I’m looking for an electric heater for my office. Ideally it’d be really quiet. The office is well insulated, so it doesn’t need to get too hot.

Can you recommend a brand and model?

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
    14·
    23 days ago

    Not a specific brand but style of electric heater. I prefer the oil filled ones. They make zero noise and safer because they don’t have an exposed heating element that can catch things on fire by coming in contact. The one have has a temperature setting and a clock that can be programmed to turn itself on/off at designated times. Cons are they take a while to heat up and are a bit larger. Mine is tall and thin, looks a bit like a boiler radiator. The big hardware chain stores sell them, I’d expect to pay around $100.

    Looked it up on home depot website. They have a lot to pick from. Some are cheaper but with less features https://www.homedepot.com/p/NewAir-Portable-400-Watt-Electric-Oil-Filled-Silent-Slim-Fit-Design-Under-Desk-Heater-with-Energy-Efficient-Operation-White-AH-400/205588528

    • BertramDitore@lemm.eeEnglish
      71·
      23 days ago

      This. They’re surprisingly energy efficient, and while they take a bit to heat up, once they get going they really radiate. I have a small one, and it gets me through the coldest days of winter without needing to turn on the built-in heaters in my apartment.

      Bonus is that my cat loooves it. He posts up right next to it and is in cozy heaven.

  • OtherbarryEnglish
    11·
    23 days ago

    Agreed with the other comment, the sealed oil radiator heaters are near silent (no fan) and have no trouble heating up a small/mid sized room after some time. The newer ones nowadays have a thermostat so you can set the temperature to something specific & have it heat up to that temperature.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    6·
    23 days ago

    If you mostly care about sound, there are some that don’t have a fan.

    One option is a fanless convection heater, like the oil heater Hikermick recommended. These things just use passive convention to transfer heat, so they don’t have moving parts. You might hear a few sounds from the metal as the thing heats up and cools down, or maybe the relay clicking on and off occasionally to regulate the temperature, but not aside from that.

    They take a long time to come up to temperature, so they aren’t ideal if you regularly go in and out of the room, but they work fine for keeping a place at a more-or-less constant temperature.

    Another is a radiant heater. These are basically big infrared spotlights, heat lamps. At least some can make a bit of sound when heating up – I had one that did this, and another that was fully silent.

    These are good at heating up a particular location, whatever they’re aimed at, quickly, so they’re good if you just want to heat something in the room. You can aim it at yourself, have the heat immediately affect you; I’ve seen them recommended for things like bathrooms for this reason.

    Unlike oil heaters, these will emit some visible light, so they aren’t ideal if you want the room to be fully dark (e.g. I don’t know if you watch movies in your office or something, but it’ll light the room at least somewhat).

    • sbv@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      3·
      23 days ago

      I didn’t realize there were fanless options. I’ll take a look at those.

      Infrared spotlights sound like they’d get really hot, but I’ll check that out too.

      Thanks!

      • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        23 days ago

        The benefit of infrared heaters is that they only heat what they’re pointed at where as a normal heater heats the entire room. Depending on the usecase, running an infrared heater may be cheaper.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      23 days ago

      Heat output of a candle is between 30 and 100 watts. It’ll definitely be able to heat a small room if you have enough of them but they also worsen the air quality and cost more money than running an electric heater.