WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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This video will be a little bit different
from most of mine.

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I’m revisiting a topic from my very first
YouTube days, long before this channel was

00:00:06.830 --> 00:00:07.830
a thing.

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At the end, I’ll link to a follow up discussion
on my second channel where I talk about why

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I’m making this again.

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But for now, here’s what we’re doing.

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In the Northern hemisphere, it’s winter
right now.

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At least, well, at least at the time of this
video’s upload.

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Winter means cold and cold means sadness.

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But thankfully, I have a friendly space heater
to keep myself warm and my spirits high.

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These electric heaters are a useful, if perhaps
dangerous and expensive way to heat a space.

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But, there’s been something that’s annoyed
me about them for years.

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And to show you, we need to go shopping.

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Alright, let’s see what we got here.

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We have, “Medium Room”, 1,500W for $31.99.

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Take a step over, and we have “Small Room”,

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1,500W.

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$12.79.

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Thi… that… that number’s the same.

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Why is that the same?

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Here’s a different one.

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“Medium room”, fif… fifteen hun..

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Five..

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Wha?

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OK...

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Here’s a different one, we got small…

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fif… hmmm.

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Well, store #2 is almost entirely out of heaters.

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Ugh, this is what I get for doing this AFTER
the Polar Vortex.

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Hmm.

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There we go.

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OK, so here we have an infrared quartz radiant
heater, which is being marketed as for medium

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sized rooms.

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Shocker of shockers; 1,500W. And also, this
is a radiant heater so really the size of

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the room isn’t as important as its application
but let’s move on.

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So here we have a personal desktop heater,
1,500W.

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This one is apparently some sort of genius,
um, don’t really get that

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but look at that.

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1,500 W.

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Let’s look at this guy here.

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It’s a ceramic heater.

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Uh, 1,500W.

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One of these 360 degree things.

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Oh, it’s 1,500W.

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As you no doubt noticed, at every store we
visited, many of the space heaters for sale

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were categorized based on the size of the
room that they would be appropriate for.

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And yet, they were all rated 1500 watts.

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Now first let me say that there are definitely
reasons to choose some heaters over another.

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For instance, this infrared radiant heater
will do a great job of keeping you warm even

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in a cold room, because the infrared radiation
it generates will directly heat your skin

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and thus body from a distance.

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They’re even useful outdoors because of
their transmissive style of direct heating.

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But if you want to heat a space, as in heat
a room and keep it warm, all of these heaters

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are doing the same thing.

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They’re heating the air around them and
are thus increasing the temperature in the

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room.

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With this goal in mind, literally any of these
heaters will work.

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And they’re gonna work just as well as any
of the others, with few exceptions.

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It all comes down to that 1500 watts.

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Let’s take a step back and think about what
heaters actually have to do.

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Heat is really just energy, and the temperature
of a room is a way of expressing how much

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energy is currently concentrated in that room.

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Now, energy always likes to spread out, and
if there’s a temperature gradient between

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one space and another, the more highly concentrated
energy in the warm place wants to exit the

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warm place and spread out into the cold place.

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Once it reaches equilibrium, energy transfer
stops.

00:04:05.579 --> 00:04:07.819
And eventually, this leads to the heat death
of the universe.

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*sound of party blower*

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Now, to keep a room warm when the outside
is cold, we have to keep releasing energy

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into it.

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And we need to add energy at least at the
same rate that it leaves through the walls

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and windows, which hopefully are well insulated
to slow that process as much as possible.

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The amount of energy leaving the room is called
the thermal load.

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Now, I’m going to use the BTU, that’s
British Thermal Unit, for much of this video;

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I’m sorry for picking that unit, please
write your complaints below.

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The heater’s basic job is to replace the
energy that’s leaving the room.

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So if the room is losing 4,000 BTUs per hour
through the walls, that’s the thermal load,

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and thus we need a heater which can produce at least
4,000 BTUs in order to maintain the current

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indoor temperature.

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We’ll need more than that if we want to
increase the temperature.

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And if we can’t produce 4,000 BTUs, the
room will gradually get colder until the temperature

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gradient is small enough that energy leaving
equals energy being added, and we hit equilibrium

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once more.

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You may be asking what this has to do with
space heaters.

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Well children, it turns out that watts and
BTUs are both units of the same thing!

