy than they use: up to three times as much. The colder it is outside the less efficient they are.
Heat pump
Heat pumps are expensive to buy (from $2750 upwards installed) but very cheap to run. As with any heating, however, the costs mount up if you leave them on all the time over winter.
See our Heat pumps report for more information.
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