Fountain3586 wrote:I am not really sure why people are complaining about the electric bill. I run my oil heater at 1000W for 8 hours every night and last month I paid $53.00 for electricity for my entire 900 sf home with bad basement windows...

What gives? Oh yea, I live in Omaha, where electric rates are lower than most of the country... Haha, losers.

This also means that you likely don't have the solar installers or local subsidies for alternative energy. Give it a decade and you'll be wondering why your rates have tripled.

sixiam wrote:This also means that you likely don't have the solar installers or local subsidies for alternative energy. Give it a decade and you'll be wondering why your rates have tripled.

Plus he lives in Omaha, a city so boring an insurance company uses the name.

notaguru wrote:It's a 1500W heater, exactly the same as a $12 heater from Walmart.

Are the LifeSmart watts somehow warmer? More comfortable? Cheaper? Greener?

Sometimes a watt is just a watt, and 1500 of them have precisely the same heating effect whether the source costs $109 or $12.

Well. When your nose is congested and skin is dry from using that wal-mart heater (which I have as well) maybe you should try one of these heaters before posting B.S. nonsence. I now own two of these and they are safer and less noisy without drying out the air. Highly recommend !!!

Read the specs, there are 3 heating elements, 1 infrared and 2 mica, aka ceramic. I'm guessing the ceramic elements are doing the majority of the heat production, so this is basically a ceramic heater that is being deceptively advertised to try and reel in people who don't want to spend the $ on an EdenPure. But as the other posters have said, 1500 watts is 1500 watts, but ceramic heaters give off a nasty smell in my experience. The one thing that is nice about the infrared is it tends to be "clean" heat, you don't have to run it full blast in your garage for 2 days to "burn off" the chemical smells.

spinozaq wrote:I agree with you there!

Sorry if I stepped on your toes! That was not my intention. I was only attempting to warn the original poster to get qualified advice and beware of other unqualified advisors on these posts.

I am happy for your approval of (some of) my statements. It's good to know that only good intentions are shared here on Woot.

I will sleep better knowing you've "got my back" in these situations.

shadow7118 wrote:Hit the Esc key if you want to read the comment...

Alt+F4 works better!

gwendyw wrote:These heat the physical objects in the room, not the air. If you want a stream of hot air blowing at you, this is not the droid you are looking for.

Air: No longer a physical object.

kriezel wrote:Well. When your nose is congested and skin is dry from using that wal-mart heater (which I have as well) maybe you should try one of these heaters before posting B.S. nonsence. I now own two of these and they are safer and less noisy without drying out the air. Highly recommend !!!

If they're not specifically adding moisture to the air one or the other isn't going to "dry it out" either. Given there's no combustion 1500w is 1500w being dumped into the room when on.

W9GFO wrote:This heater absolutely will not heat a 1,500 sq. ft. room. That's a ridiculous claim.

150 sq ft? Maybe.

Yep, that claim of 1500 square feet got me thinking too. So, I checked similar products at the Walmart.com site, and lo and behold, their site also says the same thing ....

"Specifications:
Single speed blower rated at a quiet 46 db
2 Power saving options 750 or 1500 watts
Rated to heat up 1200 to 1500 square feet of unobstructed area"

Guess they can heat up to 1500 square feet, or Walmart's buyers have bought the KoolAid too.

Look at the map of the United State and where this heater was purchased! (Why not one of the world, or does Woot only ship to the US?)

The cold states bought a lot, the extreme southern states not as much.

Alaska though... Alaska is black, because they're tough. They don't need not stinkin' electric heater! They use whale blubber for heat, and Eskimos to cuddle. They burn wood for the fires that they cut the night before. Electricity? Bah! They don't have electricity, but use heat from fuel from the ground, and the sky.

Yeah, Alaskans are stone tough, I tell ye!

I recently did a study on my home concerning cost for heating, and found that electric heating, while efficient, is overly pricey.

Perhaps someone mentioned the BTU output of electric heaters in a previous post, but let me clarify here:

1 kilowatt = 3413 BTUs per hour.

This is a 1.5 kilowatt heater! So it puts out 3413 X 1.5 = 5119 BTU's per hour.

For me, as my electric bill is in the 200-300% usage level, that's a cost of $0.30 a kwh, or $0.45 an hour that this thing (or any 1500 watt heater) runs.