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That’s energy!

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Hold on, no.

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Watts are a unit of power, and a watt-hour
is a unit of energy.

00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:21.300
BTUs makes this confusing because people often
say “BTUs per hour” which I’ve already

00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:24.190
said at least once but, anyway, it’s a mess.

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Let’s continue.

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1 watt equals 3.41 BTUs.

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Now, all of these space heaters are labeled
as using 1,500 watts.

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That means they all produce 5,120 BTUs.

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All of ‘em.

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Some of them are even kind enough to tell
you that.

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So then, I put forth to you dear viewer, how
is this heater more suited to a medium-sized

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room if it is producing the same exact amount
of heat as this heater which claims to only

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be suitable for a small room?

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Regardless of how much energy is leaving a
given space, both of these are capable of

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adding the same amount of energy back.

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That’s 5,120 BTUs.

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Now, we can argue as much as we want about
how these two heaters distribute the heat they create.

00:06:06.150 --> 00:06:10.630
But I do find it humorous that the one claiming
to be better suited to a larger room doesn’t

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have a fan to assist heat distribution.

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Instead it relies solely on the convection
currents that are created as the now hot,

00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:22.620
low density air rises up through it and pulls
cold, dense air from behind.

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This heater has a fan blowing air past its
ceramic heating elements.

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Surely it’s moving more air, you can feel
it.

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But honestly, it doesn’t need to do much
because of that little thing we call convection.

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No matter where heat is released into a room,
it will eventually spread out.

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Using a fan just speeds that process along.

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And for those who may want to point out that
the fan motor in this guy is part of that

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1,500 watts and therefore it must cause the
unit as a whole to release less heat, I’ll

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counter that in addition to the motor being
a negligible part of the heater’s energy

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consumption, all of that energy will eventually
be released as heat anyway, either through

00:07:00.060 --> 00:07:04.250
friction with air molecules, or through the
wasted heat created in the windings of the

00:07:04.250 --> 00:07:05.440
motor itself.

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The reason why I know without a doubt that
these two heaters are both doing the same

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work is that they are both electric resistive
heaters.

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This means they’re taking the electrical
energy from the wall outlet and releasing

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it as heat.

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This is 100% efficient.

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In fact, when we talk about efficiency of
various household devices like light bulbs

00:07:23.370 --> 00:07:28.340
or laptops, we’re really talking about how
much waste heat they avoid releasing as they

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do their work.

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An incandescent bulb releases a ton of waste
heat, because it needs a lot of electrical

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energy to produce a given amount of light,
the vast majority of which is simply wasted.

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An LED bulb releases much less heat, because
LEDs are a more efficient way of turning electricity

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into visible light, which means less electricity
is consumed by the bulb to do the same amount

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of work.

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But if our goal is to create heat, in other
words if the work we want to accomplish is

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to take that electrical energy and spread
it out into the room as heat, 100% of the

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energy being consumed will be directly released
into the room.

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There is no such thing as a more efficient
space heater.

00:08:08.770 --> 00:08:12.960
There are better and worse applications depending
on the type, such as infrared radiant versus

00:08:12.960 --> 00:08:17.640
oil-filled convective, but simply put, energy
is energy.

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If this “medium” heater can’t release
more energy into the room than it’s “small

00:08:22.440 --> 00:08:26.200
room” counterpart, then those labels are
nonsense.

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And they are.

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We don’t even need to rely on the labeling.

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If we use an energy monitoring device like
this Kill-A-Watt, we can see exactly how much

00:08:33.570 --> 00:08:35.440
energy each of them is using.

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And, shocker of shockers, it’s the same
amount, within a small margin of error.

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Well, some may argue that the margin of error
isn’t quite that small, but in any case

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it’s pretty humorous that the small heater
is about 90 watts more powerful than the medium

00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:51.180
heater.

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Many heaters have multiple settings which
will switch between different heating elements,

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therefore giving you the option of a more
tepid amount of heat output.

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And, nearly all of them have a bimetallic
thermostat, if not a digital one, allowing

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you to control the temperature within a reasonable
degree.

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You might be asking why so many of them are
rated 1,500W. It turns out that this is the

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maximum amount of power a device that continuously
operates is allowed to pull from a 15A circuit

00:09:15.520 --> 00:09:17.610
according to the national electric code.

