I've never used a space heater. These make safety claims and are advertised for use in bedrooms, but I see your point.

This one would be 'visited' at least once overnight -- it's the reason for the heat.

A timer would make more sense.

^^^^^ I agree!

Too many people don't realize that space heaters can be dangerous. They're not simply turn on and walk away like built in heating systems are.

The type of system an electrical heating device uses makes no difference as to "efficiency". All produce heat through resistance, electricity running through elements that get hot. A kilowatt of electricity produces the same X amount of heat, no matter how the heat is conveyed into the room.

So...even a low setting can overheat. I could time it on and off, say for an hour, 2 - 4 a.m.

Still 'inattended', huh?

Are these things only safe to use where you *are*, while you are *there* -- and awake?

I have a friend whose husband is a firefighter. There are two things he will not have in his house: candles and space heaters.

FWIW…space heaters can use a lot of energy. Our DD had SoCal Edison come out due to a big jump in their bill. She said they saw the space heater and said, ”There’s your problem.” It likely can depend on the type/size, but they were right in her case.

Take a 1500 watt space heater, operate it for 12 hours each day. That's 18 kwh per day.

Run it for 25 days, that's 450 kwh for a month - that's about how much my entire somewhat larger than average house uses per month this time of year. In my area, with electricity +/- 40 cents per kwh, that would be an additional $180 to keep the cold from one room or one area.

SoCal Edison rates are a bit lower but I believe in the 30s.

No thanks.

What about the radiator looking type that heat oil? Maybe this sort of a device will coast after it is heated, room brought to desired temperature, then turned OFF?

I had one and gave it away to someone who needed it for awake hours to supplement heat for a visiting elder.

We have a ceramic compact spacd heater that we rarely use — maybe if working in a unheated cellar. We never leave it on unattended. We are also aware that these may not always be built to the best standards.

FWIW, we used space heaters for years without any big issues, other than hubby running them on the highest settings and tripping the circuit breaker on our old electric panel. Ours were just the little ceramic ones with a fan that you can get for $25 and under. We only used them when we were home and nearby.

I always ran them on medium settings or lower - and overnight on low, in the same room too. I also followed the safety precautions they come with - like never using an extension cord, and placing them on a stable surface. Our old house has terrazzo floors which can get very cold during winter months, and no central HVAC

What is MBA? What is WC?

Master Bath

Water Closet

I even unplug our little one (Vornado) if I leave the room.

carol -- That's the kind of thing I was thinking about -- oil that would stay warm for an hour at night.

What is the cause of fires with these things? Electrical overload? Shorting out -- in the unit or in the house's circuits? The oil-filled ones claim to be spill-proof.

My firefighter friend wouldn't book a room bove the second floor in a hotel, always noted the elevator shafts, exits, and whether the windows opened enough to use as exits. I don't think he scoped out the nearest fire station, but maybe!

Here I thought I'd solved the problem without replacing the faulty HVAC ducting.

Id start by installing a bidet with a heated seat. I love that. My powder room does not have one and boy, that seat is a shock on a cold day! My upstairs full bath also has a heated floor but thats difficult to add retroactively..

I also have two oil filled radiator type space heaters. They are great in my chilly den and bedroom. I turn the downstairs one off at night and the upstairs one to low. Would one of those fit into your wc?

^^^ So these are still sold?

chisue — I think the space heaters that are not the oil-radiator type can be dangerous if left unattended. These can get very hot.

If used where there are, say, inattentive adults (forgetful, sleepy, on medications) or where rowdy kids are around, the units could be bimped or moved closer to flammable materials or something like a pie e of clothing or paper could be inadvertently put over them.

If you have a place where the heater can be put and which is stable, and no extension cords or MAYBE a very short extension cord! those very heavy duty short 5’ ones.

If I were going to leave my small ceramic heater, I might put it into a dry china bathtub. Don’t quote me on that.

Is there any existing radiator or heat source in that bathroom? Ded’s idea sounds interesting, but a warm toilet seat gizmo would need to be plugged it or hard wired properly.

The new heaters all have temperature control., It shuts off automatically after reaching to the temperature.

The oil filled radiator heater is the only one I'd trust unattended. We use 2 of them in our Fla room (many cold windows in the winter) and leave them on low over night during cold waves. They are close to 20 years old now and still do fine, both are also on separate curcuits.

We have an oil-type space heater, we used it in the basement to take off the chill during drum lessons. It took a long time, but then it was a larger space than a WC. It’s user guide says not to use an extension cord or an external timer, or to leave it unattended. We would turn it on and leave it for an hour or two while waiting for the teacher to arrive, and turn it off when he left.

