I looked up EdenPURE for a friend, and found numerous bad reviews claiming their units had burned, or something involving a fire hazard. I forget exactly what the deal was, but my overall impression was negative.

"They are supposed to be so good at heating, and are supposed to be a lot less to operate than a conventional back-up space heater."

How are you defining 'conventional' and 'back-up' heater?

Infrared heaters have been around forever. There is no money savings in using them. Is ALWAYS is going to cost more to heat with electricity than other methods.

These things don't last forever and will burn out eventually in no time. Although they are making them safer these days, there is a danger of fire with them with accidents.

The only reason to buy a space heater is if you have a cold area in your home that needs heat. Some people like to put these under their desk to keep their feet warm. Or they put one in the bathroom since it can tend to feel chilly in there with all the cold tile, and the fact that coming out of a shower into cool air is not comfortable. Sometimes a room on the far end of a house does not get enough heat to it with a forced air furnace and a space heater can make the room comfortable.

You can use a space heater for savings, by keeping your whole house thermostat set very low, and using a space heater to bring the temp up in the room that you are using. Thats one reason they put wheels on them.

alisande, are those the ones that are supposedly made by the Amish? I researched those for my dad. VERY bad reviews!

We have an EdenPure. The whole story is...

We ordered one direct from the factory in March of 2006, and set into a room that was cold even with the furnace set to 72 degrees. We followed the directions by EdenPure to close off all heat and cold air returns in the room. As directed we also closed the door of that room. On cold days, say below freezing, with just the EdenPURE for heat, the room was still chilly. On warmer days the room was comfortable. We tried opening up all the heat runs, etc but it didn't make a difference. We used the heater all of the winter of 2007 and till December of 2008 when DH decided that it wasn't doing as good a job heating the room as it had in the beginning. He called EdenPure and told them that he didn't think the heater was working to full capacity. The girl on the phone said that since it had 3 months left on the warranty we should send it back to them and they would look at it. It cost $20 to ship it, but we had nothing to lose. Exactly one week after we shipped it, a new updated model heater was set on our porch by UPS. No cost to us other than the $20 to ship the old one back.

This new heater works much better. It has controls to select how much heat you need/want. The first was just either on or off. We are very pleased with this new one. With outside temps near 0 the room could easily be kept at 70 degrees. There are 13 settings for heat, each setting is a light. The more lights that are on, the warmer it heats. On the coldest days, 8 lights kept the room at 70 to 71 degrees. At night I turn it down to 6 lights and no matter how cold it is outside, the room is at 67 degrees when I get up the following morning. This is a large room, about 16 x 24 and has 3 outside walls with 5 large windows, so it is not easy to heat.

So, we are at this time pleased with our EdenPure. We did not reccommend the first EdenPure to anyone who asked about it, but are so happy with this new one that 3 people have bought one on what we have told them.

I don't know how much it costs to run it. It is impossible to figure due to rates going up recently, the colder weather this year and estimated bills from the electric company. It really doesn't matter to me as long as I am warm. I am sure it isn't astronomical.

As far as safety goes...any time you are dealing with electricity, there is a danger to be considered. Common sense should prevail.

No, I don't think the Amish claim to have invented EdenPure. But ever since I read about the horrid Amish puppy mills, I've been suspicious of anything they might be promoting.

I think this is the website where I read those EdenPure reviews:

Infomercial Ratings

Thank you all.

My furnace is propane, which has skyrocketed these past few years, so it is no longer as economical as it once was. There are other drawbacks on my gas furnace as well, ie noisy, dusty, and the temp varies between the time it cycles on and off.
As a member an Electric Cooperative here, electric rates are quite reasonable as compared to some parts of the country.

Infrared heaters have been around forever. There is no money savings in using them. Is ALWAYS is going to cost more to heat with electricity than other methods.

The site here explains the three major types of heat.
The heaters above use the third one...infraradiation.

While most might consider it as a back-up or in addition to their heating system, like Gazania, I am looking at it for heating my main living space, or as some would say, in the room that you are using....ie living room/dining room combo.

Wow Gazania,

What a testimonial! That is amazing that you could keep a room of that size with large windows and 3 outside walls that warm with just one 1500W heater! I have a living area somewhat larger than that, but with only 2 outside walls, and fewer big windows. That living area is all that is heated as I don't heat the bedrooms, but instead use an electric blanket.