Compare that to your average gas furnace:
At 80% efficiency, 1 therm of gas coming in puts out .8 therms of heat output into the house. Now, lets not forget heat loss due to poor insulated heat ducts and just leave it at 80%.

1 therm of Gas = 100,000 BTU output at 100% efficiency. 1 therm of Gas costs (to me) $1.29.

Since we're only getting 80% of that turned into heat (because my heater is not super efficient) the BTU output is 80,000 per 1 therm used.

tl;dr:
80,000 BTU for $1.29 for Gas heat or 5,119 BTU output at $.10-$.30 per kwh.

Gas is better. The end.

what!?
this sold out!
grr...
cold....!!

Whut? This is sold out already. Don't they know it's -5 degrees here in Michigan???

efooter wrote:Anyone who needs a space heater doesn't have a powerful enough computer.

^This. Here is a pic of one of my "space heaters":


It barfs out about 1000 watts right now, running at full blast. (Those are HD 5870's)

It's about as efficient as a regular heater (I.E., 100% resistive heat), but it makes me money. How? I use it to mine Bitcoins.

I currently make more than 1 coin per day, which at current exchange rates as of this writing equates to about $6.40. My electricity costs $0.09 kw/h so I am running a healthy profit :D

[Mod: Ad link removed.]

Fountain3586 wrote:I am not really sure why people are complaining about the electric bill. I run my oil heater at 1000W for 8 hours every night and last month I paid $53.00 for electricity for my entire 900 sf home with bad basement windows...

What gives? Oh yea, I live in Omaha, where electric rates are lower than most of the country... Haha, losers.

You live in a small Omaha house with bad basement windows and oil heating and you're calling us losers? Bwahahaha... you're a funny man! :D

Trythe wrote:
80,000 BTU for $1.29 for Gas heat or 5,119 BTU output at $.10-$.30 per kwh.

Gas is better. The end.

Or we could go one step further and actually figure out where electrical cost is equal to gas cost. There are about 16kwh in your 80% efficient therm. so....

$1.29 / ( 80,000 / 5,119 ) = $.08

If your electricity costs less then 8 cents kwh, it would be deal. If it costs about that, and you heated less area, you would save money.

I am generally against electrical heating though. Burning primary fuel is more efficient end to end given that most of our electricity comes from burning coal and gas. If we by the grace of god get up off our butts and build another 200 nuclear reactors... then we can use electricity for heat.

I bought 1 of those oil-filled Delonghi heaters 1500w. It heats a small area pretty well, but in the den, you couldn't even tell it was there. You could stand over it and barely feel the heat. Not sure if it helps or not. I keep it in the bathroom, and it does fine in there. It has a thermostat, which seems to work as the temp stays constant in there. Pretty nice for that small area I guess.

I don't think this thing will save a dime.

You can google this model, and other places sell it for the same price as woot special price. Go figure.
here is a link:
http://bensbargains.net/deal/lifesmart-ls1500-3-1500w-infrared-quartz-heater-115-at-woot--236856/?referrer=rss

rkenimer wrote:^This. Here is a pic of one of my "space heaters":


It barfs out about 1000 watts right now, running at full blast. (Those are HD 5870's)

Yet you have them hooked up with a VGA converter?

spinozaq wrote:Yet you have them hooked up with a VGA converter?

They don't do any graphics, as such. The GPUs do SHA256 hashing, and that is my KVM hooked up. I manage them with SSH, most of the time.

tesla33 wrote:... Anyway, quartz heaters aren't magic, and don't neat the air well.

Yep! I like my air to be neat as well. Can't stand those heaters that generate messy air.

We live in northern Maine and wanted something to cut down on our fuel bill and this did the trick.Our electric bill did go up but we still saved a lot in the long run because of the price of fuel oil her in Maine.To us it is well worth the money so we ordered another one.We live in a mobil home and the furnace in in our living room area so when the furnace would come on we would have to turn the tv up, not a problem now,we put the heater in the living room area and it keeps it very warm and it is quiet, turned down the furnace so we are not heating rooms that we are not in.Works for us!

W9GFO wrote:I'm not the first to point this out but I want to remind you all that as far as efficiency goes, ALL 1500 watt electric heaters have the exact same efficiency - 100%.

