Best type of heater for small-ish place

We're in what I estimate to be a ~600-650 sq. ft. 2 bedroom apartment in Ajijic, and have one of those oil-filled 1500W electric heaters and a small Vornado electric. The current cold spell, which is as nasty as any I can recall in the past 5-6 years, has got me wondering if I ought to buy one of the DeLongi or similar "R2D2" propane heaters.

Has anyone used heaters like the ones we already have for a prolonged cold spell like this, and if so has the electricity usage been bad enough to bump up your rates?

Coffeeguy, contact Zed regarding the delongi, I liked mine and sold 2 of them  to Zed last year.
Bought them @ Home Depot in GDL. I was always concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning though....

We had one of the DeLonghi's a couple of years ago when we were in a good-sized house and it was great...just wondering if it's overkill for our smaller space. Also don't know where I'd buy one at this late date...would imagine you could pretty much name your price for one right now given this weather!

I have wall units of the DeLonghi version and have had them for years..
I am not worried about the ventless part as thre is plenty of air coming fro under the doors or the skylights ..They are far superior to the electric oil heaters because you can heat a room very quickly which you cannot do with the oil heaters.  Since we sleep with all windows and doors open, it is nice to be able to heat the rooms quickly in the morning.

Jim W wrote:Coffeeguy, contact Zed regarding the delongi, I liked mine and sold 2 of them  to Zed last year.
Bought them @ Home Depot in GDL.  I was always concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning though....

No Carbon monoxide with these. Once they warm up the catalytic coatings burn up all the bad stuff just like the cat in your car. It does burn up the
oxygen in the air which is why you don't use them in a tight house (not here laugh out loud). If you are concerned start them with a window open and
five minutes later shut the window as the cats will be working on the heater by than to burn all the bad stuff up. These heaters are very efficient and
they sell two types around here. One that has a thermostat and only one panel works all the time. The other two panels go on and off as the thermostat
tells them. The other type is another three panel type that you control manually running one two or three panels. The thermo feature is nice but it does
let a little smell of propane (probably butane in reality here) as the burners go on again when the thermostat kicks in. I really like these units and have
found them to be safe and efficient.

Z

coffeeguy wrote:We had one of the DeLonghi's a couple of years ago when we were in a good-sized house and it was great...just wondering if it's overkill for our smaller space. Also don't know where I'd buy one at this late date...would imagine you could pretty much name your price for one right now given this weather!

Not overkill at all as you can either run one with a thermostat as I posted before or on the manually run unit run one, two , or three panels.

Z

Thanks Zed. Now I just need to figure out how to buy one (we are temporarily car-less so a Home Depot trip isn't in the offing - and they're probably sold out anyway). May have to tough it out until end of winter when folks get rid of them, but will look around.

We went to Home Depot Tlaquepaque to look at these today -- they have plenty of them, DeLonghi and other brands, if you could figure out how to get there. You would also need to buy the (empty) propane tank (sold there) since they don't come with a tank.

But we were also concerned about using a unvented gas heater in our pretty airtight house so we asked the salespeople, who recommended against using them indoors. The instructions specifically say that they should NOT be used in small rooms like bedrooms.

We decided against getting the heater although with this weather the temptation was strong!

That said I know people who use them and love them and have never heard of anyone having a safety issue. So if you want one I guess you have to figure out how to get down there, or maybe others will be travelling there.

The problem is they do burn oxygen so you need to make sure you have window cracked or other fresh air source. That is the concern with small rooms such as a bedroom.

Come on, an airtight house around here? You must be joking!

Airtight or not I wouldn't be running a propane heater in a small bedroom with the windows and door closed. Would you?

There is also CO to worry about.

CanuckBob wrote:Airtight or not I wouldn't be running a propane heater in a small bedroom with the windows and door closed. Would you?

There is also CO to worry about.

