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Oil filled rads will hold heat longer and thusly will take longer to heat up.

> Also is there any pros for using oil filled heater over fan heater?

They're silent (so well-suited for a bedroom) and have less fire risk than some other products with an exposed heating element. They work like a radiator you can place under the window.

I have a DeLonghi oil filled and it takes a couple hours max to heat a large bedroom.

De'Longhi Comfort Temp Full Room Radiant Thermostat, 3 Heat Settings, Energy Saving, Safety Features, Nice for Home with Pets/Kids, 27" x 6.5" x 15.5", Light Gray

What we used to do was put a box fan on low a couple feet away from the oil filled heater to hurry up the process sometimes. They are quite slow at warming up a room but a lot more efficient than most electric space heaters and minimal fire risk. If you can keep them on the medium setting are better yet the low extremely efficient.

Some models come with timers where you can set the time for it to come on & shut off. Once set it's always in effect until you physically change it.

I have 5, one in every room. They are the on-time models. They stay on pretty much all the time but I adjust the temp on them for daytime and sleeping time.

I wouldn't use any other type of heating even though my house has newer HVAC.

Silent and dark, both of which are crucial for a bedroom.

That seems too long, but I don't know just how small the bedroom is, nor how cold it is outside. Both would affect heating times. Also, heating up a well insulated room is very different from trying to heat a space that doesn't hold the heat inside. So for instance, single-pane windows are going to allow heat to escape, whereas the newer double or triple pane do a better job of insulating.

I've used oil filled radiators because they don't bother my asthma.

Sounds like your heater doesn't draw enough wattage to heat that room. Don't look at how big the heater is but by much wattage they draw. Most oil heaters uses 1500W which should be enough to heat a large room(depending on insulation/environmental factors). All heaters have their pros and cons but they all produce the same amount of heat if they draw the same wattage. Something something...rules of thermodynamics.

Depends on how many degrees you're trying to raise the temperature and what setting you have it on. I have the same brand 1500 watt heater in my small basement office, on high it'll heat it up 3-4 degrees in a little over an hour, on low it takes longer. My daughter has the same model in her medium size bedroom in the basement, it probably takes a few hours to warm up the room.

The benefit of oil heaters is if you leave it on constantly they do a much better job keeping the room at a constant temperature. Mine started on low all the time, my daughter's stays between medium and low.

It definitely takes longer but stays warmer so much longer, uses less power, is safer, quieter, and does a much better job of evenly heating up the space. I just got one a couple months ago and it’s leagues better than a fan heater. It’s -40C near me right now and this thing heats up my room on the lowest setting.

Respectfully, I’m not sure if “uses less power” is correct. A 1500W oil filled radiator will use exactly the same amount of power as any other kind of space heater with a 1500W rating if both are run for the same period of time. That’s precisely what the rating indicates.

How can they be a lot more efficient? They’re still just a resistive heater.

The one I have is energy efficient and additionally only uses 700W on the lowest setting.

Yes. I use oil filled heaters in rooms where I maintain a more steady temperature, and/or light/noise/fire are of concern.

The addition of the fan uses ever so slightly more electricity, but with the benefit increasing temperature much faster.

My oil filled one is also programmable. So if I know it takes four hours to heat a room to where I want it I just set it to turn on four hours early.

When you add the fan...they aren't.

They are still quiet, put off no light, and won't generally start a fire or burn anyone.

Yep. Booth are 100% efficient and the only electric products that can be 100% efficient. The oil ones might be perceived as more efficient because they keep letting off heat once turned off, so the room doesn’t cool as quickly after use.

Electric heaters turn electrical energy into thermal energy and are 100% efficient. So using less energy means it’s just not creating as much heat. It’s 1:1, and the different between radiator and fan+coils is the rate at which they heat.

Get a small fan and put it on the other side of the room from the oil heater. Put the fan on low. You just want to push air through it, not blow on it. It takes a while to heat up and once it's hot if you blow on it too hard you'll cool it off and it won't heat anything.

If you don't use a fan the heat from the oil heater just goes straight up to the ceiling and heats up your jerkoff neighbor's apartment upstairs

Fuck that guy

Get a small fan and move air through the heater and get a little room circulation going.

The other way to go is to take a medium fan and point it towards a ceiling corner of the room or straight up to the ceiling just to get full room circulation going and that will do the job as well, but you might want to orient the heater such that air moves easily through it once you figure out how the air is moving.

I think the main disadvantage is that the 1500w fan heater has to be running 100% of the time to both heat up my room and keep it warm. Once I turn it off the temperature immediately begins dropping. The oil heater only needs 700w to heat the room and keep it warm. If I then turn it off, it can still give off heat from the hot oil for a few hours. Even taking into account that the oil heater takes longer to get hot, I’ve been saving money.

That is 100% reasonable. I use an oil filled radiator for the same reason.

Thermodynamics dude...

Yes they are a resistive heater but how the energy transfer takes place is what gives them an advantage.

The fan was only for speeding up the process for getting the room up to temperature after it's up to temperature they don't need it.

This isn't really correct. A 1500 watt heater will heat the same space with the same thermal load in half the time as a 750 watt heater. The oil heater if it only takes 700 watts is going to take over double the time to bring the room to temperature compared to the fan heater. This is because of the thermal load of the oil itself plus having half the power of the fan heater. The only reason you are thinking you are saving money is that it's off but in reality you paid for that heat energy that is being released by the oil. If both have decent functioning thermostats they will both use the same exact amount of energy to heat the same space to a desired temp.

