Portable heaters: Features explained
One of the first decisions you’ll have to make is what type of portable heater to choose. There are three three main types: fan, oil-filled and convector.
Fan
These are the lightest and most portable. They’re great if you want to heat a room fast as they warm up quickly.
Oil filled heaters are cheap to run
They’re easy to set up for the first time - usually you just take the heater out the box, plug it in and you’re ready to go. They can be quite noisy though.
Oil-filled
Some oil-filled heaters can be really slow to heat up after switching them on. Although you can find mini oil-filled heaters, most are pretty big and heavy. Some come with castors so they’re easier to move around.
Often you have to fit these, or the little stabilising feet that they come with, yourself. Oil-filled heaters are usually the cheapest to run, but in our tests they didn’t perform as well as other types.
Convector
Convector heaters are quite tall, like oil-filled heaters, but are thinner and usually much lighter. Like fan heaters, they heat up quickly, but they are quieter. Unlike the other types, all in our test are wall-mountable, which means they can be located out of the way.
Convector heaters have many advantages
Brackets and instructions for wall mounting are included, but you do need to drill holes in your walls. Like oil-filled models, they also usually need a bit of setting up.
Power
Another important consideration is the power of the heater – measured in watts (W) or kilowatts (kW). 1,000W is equal to 1kW.
Higher power means the heater will be better for heating big rooms. If it’s a small room you want to heat, a good, low power heater (under 2,000W, say) will be fine – and it will be cheaper to run. However, manufacturers’ claimed power is not always what it seems.
Full power?
We tested each heater to see whether it achieved the full claimed power. We found that some heaters don’t.
In the case of oil-filled heaters, once the oil inside reaches a certain temperature, the heater switches itself off for a while until the oil cools. Then it switches itself on again. The heater appears to be on throughout this process and is still hot, but this on/off nature of some heaters means that maximum claimed power, and therefore heating potential, isn’t achieved.
Timer
A timer, available on some models, is useful for setting a heater to turn on just before you get home or wake up. So, no waiting around for the heater to warm up.
Portable heaters can help to cool you down
Cold air setting
Some 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. Most often found on fan heaters.
Climate control
Climate control is a useful feature to have. Your heater will heat the room, and when the desired temperature is reached (you may need to turn a dial at this point to tell the heater the room is warm enough), the heater will try to maintain the room at that temperature. If a door or window is opened for a length of time allowing cold air in the room, the heater will work to keep the temperature stable.
Some heaters have a more advanced system where you actually set a specific temperature using an LCD display and the heater tries to maintain that temperature.