When things are inefficient, energy is wasted in the form of heat. If a 1500 watt heater is not efficient at turning electricity into heat, just where is that energy going? It's a rhetorical question.

Buy it because you like the way it looks, or you like that it is quiet and has a fan, but don't buy it thinking that it is more efficient than any other electric heater.

I completely disagree, because if it heats up a room quicker or to a higher temperature than another space heater, then you are getting more heat per Kwh. So if it can get the job done in 45min as opposed to another unit that would take an hour, then you save that 15min of electricity.

It's funny how I looked at this last night and thought, nah, I live in Houston. Only confirms I was right by the 80 degree temperature today. Ridiculous for late January. It's going to be one hot summer!

You are 90% correct. In actuality, oil filled heaters are more efficient, even though they have the same output, as they store and reserve heat in the oil, therefore giving off even and consistent heat even when the elements are not running. I have tried just about every space heater known, and have quite a collection still at home, and I have to say, without a doubt, that the oil filled heaters are the most efficient to run, and heat the room quite well, particularly if you have moderate air flow through the room such as a ceiling fan set to low and downdraft.

But with this type of heater, you are correct, it's no more efficient than a lot of other heaters, unless they are somehow storing heat inside the wood cabinet.

I'm sure it works just as well as any other fan-cooled 1500 watt IR-spectrum lightbulb in a box does. And used 1500 watss (plus fan) worth of energy to do so.

I purchased a Life Smart heating system Nov. 2, 2011. It is now shutting off and giving me an
E 1 code. I have called the number on the back of the booklet but no one answers. I will try emailing the company.

Anyone having the same problem??

dirtworship wrote:bought one like this, but way more expensive. Loved how it heated, until I got the electric bill. The gentleman at the Tractor Supply Store said he used 4 heaters to heat his entire house,so we bought 2 thinking we'd save money on oil heat. The electric bill tripled! From $100.00 to $300.00. Yikes!Was using the furnace as well. Now we pay attention to how we are running the heater, and the electric bill is still tripled!

Yea, this type of heater cannot be more than 100% efficient.. Ductless inverter compressor heatpumps FTW, 300+% efficient

kidge27 wrote:I completely disagree, because if it heats up a room quicker or to a higher temperature than another space heater, then you are getting more heat per Kwh. So if it can get the job done in 45min as opposed to another unit that would take an hour, then you save that 15min of electricity.

No. A 1500 watt hair dryer and this 1500 watt infrared heater and a 1500 watt stovestop range element will all output the same amount of heat, which is 5,121 BTUs. --> 1 watt is equal to 3.414 BTUs

Woot, you're not understanding... If you added a new item every single time one sold out, then you would be ranking in more cash... Why don't you do that? You'd get more warehouse space, more employees... Hmm.... MORE MONEY...

rkenimer wrote:^This. Here is a pic of one of my "space heaters"

You are the Yakko who hacked my comp... LOL.. jk

rkenimer wrote:^This. Here is a pic of one of my "space heaters"

Very interesting. Distributed computing to make a virtual bank network or something. Cool. I use seti@home and folding@Home on my laptop's video card and CPU, that's my space heater, about 90 watts.

obel1sk wrote:efficiency is lost when electricity is turned into light.. or sound... just sayin'

The amounts of electricity changed to sound or light is a terribly small fraction of the electricity used AND unless that light or sound escapes the room, it is further converted from light or sound to heat.

Heat is the "End condition" for most energy--most other conditions that we are used to seeing energy in are transitory.

By the way, this is only true as long as the entire system is contained within a room--with a heat pump you can exceed the heat efficiency by transferring heat from inside the room to outside (making it colder outside).

i don't know about anyone else but in western ny electricity cost 12 cents per KWH any sort of resistance heater will be extremely expensive to operate. i hope nobody thinks they are going to get more than the normal earthly amount of btu/kw output i have seen people on the boob tube selling these things they should be jailed!
At least woot is simply putting them out for the ignorant with out PUSHING!

Trythe wrote:I recently did a study on my home concerning cost for heating, and found that electric heating, while efficient, is overly pricey.