CO is eaten up by the Catalytic coating on the heater elements.     O is the problem.  I use them in a small room with the door open to hall and a slightly cracked window. My CO detector never went off using these NOB.  They are clean.  Do you know driving in a heavily polluted area with a new car that the
air going into the engine can be dirtier than the air out the exhaust?  This is due to two sets of cat converters one near the engine to start fast and a bigger
one farther back in enhaust system. These furnaces work using the same principal as cars use to clean the exhaust. Open window for first five minutes until cats get hot than close window if you are worried. Same as a car do not use contaminated fuel as it ruins the cats. Not much bad propane/butane
so I don't think it would be a problem here.

Use common sense folks but basically these units are very safe in a leaky Mexican house.

Z

I am sure we could come up with a list of "heater test dummies" from the membership!

Zed, thanks for the additional info about these units. Maybe we will consider one again in the future.

I did know someone who died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Left his car running in the garage while he ran in to answer the phone. When he came back out he didn't even make it from the house door to the car before collapsing. By the time his wife (my coworker) found him, he was past saving. This incident left an indelible impression on me about CO.

And yes, my house here, recently built, seems to be about as airtight as the one we had up north. With one exception, there's no way to close the chimney flue. So maybe that alone would supply enough air for the heater.

It does seem like a lot of people use them down here and I've never heard of anyone having a problem of any kind. So I'm not trying to talk anyone out of getting one! They sound like they work great and have pretty sophisticated safety features. And if our winter here continues like it has so far, I'm sure I'll regret not getting one.

Zedinmexico wrote:

CanuckBob wrote:Airtight or not I wouldn't be running a propane heater in a small bedroom with the windows and door closed. Would you?

There is also CO to worry about.

CO is eaten up by the Catalytic coating on the heater elements.     O is the problem.  I use them in a small room with the door open to hall and a slightly cracked window. My CO detector never went off using these NOB.  They are clean.  Do you know driving in a heavily polluted area with a new car that the
air going into the engine can be dirtier than the air out the exhaust?  This is due to two sets of cat converters one near the engine to start fast and a bigger
one farther back in enhaust system. These furnaces work using the same principal as cars use to clean the exhaust. Open window for first five minutes until cats get hot than close window if you are worried. Same as a car do not use contaminated fuel as it ruins the cats. Not much bad propane/butane
so I don't think it would be a problem here.

Use common sense folks but basically these units are very safe in a leaky Mexican house.

Z

I would trust that the CO is burned off with clean, pure propane but we know that what they call propane here is far from clean and pure. Anyhow, I wouldn't run one of these things in a small room with the window and door closed. YMMV.......

Yes many people use them down here but many houses are far from airtight I would not use one is a small space no matter what the label says.

Will just point out that the way these heaters are used down here, generally speaking, is for short "bursts" in the early a.m. and evenings in a living room or the like to take the edge off the chill during our few weeks of cold spells. I haven't heard of anyone who runs them for hours.

And yeah, for the most part houses here have big gaps between tile floors and doors, flimsy single-pane windows with large gaps, etc.

What most of us forget is that a small space can be heated cleanly and somewhat effectively with.....old fashioned light bulbs!    Incandescent bulbs produce 90% heat, 10% light for a given wattage.     Takes a little while to build up....but a few of these running continuously, together with a ceiling fan in reverse to move the hot air downward, can help a lot.

Try it!

Go Solar wrote:What most of us forget is that a small space can be heated cleanly and somewhat effectively with.....old fashioned light bulbs!    Incandescent bulbs produce 90% heat, 10% light for a given wattage.     Takes a little while to build up....but a few of these running continuously, together with a ceiling fan in reverse to move the hot air downward, can help a lot.

Try it!

Sorry, but this makes little sense to me. México has some of the highest per-watt electricity costs in the Americas so most folks here use compact fluorescents everywhere. Would you have us switch to incandescents during cold snaps? I also don't see how you're going to raise the temperature in a room by the 15-20 degrees F. required using light bulbs and a ceiling fan. Probably better to turn on the gas oven and open the door   

It's a perfectly viable option for short periods of time; and was in response to the concerns posted about indoor air quality; also, some folks are having a tough time either finding electric and propane heaters at the current time, or don't have the $$ to buy one here where they are more $$.