Well, now I will just wait and see what my neighbor's bill looks like March 1st. She is using it as the main heat source to heat an area similar to mine...hers might be a bit smaller. She has been very pleased with the way hers heats, besides it being pretty quiet.

I'm so appalled by the price of propane these days. All I use it for is

1 small wall heater in an area of the barn, kept at 50
my hot water heater
my gas range

That's it! I live by myself and don't consume a lot of hot water or cooking fuel. But they wanted me to pay $250 a month on the budget plan. I got them down to $188, but that still sounds outrageous to me.

Last Feb propane was $3.29 a GA and I paid $354 with tax and Compliance Charge for 100 GA. That brought my tank up to 40 some percent and it is now about 30%.

I use it for cooking/baking, and the clothes dryer. I knew that 100 GA would not last long running through the furnace, so that was when I considered electric, and heating just the main living/dining room area, with the heat wafting a bit into the kitchen and bath.

I too am by myself, so heating the whole house, which is small anyway, is not necessary. On cold, but sunny winter days, the skylights help a lot at warming up the main living area.

I just talked to my neighbor who recently bought one of the
heaters listed above. He said they were very pleased with it, and that one heater was all they had used except on the very coldest of nights (sub zero) or other below normal temps with high winds. They then kicked on some baseboard heat to keep it as warm as they like it, which is a lot warmer than I can stand.

Alisande,
That does sound outrageously high.

It does not matter what kind of electric heat you have- for example, a heater with 1500 watts will be no cheaper than another electric heat that has 1500 watts. The cost to use anything that uses 1500 watts is the same- 'watts is watts'. There isn't a way to make 1500 watts more efficient-
Think of a 'balance scale'- one side has 1 pound of gold on it. In order to make that scale balanced, you have to put 1 pound of material on the other side. It doesn't matter if you put 1 pound of sand or feathers- it still takes 1 pound to balance the scale.
Some heats are more comfortable than others, such as radient heat is more comfortable because it does not dry the air, and it does not blow air around, creating a breeze which makes you feel cooler. Natural gas, propane both are worse for respiratory sufferers.
No matter what you use, it will be expensive- the Great USA has seen to that.
Smaller homes help- and my idea of a smaller home and the contractor's idea of a smaller home are 2 different ideas! I want to build a 800-900ft2 home. If you look at a house plan magazine for 'small homes', they are 2,000ft2! Sort of like the big sized meals served in the US- we need to get real. Or we will be forced to by economics.

DH is always cold so we bought a Holmes QUARTZ heater (Home Depot -$39.99) when a friend who had two of them told me she had turned her furnace on only twice all winter.

We use ours in a large living/kitchen area with door to laundry & half bath left open all the time. In the 2-3 yrs we've used it the largest increase in electric bill has been $11.00+change.

Best investment I ever made & NEVER want to be without one again! Just for back-up I went back for another, but HD didn't have anymore & regret not buying the one I saw @ WalMart for $45. now they're out too.

Oh, it automatically shuts off (immediately) if tilted.

Suzi

I bought an infrared heater for under my desk at work about ten years ago. It turns off automatically if it tips over. I was always very careful with it, to turn it off at night. It's now in my daughter's bedroom. I warned her to be very careful with it. If she turns it on "high" it blows the circuit breaker. She keeps it on "low" when she uses it. By the way, the commercial for the Amish heater is very sneaky. They say the Amish make the wooden cabinets, not the heating unit.

I went through 3 years worth of electric bills to try to come up with an idea of what my EdenPure is costing to run. It seems to be about 30 to 40 dollars a month extra for the months of December and January of this year. If I consider that it is likely costing a little less for the gas bill to run the furnace, I am not complaning. A major help in the room that we are using the EdenPure in is that the large windows face south and west. There are days when a sunny day is all the heat needed in there.

Chemocurl posted: "That is amazing that you could keep a room of that size with large windows and 3 outside walls that warm with just one 1500W heater!"

No that is NOT amazing. Just about ALL space heaters sold at the stores use 1500W of power, and any of them will certainly heat a room. Those that use less produce less heat of course. Those that use more produce more. It is physics. Do realize that running a 1500W appliance continuously is sucking a lot of energy.

