OIL FILLED HEATERS VERSUS HALOGEN HEATERS

[llamekuf]

Which is cheaper to run.
Oil filled heater or halogen heater?
Need to buy one very soon.

[ChuckFickens]

I'd say oil filled rad is cheaper, once the oil in them is upto temp the electricity usage is minimal, a halogen heater will be running flat out all the time.

[deggers316]

depends on how long your going to use it for, halogen very good for instant heat (if you can stand the glare),but if your going for long times than yes oil is better, i have a 3kw delonghi ,

[llamekuf]

Thank you Chuck 'IT God & Lord of the Cyber Wave' Fickens and DEGGERS316 for your prompt and helpful replies.

[buildersmate]

Come on, Chuck, being a technology type, I reckon you can do better than that. You are right but for the wrong reason.
The answer is that the halogen also produces some visible light as well as heat, so it is not 100% efficient at converting all the input power into output heat.
Purely electrical heating devices are unique in that all the input power gets turns into heat and they are 100% efficient at doing that. (That situation is different from oil-fired or gas-fired appliances, where some of heat is lost up the flue). Therefore any heating elements - irons, toasters, electric bar fires, oil-filled rads are identically efficient - they are all 100%. That doesn't make them cheaper to run than a gas fire (not the situation, I know) because electricity is so much more darn expensive than gas or ful-oil in the first place.

[beso]

Resistive heating is dinosaur technology. Electrical heating should only be done through heat pump technology which is five time the efficiency of a normal heater. Anything else is a waste of coal at the power station.

[deggers316]

and have you got a heat pump beso ??

[buildersmate]

This is true, beso, but it doesn't change my statements that I am standing by.
You need to expalin for the uninitiated, perhaps, that heat can't come from no-where, and that heat pumps effectively suck their heat energy from out of the ground (or the air for an air-source heat pump). They don;t create heat from nothing.

[lucca]

Oil-filled every time. Efficient, safe, cheaper to run.

[deggers316]

but the original question was---
Which is cheaper to run.
Oil filled heater or halogen heater?Need to buy one very soon. --
the pointless talk about heat pumps is not answering the question,
there are like me hundreds of thousands of people living in multi story flats,etc so any sort of "green" generated power is out

[deggers316]

unless you get your power from a company that uses wind turbines (and it costs a little more per unit for the consumer)

[lucca]

And I said oil-filled, deggers.

[rojash]

"The answer is that the halogen also produces some visible light as well as heat, so it is not 100% efficient at converting all the input power into output heat. "
Not sure that that statement is correct. Whilst the energy coming from the lamp is in the form of light, as soon as that light hits anything (except a mirror!) it's converted to heat.

[Bokomoko]

The original question was straight & simple, requiring a simple answer. Why do you duffel-coats go & complicate matters with a load of tripe....Wise Up.