Come to think of it, why is a heated toilet seat any safer? Or is it just designed differently?

You might ask your furnace ”guy” for advice, might know of something that works safely.

I will ask our long-time HVAC tech for his advice. I still think a low-temp space heater can achieve the limited warmth we need in a tiled bathroom -- safely.

Ha-ha about the toilet seats. I remember someone saying her SO installed one where a light went on when he raised the seat. (Weren't there potty chairs that played a little ditty when wet?)

I don’t know your budget or set up, but I’d think about a ductless mini split installed in either the bath or bedroom. They are expensive but economical to run. They are more efficient in cold temps than ducted heat pumps, which aren’t efficient in frigid temps. You will also get the benefit of air conditioning in the summer.

Another thought is to replace your exhaust fan with a fan/heater combo. I just had one installed in my bath remodel and was shocked by how much heat they throw out. No special wiring required and they can be put on a timer. There probably are even blue tooth or remote controlled units, tho I haven’t checked. Maybe even programmable to turn on and off at certain times.

I’d also see if there are ceiling light/heater combos if that might work better than a fan replacement.

I don't know if any of the episodes are on you tube or available somewhere on line, but on Ask This Old House there was an episode of a homeowner who had an unheated powder room and Richard's solution was to mount one of those plug-in flat panel ones.

Edited to add: found the link of season 15 episode 23 "Primer, pipes and heat":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HGHpR9D93s&list=PLU_za9t6v1on1QfhGmGfzVxm86N_5WBHY&index=21

Unfortunately, Scot (Not Richard!) installs a hard wired flat panel heater. Sorry, not a plug-in. Segment starts at 16:11 min in. Still might be worth looking into. Good luck

Ooh, how about a heated towel bar rack? Win-win!

Thanks, all. Some great thinking 'outside the box'.

Olychick's idea brings up a source I hadn't considered: The hard wired exhaust fan. But, how to get the heat 'on' before either of us pays a brief nightly visit?

Maybe there just is no way to do this other than expensive HVAC work in the basement. Darn that contractor anyway!

bpath -- I need more heat than a towel bar provides.

If your flooring ever needs to be replaced, do install a heated floor system. The minor cost is well worth it. You will have a thermostat on the wall to control the temp and toasty warm tiles that radiate a bit of heat into the room as well. Bonus!

OP -- We do have floor heat via electric pads under the tile, but that's not adequate to heat the air. I've tried turning that 'way up; no dice.

I guess I'm going to have to face it and have someone either boost the forced air heat somehow or extend the hydronic system that's under an adjacent floor -- which is there because the HVAC was so poorly designed here in the first place. This is a simple fix, but labor intensive, so it's $$$$.

I agree, nothing beats floor heat. We have a great combination in that one room, with both floor heat and humidity coming in with the too-weak forced air.

2-2-25 3 PM

Chisue, i’m looking at your post about space heaters for your bathroom. I’ve only skimmed through it quickly so you might’ve already provided this information. I will try to read it again. Excuse the typos in this note because I’m trying to use voice to text and I have to first write in the notepad of my iPad because, Web does not allow or makes a mess out of the text if you tried to use dictation with it. But I make typos because of a bunch of reasons with the way it operates and I don’t always catch them.

Any case you need to convey to anybody trying to help you into yourself you know you have to know these figures if you wanna go and look around for a supplemental heat source .

– – You need to know the approximate space which would be the diameter of your bathroom how many square feet and then also you need to understand or have the approximate height of the ceiling sometimes older buildings have something like 12 foot ceiling so that adds more volume that needs to be heated to the equation.

– – Is there any other heat in that bathroom? Did you say there is a little bit in the floor but it is not very effective?

– – Is the bathroom on an outside wall and does it have a window which will lose heat?

And do you have an electrical plug near where you would want to put any supplemental heated unit unit.

I found what I think is the one that was installed on that episode of this old house or this old house. That one in particular is hardwired and you would need an electrician to do that and you would need a space for it where it would work.

As I was looking around, I saw that the same company also produces a plug-in unit that plugs with a very short cord to an outlet no more than a foot or two away from where you would hang the heater. Heat comes out of the top and I think it also does with the hardwired unit. I’ve yet to determine how much heat they produce . That is for these particular models. But the catch to this plug-in one is that it works with an application on a smart device such as an iPhone or an Android. And of course you would want to be sure that it had a shut off so that if your phone went out of kilter or ran out of batteries, you would have some way of shutting the unit off. Well, I guess you could just unplug it.