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A normal 15A household circuit is technically
capable of 1,800Ws, but if a device is expected

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to run for a long time, like a space heater,
it’s limited to using 80% of that capacity.

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This creates a margin for error and protects
against fires caused by not-quite-up-to-snuff

00:09:34.900 --> 00:09:38.560
wiring, and it also helps prevent overloading
in general.

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But a device that’s only used intermittently,
like a hair dryer, is allowed to use the full

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capacity.

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Since heating elements are phenomenally cheap
and easy to make, pretty much all space heaters

00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:51.420
are gonna bump right up against that 1,500W
limit.

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Now, not all of them do.

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I’m a big fan of these little personal heaters
that only use a couple hundred watts.

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I keep this one on my desk and it’s a great
little comfort boost on a cold day.

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But most “General purpose” heaters will
go ahead and push out as much heat as they’re

00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:06.520
allowed to.

00:10:06.520 --> 00:10:09.840
Now what was pointed out to me the last time
I made this video was that heaters such as

00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.260
this one store heat in the oil and thus are
able to release heat even when the heating

00:10:15.260 --> 00:10:17.630
elements aren’t turned on!

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That’s great, but it doesn’t mean it’s
more efficient.

00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:23.900
It just means that the heat leaving the heater
goes through a buffer.

00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:30.070
If the heater is running at a 50% duty cycle,
it more or less is constantly releasing 2,560

00:10:30.070 --> 00:10:36.700
BTUs, when this heater would release 5,120
for 5 minutes, and then 0 for the next five

00:10:36.700 --> 00:10:37.700
minutes.

00:10:37.700 --> 00:10:43.170
The end result is the same, though, they both
release 2,560 BTUs over 10 minutes--this one

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may simply provide more consistent heat.

00:10:45.440 --> 00:10:49.420
If there’s one thing I’d like you to take
away from this video, it’s that any space

00:10:49.420 --> 00:10:54.420
heater that claims to be more efficient than
its competition is… well its lying.

00:10:54.420 --> 00:10:58.670
I’m particularly irked by these “premium”
space heaters that claim to save you money

00:10:58.670 --> 00:11:02.000
on your energy bills because of some new technology.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:05.280
One in particular rhymes with “Schmeeden
Glur”.

00:11:05.280 --> 00:11:10.810
Look, the way they save you energy is
by… simply being a space heater.

00:11:10.810 --> 00:11:14.790
That’s by turning down the temperature to
your whole house, and only heating the room

00:11:14.790 --> 00:11:16.130
that you’re in.

00:11:16.130 --> 00:11:21.380
Compared to any other space heater, this is
no more efficient and frankly, a waste of money.

00:11:21.380 --> 00:11:26.320
What’s worse is that electric heat is almost
always the most expensive kind of heat, in

00:11:26.330 --> 00:11:30.570
fact I made a video on why in cold climates
we usually burn fuels like natural gas for

00:11:30.570 --> 00:11:32.930
heat rather than use the electric grid.

00:11:32.930 --> 00:11:38.320
Yes, the heater itself is 100% efficient,
but electricity generation is not.

00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:39.870
At least not yet.

00:11:39.870 --> 00:11:42.850
And that’s kind of the space heater paradox.

00:11:42.850 --> 00:11:47.960
You can save money by using just one and lowering
the temperature of your central heating.

00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:51.670
But if you decide to buy a bunch of these
supposedly miracle heaters for every room

00:11:51.670 --> 00:11:55.350
in your house and use them instead of your
furnace, you’re gonna be spending a lot

00:11:55.350 --> 00:11:56.680
more on energy.

00:11:56.680 --> 00:12:00.950
But, let me be clear that the only reason
I know these are all the same is that we’re

00:12:00.950 --> 00:12:02.750
talking about resistive heat.

00:12:02.750 --> 00:12:07.200
If we venture into the land of heat pumps
or gas-fired furnaces, now there are efficiency

00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.090
comparisons to be made.

00:12:09.090 --> 00:12:12.760
Some heat pumps work better than others, and
condensing furnaces can release more than

00:12:12.760 --> 00:12:18.430
95% of the energy from their heating fuel
into the space, compared to only 80% for a

00:12:18.430 --> 00:12:20.100
conventional furnace.

