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(More customer reviews)My home currently uses central air conditioning, and gas fueled forced air heating. This spring I'm enlarging one bedroom and bath, and adding a bedroom and bath, and don't want the new rooms tied into the existing HVAC system - no more heating the whole house every morning just to take comfortable showers in the winter; no more cooling the whole house to sleep in the summer.
I'm a skeptic, so I decided to test these heaters before committing to it. One of my bedrooms is 10x10 - exactly the size Econo-Heat claims can be heated with one panel, therefore the perfect test. It's a corner room, with the north and east sides exposed. 8" block construction with no insulation. I closed the louvres on the existing heat register, and covered it with foil to make sure no heat from the central system would leak into the room. I also closed the door to isolate the room as much as possible.
Installing the heater was as easy as Econo-Heat claimed. 10 minutes after opening the box the heater was ready to take over.
As fate would have it, we're having near record breaking cold for early March. Miserable, but perfect for the test. It was 18 degrees when I awoke this morning ("real feel" 12 degrees according The Weather Channel). I opened the door and was pleased to find the room felt just about the same as the rest of the house, which was 70-71 degrees. The only drawback is that there does seem to be a slight difference in the temperature on the opposite side of the room. But the far side of the room is the corner exposed to the weather on 2 sides, so it's a 'worst case scenario', and not a major concern. A plus for these panels is the 'soft' heat, which stays consistant rather that fluctuating like forced air systems.
People's comfortable temperature zone varies. Some will be happy to maintain their heat at 70 degrees, others will not. Personally, I like to keep the heat at 72 - 73. Based on today's test in severe weather, I suspect these heaters will do the job most of the winter, and I'm going ahead with them for all the bedrooms, both baths and a walk-in closet. For anyone who, like me, prefers having the ability to attain a higher temperature at times, you can simply oversize the installation with an extra panel, and use a thermostat to control the temperature.
Using my actual gas heating bill in a comparison to what I would expect to pay using these heaters (based on Econo-Heat's 3-cents/hour approximation), it appears that these heaters can at best yield a 35% savings, and at worst just a slight savings. These figures will be, of course, dependent on gas & electricity costs, which do fluctuate. BUT - this is based whole house central heating. That won't be the case, as I will no longer have to heat the whole house each morning just to get ready for work, so in reality I'm hopeful that the savings will be on the high side of my estimate.
Econo-Heat has specific installation guidlines, and I would suggest following them to maximze the heaters' efficiency:
1. Mount them with the bottom of the panel 6-8" above the floor.
2. If possible, mount on an interior wall.
3. If necessary to mount on an exterior wall, choose a location that's not close to a window.
4. Leave the heater on for the first 24 hours to acclimatize to its environment.
I'm wondering if the last reviewer installed his heaters correctly, since I find that I do feel a gentle heat flow coming from behind the top of the panel. I know very little about how heat works in terms of heat transfer or surface temperature that he wrote about. I only know what I feel, and on day one, before the 24-hour acclimation period has even ended, I am quite comfortable with the heat in my test room.
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