Warning: Hype-Free Zone An Honest EdenPURE Review & Heater Education by Industry Insiders (Love Getting the REAL Story Online? Please "Share" Us with the Buttons on the Left.)
You've seen the commercials and sales pitches by everyone selling EdenPURE and other infrared heaters and making bold claims against other space heaters. And maybe you've seen skeptics telling you these infrared heaters aren't any better. What's the truth?
We've been working with EdenPURE heaters for years ... and we can't stand anything but the truth. We aren't interested in tricking anyone into buying a more expensive heater. But we want you getting the right heater for YOUR needs. (And avoiding those that don't work.) So please read our review and find out what kind of heating you really want.
When does a portable electric heater make sense?
First, there's a lot of hoopla about how infrared heaters will save you money, but some of this is misinformation. So let's clear this up.
Any electric heater will basically produce the same amount of heat for the same cost. The savings come from how that heat is used. If your furnace is electric, you're heating your entire home at one time at the same cost as running around 10 portable electric heaters at once (1500 watts each) in a moderate home (1500 square feet). The advantage of portable heaters is that you can keep much of your house cooler, then heat only those areas you're using, especially if you can close them off with doors.
Example: if you reduced your use of a 15,000 watt electric furnace by 1 hour a day, you could use a 1500 watt zone heater for 10 hours at the same cost and keep one area much warmer. Use the zone heater for just 5 hours a day and save money. If your electric rate were 10 cents per kwh, this would save you about 75 cents a day, or more than $20/month. Obviously just a simple example.
If you use gas or oil or propane to heat your home, these prices vary against electricity in costs of heating your home. If you want to really do your homework, you could use a calculator like this one to estimate costs of heating your home with each heating source. This will only be accurate if you enter the costs of each fuel source in your area.
Electricity is often the most expensive way of heating a home. But this is only true if you're heating the entire house. So again, with zone heating, you could drastically cut back on heating use if you turn the furnace down and only warm the areas that need to be warmed with a portable heater.
If you're going to use a portable heater, then we only recommend electric heaters because we don't like the idea of moving oil or propane around inside the house. Make sure the electric heater has safety shut-off features and of course keep it away from anything flammable.
BOTTOM LINE: Zone heating (portable electric heaters) always make sense if you have an electric furnace and you'll turn it down to use zone heating. Portable heaters could make sense vs. other heating fuels as well if you're using this same technique and depending on costs in your area.
Another important benefit to portable electric heaters
It's one thing to point out the cost of different fuel sources in heating a home, but also consider this: when you have more than one person in a home, they're likely to be comfortable at different temperatures. Also, you often have some rooms running colder than others.
So if one person is cold, do you want them turning up the furnace heating and then making everyone else feel hot? No, and that's where portable electric heat becomes important regardless of cost. You can warm a room that is colder than the rest of the house, or keep someone comfortable without causing discomfort for everyone else.
What does it cost to run a portable electric heater?
The actual cost of running one depends on your electricity rates and what setting you run the heater on. For a simple example, let's say that electricity costs you 10 cents per kilowatt hour. If you run a 1500 watt heater on high for one hour, you would use 1.5 kilowatt hours, and it would cost you 15 cents. This means it would cost you $3.60/day or $108/month if you ran it on high for 24 hours a day. Which no one would do.
Rates could be half that amount, or twice that amount, depending on where you live. You can also run many heaters on lower settings when heating smaller areas, and those with thermostats will turn on and off as needed, saving you even more.
Now we have seen people complain that they bought a heater and it drove their electric bills up by $100 or $200, but this can't be true unless you've run the heater non-stop AND you failed to turn down your central heat. In which case your house would be roasting hot. We think people have mistaken colder weather (and the way it drives up heating costs) for the cost of running their portable heater.
Used correctly, a portable electric heater can save you a lot of money. In a worse case scenario, it can never cost you more than any other form of electric heat. (Unless you have tried warming a large area with a radiant heater. Read more about these below.)
What about oil or propane heaters?
Electricity is more convenient, safer, and less messy. In some areas, it may also be cheaper. Also, when you hear people talking about portable heaters "burning" the air, this only happens with heaters that heat from combustion and have a flame, as propane and oil heaters do. This lowers oxygen in a room and reduces air quality. So indoors, you want to stick with portable electric heaters.