00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:24.150
But any ‘ol electric heater is gonna be
100% efficient.

00:12:24.150 --> 00:12:27.680
Whatever energy gets pulled from the wall
goes straight into the room.

00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:32.020
So, the next time you need to buy a space
heater, go ahead and buy a cheap one.

00:12:32.020 --> 00:12:34.920
Those expensive ones are… well they’re
just not worth it.

00:12:34.920 --> 00:12:39.880
This $10 wire-element heater will do just
as great of a job heating a room as will a

00:12:39.880 --> 00:12:42.500
$200 Schleeden Clure.

00:12:42.500 --> 00:12:47.190
Now don’t get me wrong, this thing is ugly
and noisy and has a primitive thermostat--that

00:12:47.190 --> 00:12:50.950
red mark is where I like to set it--so I’m
not about to say that this is objectively

00:12:50.950 --> 00:12:53.279
as good as one of those fancy-pants heaters.

00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:57.790
But I can say with confidence that it heats
just as well, and the cost of that energy

00:12:57.790 --> 00:12:59.110
is exactly the same.

00:12:59.110 --> 00:13:03.290
I will add that if there’s a room that always
needs supplemental heat, like a certain bedroom

00:13:03.290 --> 00:13:07.730
in a certain house I grew up in, I prefer
the oil-filled type because they’re probably

00:13:07.730 --> 00:13:08.840
the safest.

00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:12.990
A fan-forced heater will quickly overheat
if the fan fails, and then you’ve gotta

00:13:12.990 --> 00:13:16.050
hope that the overheat protection cutout works.

00:13:16.050 --> 00:13:19.750
These passive ones are pretty much immune
from that failure, and because the heat is

00:13:19.750 --> 00:13:23.830
spread out over such a large surface area,
nothing really gets that hot.

00:13:23.830 --> 00:13:26.260
Plus, they’re virtually silent.

00:13:26.260 --> 00:13:27.260
Which is nice.

00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:32.340
But, keep in mind that they take FOREVER to
get warm, so they’re really not great for

00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:33.870
short use.

00:13:33.870 --> 00:13:39.190
These baseboard style heaters are a nice compromise,
but their surfaces do get much hotter so my

00:13:39.190 --> 00:13:41.420
gut tells me it’s a little more dangerous.

00:13:41.420 --> 00:13:45.460
And allow me to express my bewilderment regarding
a companion product for a space heater that

00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:46.900
doesn’t seem to exist.

00:13:46.900 --> 00:13:50.560
As I said, pretty much all space heaters have
a thermostat built-in.

00:13:50.560 --> 00:13:53.800
But let’s be honest, they’re usually not
great.

00:13:53.800 --> 00:13:57.540
It does regulate the temperature, but it’s
more of a… let it run until the room’s

00:13:57.540 --> 00:14:02.010
as warm as you want, then slowly turn the
dial down until it shuts off.

00:14:02.010 --> 00:14:04.320
Not very precise, or consistent.

00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:08.930
And for those “Digital” heaters, having
the thermostat located within the unit itself

00:14:08.930 --> 00:14:13.670
(like this) means it will never get a very
precise temperature reading of the room.

00:14:13.670 --> 00:14:17.620
I’m surprised that you can’t just buy
a universal remote thermostat.

00:14:17.620 --> 00:14:22.020
I can imagine something like a 10 foot long
heavy-duty extension cord with a thermostat

00:14:22.030 --> 00:14:26.010
in the middle of it, letting you put it on
a table away from the heater itself, and set

00:14:26.010 --> 00:14:27.780
an actual temperature.

00:14:27.780 --> 00:14:33.100
You could actually build one yourself fairly
easily using a thermostat for baseboard heating,

00:14:33.100 --> 00:14:36.080
but it seems like a product that should just
exist.

00:14:36.080 --> 00:14:38.460
OK wait, it does exist.

00:14:39.560 --> 00:14:40.779
Look at that!

00:14:40.780 --> 00:14:42.960
An outlet thermostat.

00:14:45.140 --> 00:14:48.560
That’s actually a really good idea.

00:14:49.040 --> 00:14:50.260
Anyway, that’s it for now.