Perhaps someone mentioned the BTU output of electric heaters in a previous post, but let me clarify here:

1 kilowatt = 3413 BTUs per hour.

This is a 1.5 kilowatt heater! So it puts out 3413 X 1.5 = 5119 BTU's per hour.

For me, as my electric bill is in the 200-300% usage level, that's a cost of $0.30 a kwh, or $0.45 an hour that this thing (or any 1500 watt heater) runs.

Compare that to your average gas furnace:
At 80% efficiency, 1 therm of gas coming in puts out .8 therms of heat output into the house. Now, lets not forget heat loss due to poor insulated heat ducts and just leave it at 80%.

1 therm of Gas = 100,000 BTU output at 100% efficiency. 1 therm of Gas costs (to me) $1.29.

Since we're only getting 80% of that turned into heat (because my heater is not super efficient) the BTU output is 80,000 per 1 therm used.

tl;dr:
80,000 BTU for $1.29 for Gas heat or 5,119 BTU output at $.10-$.30 per kwh.

Gas is better. The end.

good luck trying to tell people they are being hoodwinked!If they believe then you will never change there mind. they think some how it's like perpetual motion!

OneStepAhead wrote:Please explain the difference between an enclosed carport and a garage?

I picture an enclosed carport as an open carport on the side of a house, built in the 70s (usually brick low sides), that is later enclosed with jalousie windows.

Unless you add water to the system somehow, the humidity will NOT increase. Psychrometrics 101!...

The heating that this unit (and every other unit) does is called simple heating because absolute humidity is NOT increased. Relative humidity (the ratio between current conditions and saturated conditions) is decreased using simple heating. The ONLY way to change absolute humidity by heating or cooling a fluid (including air) is to cool it below its dewpoint (or saturation conditions). The absolute humidity will drop by the corresponding amount on the psychrometrics chart...boy this is hard to explain in text. Pictures are much prettier...In any case, think of a cool glass of water gathering condensation on the outside. This is due to the cool surface cooling the air below its dewpoint and thus the moisture is dropping out of the air and on to the surface. The point is you can't add humidity while heating. Impossibru.

FWIW I don't claim to be 100% correct here...do your own research...it's been a while since I was in school and had Thermo, so it's pretty rusty.

-Mechanical Engineer

kidge27 wrote:I completely disagree, because if it heats up a room quicker or to a higher temperature than another space heater, then you are getting more heat per Kwh. So if it can get the job done in 45min as opposed to another unit that would take an hour, then you save that 15min of electricity.

Hope this mule isn't beaten to death yet, but it takes X amount of energy to heat a space of a give volume by a given amount. That X does not change, regardless of the input technology. X would be defined as the difference between the initial and final thermal capacities of the air. I think...anyone smarter than I care to confirm or deny?

A forty dollar heater inside an 80 dollar cabinet.

Ct./ $.19 a kilowatt./ $7.00 a day

afterburn2600 wrote:Unless you add water to the system somehow, the humidity will NOT increase. Psychrometrics 101!...

The heating that this unit (and every other unit) does is called simple heating because absolute humidity is NOT increased. Relative humidity (the ratio between current conditions and saturated conditions) is decreased using simple heating. The ONLY way to change absolute humidity by heating or cooling a fluid (including air) is to cool it below its dewpoint (or saturation conditions). The absolute humidity will drop by the corresponding amount on the psychrometrics chart...boy this is hard to explain in text. Pictures are much prettier...In any case, think of a cool glass of water gathering condensation on the outside. This is due to the cool surface cooling the air below its dewpoint and thus the moisture is dropping out of the air and on to the surface. The point is you can't add humidity while heating. Impossibru.

FWIW I don't claim to be 100% correct here...do your own research...it's been a while since I was in school and had Thermo, so it's pretty rusty.

-Mechanical Engineer

They're using semantics to their advantage here. When heating air, relative humidity ALWAYS decreases unless moisture is also added, and RH% is what people commonly refer to when they use the term 'humidity' - eg, if someone states that the humidity today is 70%, they are quoting a relative humidity value.

You are, however, correct in saying that the absolute humidity will not change when you heat the air, which is what the marketing people are referring to as well, assuming that the large majority of consumers don't know the difference.

tl;dr - It does decrease (relative) humidity

- Chemical Engineer