If you still prefer this type, you can buy the one pictured on Amazon here. It is a best seller for them.
Convection or Radiant?
Some of the ads for infrared heaters show how well infrared heaters warm up a room compared with other heaters. But we said we'd tell you the truth in this review. So the truth is they're comparing themselves with RADIANT heaters. These heaters have no fans and do not move warm air around. They are designed to only warm the spot in front of them.
Radiant heaters can run at a lower wattage (saving you money) while keeping you just as warm ... as long as you basically don't move. So this can be good when you're sitting at a desk all day or you're in the garage at a work bench and you know you can't heat the entire garage with convection heaters.
The one pictured here is great when you're sitting at a desk and has a safety shut-off if tipped over. Be careful with this type, though, because the front can get extremely hot. You can buy it on Amazon here.
However, if you are trying to warm a room, you absolutely must choose a convection heater, which is any heater that moves warm air with a fan. (Natural convection heaters have no fan, so they're quieter, but warm a room more slowly because they depend on the room's own air movement. We'll focus on heaters with fans.)
Can you get away with a traditional electric heater?
To sum up, portable electric heaters can save you money on indoor heating, and in most cases you want a fan convection heater. But don't let the ads confuse you: traditional electric heaters basically heat up a room as well as infrared heaters.
So if you're just looking for the cheapest electric heater, stick with a ceramic heater for $100 or less. Many offer a remote control and automatic temperature regulation. Look to Amazon for reviews and great prices. Remember to avoid "radiant" heaters unless you prefer to just heat one spot.
While traditional electric heaters warm up a room pretty well overall, we still think that infrared heaters are the premium. So if you're looking for the very best in heaters, here are some of the reasons why we like infrared heaters:
Like many people, we believe that infrared radiation has therapeutic qualities. While these heaters don't warm you directly with infrared, we believe some of the radiation penetrates the heaters and may offer some unadvertised benefits. Infrared gets inside the body and warms you from the inside; people with sore joints and other conditions say that their infrared heaters make them feel better than other heaters. This may explain why pets are drawn to them as well.
SOME infrared heaters have a different design from traditional space heaters that allow them to generate a broad, warm wind rather than a thin stream of high heat. Directed toward you, this warms you much better and in our opinion moves warmth more comfortably through the air. This is true of more EdenPURE models, as well as those that are simply EdenPURE knock-offs.
This special design also leads to quieter heating. Think of blowing air through your mouth when it's wide open vs. blowing air through your mouth with your lips pursed shut (as in whistling). The whistling approach creates a lot more noise. This is again true of most EdenPURE models and their knock-offs.
Unlike traditional heaters, some infrared heaters can double as a simple yet elegant end table. (Use common sense and don't put liquids on them.) So they look better and aren't just uselessly taking up floor space. Once again, this was initially only an EdenPURE quality, and is now true of some of its knock-offs.
What's the best infrared heater?
As you can imagine, this depends on your specific needs. Some come with air purifiers and humidifiers, which can be very useful. Some have remote controls and temperature settings. And importantly, there are different types of heating elements.
Quartz infrared bulbs have a lifetime of about 20,000 hours, which is pretty good ... when they actually last that long. We've seen a lot of complaints about them dying sooner. We prefer PTC heating elements, which are said to last around 80,000 hours (basically a lifetime) and produce a broader spectrum of infrared radiation, which may offer more therapeutic benefits. So if you find a PTC heater with the right features and at the right price (see our recommendation below), we recommend this over quartz infrared bulbs!
Portable Heater Reminder:
Do NOT expect ANY portable heater to successfully heat a large area if the heater's somewhat closed off from most of the area. The air MUST move freely through the entire area to warm up, and it takes time. Remember, furnaces move air through the whole house at once with a powerful blower and vent system. Portable heaters move air from one spot only. Use these heaters to supplement heat and you can enjoy their benefits!
Making Your Purchase
We hope this honest review has helped you make an educated buying choice and has offered some value for you. If so, please consider buying through our links (to the heaters above, or the EdenPURE option below).
EdenPURE is also selling their Wall-Hugger, which is designed to save space in a room and is well reviewed on Amazon.You can also just search for EdenPURE on Amazon and you'll get several of their heaters and those from their competitors, some of which have hundreds or even thousands of reviews and are rated very, very highly for lower costs than EdenPURE heaters. So you can consider those as you venture into infrared heating.