00:14:50.260 --> 00:14:54.420
Dishonest marketing departments and misleading
labels are some of the most annoying things

00:14:54.420 --> 00:14:59.470
we deal with on this planet, but thankfully,
with a little knowledge on how the world works,

00:14:59.470 --> 00:15:01.360
we can see right through them.

00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.851
Stick around a little longer for a few more
observations regarding my recent space heater

00:15:04.851 --> 00:15:09.590
adventures, and be sure to check out the Technology
Connections 2 video about why I remade this

00:15:09.590 --> 00:15:10.590
video.

00:15:10.590 --> 00:15:13.520
As always, thank you to everyone who supports
the channel on Patreon, especially the fine

00:15:13.520 --> 00:15:15.750
folks that are scrolling up your screen.

00:15:15.750 --> 00:15:19.940
With the support of people just like you,
Technology Connections has gone from my hobby

00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:21.600
to, this!

00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:23.800
And I’m very thankful for your support.

00:15:23.800 --> 00:15:27.540
If you would like to support the channel and
get perks like early video access, occasional

00:15:27.540 --> 00:15:32.040
behind-the-scenes stuff, as well as other
Patreon-exclusive content, please check out

00:15:32.040 --> 00:15:33.500
my Patreon page.

00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:35.980
Thank you for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

00:15:36.920 --> 00:15:40.100
♫ swelteringly smooth jazz ♫

00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:45.400
Alright, so I was ready to buy a heater just
like this one for this video, as Pelonis was

00:15:45.400 --> 00:15:49.529
among my list of offending manufacturers who
categorize based upon room size.

00:15:49.529 --> 00:15:53.339
But, at least for oil-filled heaters, they’ve
dropped that.

00:15:53.339 --> 00:15:55.690
Now it simply says “whole room heater”.

00:15:55.690 --> 00:16:00.029
They’re apparently not quite out of the
woods yet, as this little thing is marked

00:16:00.029 --> 00:16:04.500
“small room” even though, you guessed
it, it’s 1,500 watts.

00:16:04.500 --> 00:16:08.740
But, I will give them credit for this very
handy and truthful guide to which type of

00:16:08.740 --> 00:16:11.149
space heater is appropriate for which application.

00:16:11.149 --> 00:16:15.540
Though there were apparently a few render
bugs when it comes to the illustrations.

00:16:15.540 --> 00:16:19.960
Comfort Zone is still happily slapping room
size suggestions on their products, but notably

00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:24.430
their oil-filled heaters, at least the ones
for sale here, have gotten smaller and are

00:16:24.430 --> 00:16:26.860
only rated 1,200 watts now.

00:16:26.860 --> 00:16:31.800
My guess is that this was a cost-cutting measure,
and if you reduce its physical size and thus surface

00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:34.980
area you’ll need to lower heat output, too.

00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:39.670
Both Comfort Zone and Pelonis used to rate
this style as for a “large room”, but

00:16:39.670 --> 00:16:44.149
perhaps as a result of the 300W reduction,
Comfort Zone has downgraded theirs to only

00:16:44.149 --> 00:16:46.690
a “medium sized room”.

00:16:46.690 --> 00:16:51.399
Which is actually even more humorous, because
this medium room heater produces less heat

00:16:51.399 --> 00:16:53.090
than this small room heater.

00:16:53.090 --> 00:16:54.090
Go figure.

00:16:54.090 --> 00:16:57.880
I find this example particularly egregious
because they’re suggesting that a physically

00:16:57.880 --> 00:17:02.460
larger heater, using the same ceramic heating
element technology, is better for a larger

00:17:02.460 --> 00:17:03.460
room.

00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:05.030
It’s got two heating elements!

00:17:05.030 --> 00:17:07.209
Surely it puts out more heat!

00:17:07.209 --> 00:17:08.250
No!

00:17:08.250 --> 00:17:11.030
This is just yet another design that you can
pick from.

00:17:11.030 --> 00:17:13.660
And hopefully you pick the most profitable
one!

00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:14.160
Oh.

00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:16.760
These things.

00:17:17.280 --> 00:17:20.640
I wonder how many watts this uses.

00:17:21.280 --> 00:17:25.360
Well, 5,127 prototypes, that’s useful I
guess.

00:17:25.360 --> 00:17:27.080
I guess I’ll have to look that one up online.