Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

Intro…

Upon researching various types of heaters for the past week, I came to the conclusion that this heater would be a good pick for a bedroom. I ended up purchasing a Lasko heater for the living room and this DeLonghi Mica Panel Heater for the bedroom. The reason I chose this brand over other mica panels is due to my experience with their products in the past. I’ve owned a DeLonghi Magnifica Espresso machine, which has worked flawlessly for over 4 years along with a DeLonghi Radiator Heater which has worked just as great. If you dont know much about DeLonghi, they are a European-based company that makes quality appliances, specifically utilizing German-engineering.

Overall Thoughts…

Upon testing out this new technology heater, I noticed that it had all of the great features that a radiator heater had. To add to the conventional radiator heater, it also features instant-on heat while maintaining a low-profile size. Due to the thin profile, this heater can be wall-mounted like a picture frame. However, I’d recommend keeping the heater as low as possible since heat tends to rise, pushing the cold air down. Another great feature about this heater is the quietness during use. Because there are no fans or moving parts, there are no constant noises. A conventional radiator heater makes a considerable amount of noise from the oil dripping inside. So how is the heat output from this new Mica Thermic technology? To put it short, it provides an ample amount of heat similar to an oil radiator heater, but has the advantage of instant heat. This gives you instant warmth when you stand in front of the heater immediately after you turn it on. This is something that you cannot obtain with a conventional radiator heater.

Final Thoughts…

Overall, I’m very surprised at this new technology for heating. It provides all of the great radiation type heat which maintains the temperature of the room quite well, without having to wait. Also, the low profile gives many options on where to put the heater. Lastly, the device is VERY safe. The cage around the heater provides 100% security from being burned, and the front panel can be touched comfortably without ever being burned. However, upon checking the temperature of heat output with an IR thermometer, it provided 300-400 degrees F of heat. Its quite surprising to see those types of numbers, as you can touch the front panel stays considerably cooler than the heat output. The heater also has an auto-off feature if it tips over. A great heater for an enclosed room, however, be sure that the room is around 150 sq. feet or less. Any larger, and this heater will not provide an ample amount of heat. For larger spaces, take a look at the Lasco Space Heater.

This is our third winter with one of these. We’d originally gotten it with couple of Vornados — and, in spite of a CR recommendation, we should’ve skipped the Vornadoes and gotten two of these. THIS thing really, really works well!

We use it in a 200 sq ft bedroom, with the rest of the house left at 63 at night. On the LOW setting this heater can easily push the room to 80 on a 20-degree night.

A control suggestion (to be followed under your own advisement!):
Right from the beginning I used a Lux WIN100 plug-in thermostat. I removed the sensor and attached a 30-foot extension lead to it. The thermostat and heater are positioned on the colder outside wall, with the sensor on a small homemade pedestal on my wife’s night table, on the opposite side of the room. Works perfectly. If you have any mechanical/electrical ability, the modification takes about the same time as writing the description. (I’ve since learned that terrarium-keepers use the same method (with other heaters, of course.))

We’ve never used this heater on HIGH. (I would think that without a separate thermostat it could cook you to medium-well overnight.)

On the LOW setting it averages a 30% cycle time set at 69 through the winter nights (as measured with a Kill-a-Watt). So, if it’s on for 9 hours/night at 750W, it runs for 3 hours and costs about .75/night. (Our oil burner eats 0.6 gal/hour at .99/gal, or about .40/hour. Heating the whole house to heat the bedroom is obviously nuts.)

Oh — we also have a solar system that averages 10,000 kWh/year, so you get the picture!

The other Lux thermostat kicks the oil burner on in the morning — as this heater gets turned off simultaneously.

Be advised that this heater makes some “crinkly” noises when it heats, especially when new. You’ll ignore it by Day 3.

I’ve tried several types of electric space heaters – radiant heater with resistive wire ribbon, oil-filled radiator, quartz, and now this. This is by far the best. The ribbon and quartz heaters glowed bright orange, lighting up the entire room. The Sunbeam/Holmes quartz tower heater made a rattling noise from the heating elements and also had a fan which was really loud and quite startling when half asleep. I nearly had a heart attack when it came on a couple of times when I was half asleep. It lasted less than 2 seasons due to an unbelievably primitive thermostat which stuttered and turned on/off every few seconds for as long as a few minutes before it stuck in either the on or off mode. The oil filled heater worked OK for a few years until the heat broke the perimeter weld and it began to leak oil on the floor.

This heater is absolutely fantastic so far. It’s not absolutely silent like an oil-filled radiator. You can hear a very quiet hum which sounds like a transformer when the thermostat turns the heater on. You only hear it at night when everything is absolutely silent in the room, and it’s barely audible. The hum is louder on the high setting, but still quiet. The unit heats up fully within a minute or two and heats up a room as fast as any other type of space heater. It emits no light. The heating element appears to be a heavy paper or fabric sheet which is suspended in the middle of the housing. There’s no fan.

The upper knob is the off/low/high switch. The lower knob is the thermostat, which reads 1 through 6. I only use it on the low setting with the thermostat set at 2. It heats up a 250 sq. ft. room with a 10-foot ceiling like nothing when it’s 40 degrees F outside.

It has a recess on the back side in the middle of the upper edge which serves as a handle. It’s very light and can be moved very easily by lifting. It has 4 rollers for feet which not only makes it easy to roll around, but keeps it from tipping over if it’s bumped, since it will roll out of the way instead of tipping over. It has a tip-over switch which turns it off if it’s tilted too much, not that it ever gets hot enough to ignite anything. The tip-over switch makes a rattling noise like something is loose inside if you shake the heater – it’s not a broken part inside.

Unlike an oil-filled radiator heater, it only emits heat from one side which allows you to move it out of the way and use it without fear of heating whatever is behind it. The back side is so cool that it comes with a plastic bracket which allows you to hang the heater on a wall.

So far this heater is fantastic. I’ve used it for one season without any issues. I recently bought 2 more and to see if they will allow me to stop using propane central heat altogether. I placed two of them in the living room, plugged them both in and set them to full blast. 10 minutes later, they tripped the living room breaker, so I tried one on full blast for a couple of hours. It took 2 hours to go from 60 degrees to 62 degrees inside. It’s obvious that one isn’t powerful enough to heat most of the house, and going by the paltry increase in temperature, I’m now sure 2 of them wouldn’t cut it either.

These work great in a closed bedroom to heat up the whole room. If using on in a large space like a living room, it’ll only warm people who are close enough to feel the warmth coming off of it.