The other day when I was looking, I found one that plugged in and was wall mounted like a panel. It was mounted against the wall. But that only produced 1500 W and that’s about what a hand held hairdryer on high would put out.

It sounds like you want a device that would warm the place up before you went in to use the bathroom. If you’re like many people in the middle of the night, you’re not gonna hang around for the place to warm up and you’re not gonna be in there very long you want to just get up do your thing and then go back to bed. Therefore, that was an on demand turn on-turn off would probably have some lag time that you might not want to fuss with unless you feel like waiting 20 minutes before you use your warm bathroom.

How do you regulate the floor heat in the bathroom does have a thermostat and can you have that adjusted so that you can get more heat out of the floor heat must be to adjust the heat on in the summer.

I can try to find that plug-in 110 V 1500 W floor panel unit but again I don’t think it would be all that satisfactory but who knows I don’t know how big your bathroom is and maybe it would give you just enough to be able to tolerate using your bathroom in the middle of the night in February (I assume you are in Chicago ).

➡️ https://www.amazon.com/EnviMAX-Hardwired-Electric-Protection-Patented/dp/B0CJ1YFM3B/ref=asc_df_B0CJ1YFM3B?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79989658229214&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583589124544756&th=1

➡️ https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Wi-fi-Plug-Electric-Heater/dp/B0CWSD7FR1/ref=asc_df_B0CWSD7FR1?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79852223327226&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583451687401108&psc=1&msclkid=2bcad6c4f66416c68a62b15b3c8ee901

Electric anything that produces heat can be expensive. It looks like the above plug-in heater might work if you wanted to keep the heat on a low temperature that might work to give some ongoing warmth. To be economical, you might be able to set it for 55 or 60 deg F.

If your bathroom has a window that is now well insulated, you might be able to find some insulating curtain/s OR cover thae window with some of that plastic film that you use a hair dryer with to heat shrink the plastic film. You would want to do this in the fall, the perhaps remove the plastic film in the late spring.

In fact, if you find the window area cold, you may be losing a lot of heat from it, and just sealing it with the heat shrink plastic film might be solution enough for your cold bathroom.

Do you know about that clear plastic heat shrink film for windows? It works very well if you get a good seal. It is widely available at box stores and hardware stores.

My overhead light/fan/heater is near enough to the toilet that when I flip the heater on, it blasts warm air down on you and is really sufficient to keep warm enough to shower or use the loo.

petalique -- Thanks for the research. You're right about the need for heat being only brief and overnight. By morning, the forced air central heat is blasting everywhere, and even that NW corner WC is warm enough. I'm not finding the space heater logical if one can't be safe to use 'unattended'.. Back to getting the whole bathroom adequate central heat.

Another similar heater,

I bet this one, a plug-in but has controls on unit so that it does not require a smart device like an iphone, would suit your needs. I gets a lot of good reviews.

Could you mount it to the wall yourself or have someone help you? You can run it 24/7 and you could keep it on a low lowish setting.

This is designed for a small area, ~150 sqare feet — say a bathroom 5.ft. x 10 ft. (to make the math simple).

chisue wrote initially, OP:

“I'd like to plug a small heater into the shaving outlet that's six feet (horizontally) from the door to the WC and leave it on overnight. The WC is a 3 X 4 space in the corner of the 12 X 16 tiled MBA (w/16' ceiling).

I don't expect to heat the bathroom, just take the edge off the cold. I'd leave this on overnight with the door ajar, expecting it to leak heat into the WC. (I *could* place this just inside the WC door, but it would be tight.)

I see some flat panel heaters and some others only four inches deep that would fit.”

~~~

OK, I see now. Your master bath is quite a bit larger volume that 150 SF. Even if you had it mounted to warm just the WC area, within that large 12x16 ft Master Bath, it would likely be running all the time. Alternatively, you could get something that you only turn

ON when you arrive, and turn OFF when you leave.

Have you checked out "My Buddy" propane space heaters? I have 2 that I keep in the house during the winter, in case the electric goes out. I have never used them while sleeping. I do set mine on a metal baking sheet while in use. I have a lot of friends that use them, and I've never heard of any mishaps.

Something turned on when you enter, for that short trip in the middle of the night, might not warm the space quickly enough. Maybe by the time you jumped back under the covers.

Nicole/Black Forest Colorado Z5A

A wall switch timer would turn a heater on & off for you. You can get longer times....they vary. We have them on our exhaust fans. We set it, then leave the bathroom with the fan on...and it turns off by itself. Link