"The site here explains the three major types of heat."

That site does not explain anything. It is ADVERTISING. It uses a lot of fluff words like amazing, superb, excellent, and the like. Then it goes on to carefully select words that sound like solid scientific data arranged to make this heater they sell sound like it is something new and different. Everything the ad says is carefully arranged and worded to be misleading when you read it. For instance they say that the unit "only" draws 1500W of power and reminds the reader that a 'simple coffee maker' uses 1500W of power, which is true, but you don't keep your coffee maker running 24 hours a day either, do you? A coffee maker only draws 1500W for about one or two minutes and then reduces power consumption to about 300W to keep the warmer on (if it has one - some don't), and even that is shut off after the coffee is gone. The write the ad to try to convince the reader that there is some brand new scientific hocus-pocus that they invented that they exclusively sell.

What they are selling is a space heater that is no different than other ones you can pick up at the store for about $30.

As, I said before, a space heater does have it's advantages in some situations like for zone heating. You can set your furnace thermostat for your house at say 40° or 50° so that your pipes don't freeze and your wallpaper does not peel off, and use the space heater in a room that you are using with the door closed to keep yourself comfortable. Using a space heater instead of baseboard heaters that are already installed in their home, like your neighbors do, is NOT going to save energy. You can't cheat physics.

Alisande posted: "But they wanted me to pay $250 a month on the budget plan. I got them down to $188, but that still sounds outrageous to me."

☛☛☛I hope you realize what a budget plan means. If they calculated your average to be $250/mo and you are now paying $188/mo you will have a HUGE balloon payment at the end of your cycle.

I hope you have the lump sum money set aside to pay it when you get your bill. Unless you have done something to reduce your usage from the last two years, (which is what they calculate the figure from), like get new windows or adding insulation, and know that your usage will be less, OR know that the price/rate of fuel has gone down in your area, (not likely), and the new figure is closer to what you will owe, you could be in a financial predicament at the end of the billing cycle. All a budget plan does is spread your payments over a period of time so that your bill does not fluctuate wildly, and you know what your monthly payments will be, ie; no 'surprises'. ☛☛☛ It is not a "discount" nor does it produce any "savings". You pay for what you use. Period.

I don't have one, but have talked to people that do and none of them are that happy with them.

I don't know about how much the save on the utility bill (and I sure don't have time to "research" it like Dilly Dally does) but I can speak very highly for the quartz heaters GrittyMitts mentioned. We have one and bought my MIL one a couple of years ago and she LOVES it! She has propane heaters and as mentioned above the cost has gone through the roof. My MIL has a pretty large kitchen/den area that she spends most of her time in. She said the heater keeps it warm and cozy...and barely touched her budged her electric bill.

I bought a space heater this past winter for when I shower in our master bath. I didn't even look at wattage. I looked at reviews from REAL users---just as I would consider what people here who actually use them say---versus someone who has a lot of spare time.

Some people don't know when to "hesh up" (as we say here in Oklahoma). :-)

my Sis bought Eden Pure's for herself and her two kids for Christmas...they love them!!

Propane has come down a lot, at least in my area. I just looked at the costs on it and it's around $2/gal. My cousin contracted for his and the price went down afterward, surprisingly. I've never heard of a budget type plan for propane. That's really strange. They sure don't do that around here!

I really liked the oil filled radiator style electric heaters when I used them for a supplemental heating source. They're NOT good however for a quick heat up of an area since they have to heat the oil and then radiate the heat out. However, then do provide a nice even heat source and I like the looks of them, not that that should make a difference.

All arguments, pettiness and bickering aside, it is true that electric heaters give out comparable heat per Kwh of electricity used. Again there IS some variation, but the theory is accurate. There isn't really a "high efficiency" electric heater whether you're a "real" or "unreal" user.

FWIW, I commend people who will do research on things, but that's me. I like to learn. Maybe it's a north vs. south thing? LOL

One other point that was alluded to in a different way, just like the coffeemaker doesn't run full power all the time, generally speaking a thermostatically controlled electric heater will not either. So trying to determine cost is difficult. There is a balance of how much to turn down the furnace and how much to turn up the supplemental heat. Electric supplemental heaters do best at raising a modest amount. For something major you're better to put in a baseboard heater which will do a better job than a small heater.