Glen 500 Watt 2150Tie7 Skirting Heater, Wall mount or Free standing Electric Convector Heater, Super-slim, 500 Watt Heat Output With LCD Display And Electronic Programmable Timer

Product Information

The oil in the radiator acts as a heat reservoir, which stays hot for some time after the heater's switched off. Some are called 'oil-free' and function in a comparable way, just with an internal heating element instead of any oil. On the downside, this type can be quite noisy and they don't have some of the more advanced features you can get with convector heaters. We assess how easily each electric heater can be set up and how easily understandable the controls and settings are. We used any handles to lift the heater and move it around. While some heaters can be used straight out of the box, others have complicated program and timer settings.

Central heating is much more effective at maintaining a stable temperature over a longer period, whereas the heat from an electric heater will soon dissipate if the rest of your home is cold. Bear in mind that Dimplex recommend a clearance space of 23cm on each side of the heater, and 60cm at the top, so ideally your wall, if fitting it to a wall and not leaving it free-standing, would be greater than 128cm long.

Due to the long list of factors that come into play to calculate your central heating costs, the only way you can confidently compare a heater to your central heating is to install a smart meter. You then divide your weekly heating cost by the number of hours you have it switched on and compare that figure to the cost of running your heater. Pinning down an exact comparison of how much central heating and electric heaters cost to run is nigh-on impossible, as the factors below are just some of the variables that play a part: Cold air setting Some fan heaters can help cool you down too. They're not nearly as effective as a dedicated air conditioner, but a light breeze of cold air is better than nothing. Nearly all have some kind of carry handle for moving about and many have a safety cut-out feature, which will switch off the heater if it gets dangerously hot. Although the comparison might make your electric heater look cheaper to run, bear in mind that it will only be heating a much smaller area, whereas your central heating will be aiming to heat your whole home.

Convector heaters are usually taller than fan heaters, but thin and light – making them larger, but still relatively easy to move between rooms. These have exposed heating elements, which heat up cold air as it passes. This often leads to slower, but more even, heating. They tend to be a little slower than fan heaters, but are quieter, and our tests found some are still pretty speedy. So let’s carry on with our Glen 500W Wall Mounted or Freestanding Skirt Heater review and explore the product’s pricing.Portable electric heaters use electricity, which costs 28.62p/kWh under the current energy price cap. Depending on how effective the heater is, they can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour to notably raise the temperature of a medium-sized room, so if you're only planning on using it until the room gets up to temperature, it will likely cost you between 28 and 57p. Read our full story on illegal and dangerous plug-in mini heaters for sale on online marketplaces to see those we identified as having serious safety risks. Just before we get into the detail of analysing the price of this product, we want to briefly highlight the importance of setting yourself a budget before you spend too much time shopping around for a suitable product. It’s all too often that we get carried away when shopping and find ourselves buying a fantastic product, but probably actually overdelivers on what we need and therefore costs a lot more than we should have spent. So spend a bit of time looking around at the sort of price you can expect to pay for products in the Heaters and radiators category and use that alongside your own financial situation to set yourself a budget. They tend to be cheap to run, but some can be really slow to heat up. Most oil-filled heaters are also fairly heavy and cumbersome, so look out for models that come with wheels.

If you were to try replacing the use of your central heating by putting an electric heater in each room, it will definitely end up costing much more. The brand of product you buy can vary in importance, from person to person. Some people will of course be much more particular about the brands they will use. Whilst others aren’t interested in the brand and are more interested in the overall quality or price of the product itself. Thankfully Glen is a brand that many customers have grown to love over the years and is very popular for items in the Heaters and radiators category. In our tests, we set every heater to run at full blast so you can see the maximum amount it cost to heat our medium-sized test room. If you have the thermostat of your heater set to a desired temperature, the heater will toggle on and off once it reaches that temperature – depending on what's needed to maintain it. The heater won't operate continuously, so won't cost you as much to run. Are electric heaters cheaper to use than central heating? The next step after looking at products in the same category, was to look at products from the same brand, Glen.Programmable timer Useful for setting a heater to turn on just before you get home or wake up, so there's no waiting around for the heater to warm up.