Electric Panel Heater

Product Details

• ASIN: B0006393L8
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #120,319 in Kitchen & Dining (See Top 100 in Kitchen & Dining)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Darn good heaters, February 26, 2005

By 

Rambling Rose (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electric Panel Heater (Misc.)

My home currently uses central air conditioning, and gas fueled forced air heating. This spring I'm enlarging one bedroom and bath, and adding a bedroom and bath, and don't want the new rooms tied into the existing HVAC system - no more heating the whole house every morning just to take comfortable showers in the winter; no more cooling the whole house to sleep in the summer.

I'm a skeptic, so I decided to test these heaters before committing to it. One of my bedrooms is 10x10 - exactly the size Econo-Heat claims can be heated with one panel, therefore the perfect test. It's a corner room, with the north and east sides exposed. 8" block construction with no insulation. I closed the louvres on the existing heat register, and covered it with foil to make sure no heat from the central system would leak into the room. I also closed the door to isolate the room as much as possible.

Installing the heater was as easy as Econo-Heat claimed. 10 minutes after opening the box the heater was ready to take over.

As fate would have it, we're having near record breaking cold for early March. Miserable, but perfect for the test. It was 18 degrees when I awoke this morning ("real feel" 12 degrees according The Weather Channel). I opened the door and was pleased to find the room felt just about the same as the rest of the house, which was 70-71 degrees. The only drawback is that there does seem to be a slight difference in the temperature on the opposite side of the room. But the far side of the room is the corner exposed to the weather on 2 sides, so it's a 'worst case scenario', and not a major concern. A plus for these panels is the 'soft' heat, which stays consistant rather that fluctuating like forced air systems.

People's comfortable temperature zone varies. Some will be happy to maintain their heat at 70 degrees, others will not. Personally, I like to keep the heat at 72 - 73. Based on today's test in severe weather, I suspect these heaters will do the job most of the winter, and I'm going ahead with them for all the bedrooms, both baths and a walk-in closet. For anyone who, like me, prefers having the ability to attain a higher temperature at times, you can simply oversize the installation with an extra panel, and use a thermostat to control the temperature.

Using my actual gas heating bill in a comparison to what I would expect to pay using these heaters (based on Econo-Heat's 3-cents/hour approximation), it appears that these heaters can at best yield a 35% savings, and at worst just a slight savings. These figures will be, of course, dependent on gas & electricity costs, which do fluctuate. BUT - this is based whole house central heating. That won't be the case, as I will no longer have to heat the whole house each morning just to get ready for work, so in reality I'm hopeful that the savings will be on the high side of my estimate.

Econo-Heat has specific installation guidlines, and I would suggest following them to maximze the heaters' efficiency:

1. Mount them with the bottom of the panel 6-8" above the floor.

2. If possible, mount on an interior wall.

3. If necessary to mount on an exterior wall, choose a location that's not close to a window.

4. Leave the heater on for the first 24 hours to acclimatize to its environment.

I'm wondering if the last reviewer installed his heaters correctly, since I find that I do feel a gentle heat flow coming from behind the top of the panel. I know very little about how heat works in terms of heat transfer or surface temperature that he wrote about. I only know what I feel, and on day one, before the 24-hour acclimation period has even ended, I am quite comfortable with the heat in my test room.

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars First night using Econo-Heat wall panels, December 17, 2005

By 

Scott J. Pilz (Auburndale, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Electric Panel Heater (Misc.)

My home is 700-750 sq.ft, 5 total rooms including a small bathroom. Heating the house consists of using the forced-air oil furnace. The furnace consumes 20-35 dollars a month in electricity just to run, excluding the price of oil (320-360 to fill the tank, which lasts about two months, give or take). At average I spend around $150-$180 a month to heat the home. I didn't care spending this much, nor did I care for the filth that the furnace generated (oil heat isn't the cleanest). I bought four 425w panels from eheat.us. Delivery was a pain, it took over a month to get the panels. I called two weeks ago and was told the panels would ship that week - they did not ship until last week however. Perhaps the econo-heat people are that backed up, or perhaps they are just lazy (based on the conversation I had with the 'tech/sales person' I'd go with lazy). I read mixed reviews. Some good, some bad. Some compared the panels to 4 100 watt light bulbs, others say they work great. So, I decided to write my own review.

Firstly, they are better than 4 100 watt light bulbs, it'd be hard to sleep with that kind of light in the room - and you can't paint light bulbs (that I know of).

I put one panel in each bedroom, one panel in the kitchen and one in the living room. The only panel on an outside wall or by a window is the one in the kitchen, the others are on inside walls, all are roughly 3-6 inches off the ground. Installation was simple. After turning the units on, it was only a matter of minutes before you couldn't continue to hold your on the heaters for a long period of time. They heat up nice and fast. I read a lot of reviews that had concerns about how hot the wall got behind the panels, I'm not concerned at all. I can put the back of my hand on the wall behind the panel for any period of time, it is warm - yes, but not hot, not hot enough to damage the paint and certainly not where near hot enough to start a fire or even be a fire risk.

So after the first night, how did they do? Well, firstly the house is under-going some construction, new siding/insulation/windows. The insulation is on but the siding is not. There is a nice cold breeze flowing through the front door as well. After installation of the panels, before turning them on, the house was around 71-72 degrees. I'm heating 700+ sq. ft with four panels (it's recommended that I have 7 panels) so I don't expect a constant 72 degrees in each room - I'd be happy with 67-68 on the normal winter day (teens/20's outside).

So, with the four panels on, all other sources of heat off, I went to bed. Dog wakes me up at 6:00, typical really. I decided to check the temperature both inside and out.

To my surprise, the house (all 700 sq. ft) is an even 70 degrees, using just four panels. The outside temperature is what really surprised me the most. It is a whopping 4 degrees outside (windchill -5). Tonight will be even a better test as it drops to 3 below.

So will they work for you? I have no idea.. But they sure do work for me. I expect to save at-least 20-50 dollars a month from running the furnace, not to mention they are 100% clean, unlike oil heat (which turns everything black over time).

One last thing I'll comment on. I've read some reviews that compare the econo-heat panel to a $12.00 heater from walmart that produces the same if not more heat. The econo-heat heater is enclosed, it has no moving parts, dust cannot collect on it's heating elements, and therefore has a much better chance at living a long life compared to any $12.00 heater that blows warm air at you. As with most things, you get what you pay for.

Thats my two cents.

61 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It works, but you have to wait, October 31, 2005

By 

T. Sullivan (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Electric Panel Heater (Misc.)

I bought this heater to help heat my son's room, which is an addition on our house with three walls on the exterior of the house. The room has forced heat, but it doesn't seem to make the room as warm as the rest of the house, so we thought a separate room heater might help out. We set our home thermostat to 68 and our son's room is usually 65 or 66 degrees, so we only needed this heater to help us achieve a room temperature just three degrees higher. We were really excited to try this solution because of the positive experiences of other reviewers, but we didn't think the product worked at first because it really takes awhile to heat up enough to heat the room (a few hours). So I originally wrote a bad review because after a few hours of having it on it had not raised the temperature at all. However, we have found that if left on all night, by morning the room was a nice and toasty 71 degrees, so I have edited my review. Apparently I can't change my star rating, so I would give it 3 because it does work, but it takes a long time to be effective. I suppose it would be best to leave it on at all times, but we turn it off during the day when we aren't home. Good luck!