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There are advantages to oil heaters like being quieter but saving your money isn't one of them.

I stand by my comment.

More thermal mass means longer to heat but longer to cool. If your power goes out, the oil filled heater will keep your room warm longer than a simple blower style heater.

The more you cool the radiator the more you heat the room as more heat is transferred to the surrounding air. Remember, energy cannot be created or destroyed ....

The book may say but I tell you from experience that if you cool off the heater too much it isn't going to throw heat anywhere near as much as if you let it stay hot.

You canne change the laws of physics ...

Maybe having the fan on high in your room would make you colder.

My Mrs was using an oil filled radiator in our conservatory last winter to dry clothes (2kwh)

Last December cost me £330!

That was when electric was cheaper

That damn radiator went in the shed, never to be plugged in again

It's called "heat capacity" different materials have a different heat capacity. The same weight of different materials can hold more/less energy depending on the material

I would be happy to break this down as I really recommend oil heaters! Of course, your mileage may vary if you live in a warmer climate and/or have better insulation. Let’s say I want to have my room at about 22C for 6 hours though.

The oil heater does take some time to get really hot, about 1 hour. If I run it for a total of 5 hours at 700w that’s 4 hours of heat. Then after unplugging it, the hot oil can keep my room warm for 2-3 more hours. Being conservative, let’s assume 2. That’s 6 hours of heat for 5 hours running time at 700w. The fan heater on the other hand heats up the room pretty quickly. I only need to run it for half an hour at 1500w to get to 24C. But to maintain it, it has to stay running. If we assume the low 750w setting is adequate to do so, that’s 6 hours of heat for 5.5 hours of runtime at 750w. Plus the half an hour of 1500w. In my experience the oil heater pulls ahead even more but again, in optimal conditions it may not be something you personally notice. I’ve noticed savings already though and these will only add up more significantly throughout the year.

This will explain it.

https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM

This. A fan behind it to circulate the air will make the difference. Also, keep in mind that electrically powered heating is just not cheap.

I’m not sure what you think needs to be explained at this point but regardless I’m certainly not going back to a fan heater that costed me more and didn’t perform as well.

Once again they cost literally the same to run. That is my entire point lol. Electric resistive heat is 100% efficient. If it's the same room in the same conditions there will be no difference in the cost to heat said room to the same temp for the same amount of time.

You are mistaking the oil heater being more efficient when in reality it just has a larger thermal mass which will let heat off after you turn it off. It still took the same amount of heat to heat that thermal mass up.

Oil heaters are nicer for bedrooms since they are quiet. I'm simply trying to correct that last sentence you said where they are cheaper to run. They aren't.

My dude, my point is in your first sentence. If I can run the heater less often, I am saving money. You can check out my break down again if you want. Pretty sure my electric company wouldn’t lower my bills if I was just mistaking it being cheaper to run though.

Once again you aren't factoring in the extra energy to heat the extra thermal load of the oil.

Also correlation does not equal causation. There are a multitude of other variables that will effect your electric bill.

These are not designed to be turned on/off. They are designed to warm a room and maintain it warm.

I use the higher end one that has flat sides. It forms a chimney that effectively blows hot air out of the top. No moving parts. Well worth the extra $50-$75 extra. Mine has sleep timer, 3 power settings, digital thermostat. Inexpensive to operate because no moving parts.

But you can change the efficiency by modifying airflow.

It helps more effectively move energy around the room, meaning you might need less heat to feel warm on the other side of the room. But the efficiency is still the same. They’re both 100% efficient. You can only get higher by using like a heat pump.

Yea man, I literally did. You know people don’t live in a vacuum under these so called perfect conditions right? There’s a multitude of factors why the oil heater is cheaper to run for me but you’re free to choose whatever works best for you personally.

EDIT: Less kilowatt hours used = lower electric bill. Nobody is arguing thermodynamics lol.

I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me or contradicting me.

If you agree, ignore this, if not, here’s the explanation:

Electric heaters are the only things that are 100% efficient. All other devices lose energy by putting off heat. A motor turns but coils heat up for example so that’s wasted energy. A heaters purpose is to convert electric energy to thermal energy. There’s no other form of energy that it puts off as waste.

They take a while to heat up but also will remain hot for a good long while after your turn it off so it evens out. My mom still has teo DeLongi oil heaters that she bought when I was a child. There's almost nothing that goes wrong with them and they've changed very little.

Possibly. What OP is probably noticing is that if more heat is transferred by convection, there may be less heat transferred as radiant heat, so if you sit or stand in front of it, you maybe won't feel the warmth so much. The heat is still transferred, but using a different method. So, the room may be warmed more efficiently with more air flow, but, for example, your legs, if you are sitting facing it, may not be. So it depends what you want. Are you more interested in warming the room, or your person?

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I just put the heat where I need it so I can use less.

I'm counting the energy use of the fan as a loss, but yes, they're both 100% efficient. We're in total agreement on that. Cheers.

Fans actually not a loss either. The loss is in heat which this case is the desired effect!

Thermodynamics can be non-intuitive some times, but the rules are quite simple and don't depend on any "perfect conditions". Anyone who paid attention in a college physics class is rolling their eyes at your willful ignorance. If you're using electricity to heat your home the only things you can do to improve efficiency is improve insulation, selectively heat the rooms you are in, or switch from resistive heating to a heat pump. The fact that your electricity bill went down around the time you made a change to your setup doesn't undo basic scientific facts.