If one is comfortably below DAC on a year-round average basis, a bit of judicious use of any kind of electric heating isn't going to put them into DAC.

Do what you're most comfortable with, but don't knock it till you've tried it - I once used a light bulb all night under a car engine in -30 C conditions and was able to easily start the car the next morning, when others could not.

Go Solar is right - up in the Pacific Northwest they sell the boaters a lightbulb holder with a sheet metal chimney frame. They keep in on all fall/winters and it keeps the damp down inside the boats. You still need some dehumidifyin gadgets, but the bulb helps.

CanuckBob wrote:

Zedinmexico wrote:

CanuckBob wrote:Airtight or not I wouldn't be running a propane heater in a small bedroom with the windows and door closed. Would you?

There is also CO to worry about.

CO is eaten up by the Catalytic coating on the heater elements.     O is the problem.  I use them in a small room with the door open to hall and a slightly cracked window. My CO detector never went off using these NOB.  They are clean.  Do you know driving in a heavily polluted area with a new car that the
air going into the engine can be dirtier than the air out the exhaust?  This is due to two sets of cat converters one near the engine to start fast and a bigger
one farther back in enhaust system. These furnaces work using the same principal as cars use to clean the exhaust. Open window for first five minutes until cats get hot than close window if you are worried. Same as a car do not use contaminated fuel as it ruins the cats. Not much bad propane/butane
so I don't think it would be a problem here.

Use common sense folks but basically these units are very safe in a leaky Mexican house.

Z

I would trust that the CO is burned off with clean, pure propane but we know that what they call propane here is far from clean and pure. Anyhow, I wouldn't run one of these things in a small room with the window and door closed. YMMV.......

Actually I doubt if it is propane. I think it is butane. Anybody know??? I wouldn't run one in a small room with the window and door closed either. I
have run these furnaces up north all day and the CO detectors never went off. Good comment on the quality of the gas. Didn't think about that.

Z

coffeeguy wrote:

Go Solar wrote:What most of us forget is that a small space can be heated cleanly and somewhat effectively with.....old fashioned light bulbs!    Incandescent bulbs produce 90% heat, 10% light for a given wattage.     Takes a little while to build up....but a few of these running continuously, together with a ceiling fan in reverse to move the hot air downward, can help a lot.

Try it!

Sorry, but this makes little sense to me. México has some of the highest per-watt electricity costs in the Americas so most folks here use compact fluorescents everywhere. Would you have us switch to incandescents during cold snaps? I also don't see how you're going to raise the temperature in a room by the 15-20 degrees F. required using light bulbs and a ceiling fan. Probably better to turn on the gas oven and open the door   

Now the oven does put out CO as it does not have cats to clean things up. I admit I have done it. No worse than cooking a turkey all day. Once again
not in a small room with doors and windows shut. Same rule.


Z

Go Solar wrote:It's a perfectly viable option for short periods of time; and was in response to the concerns posted about indoor air quality; also, some folks are having a tough time either finding electric and propane heaters at the current time, or don't have the $$ to buy one here where they are more $$.

If one is comfortably below DAC on a year-round average basis, a bit of judicious use of any kind of electric heating isn't going to put them into DAC.

Do what you're most comfortable with, but don't knock it till you've tried it - I once used a light bulb all night under a car engine in -30 C conditions and was able to easily start the car the next morning, when others could not.

I think a better option is to light a few large candles. We don't have a heater of any sorts and we do quite well with 5 or 6 candles burning throughout. The house stays around 67F.

This too will change we had not heat for the first 3 or 4 yeras down here except for a couple of fireplace and one day we woke up and decided that people who were saying that no heat was needed were nuts. The house is facing north , is under large trees near the lake and we do need heat for a couple of months even if the temperature outside is mild. The house is cold and drafty so we heat it. I guess your body gets accustomed to the mild weather and after a few years you realize you need heat..