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If you were to try replacing the use of your central heating by putting an electric heater in each room, it will definitely end up costing much more. Due to the long list of factors that come into play to calculate your central heating costs, the only way you can confidently compare a heater to your central heating is to install a smart meter. You then divide your weekly heating cost by the number of hours you have it switched on and compare that figure to the cost of running your heater. Some modern options also have smart features so you can program them via companion apps and smart speakers. Read our full story on illegal and dangerous plug-in mini heaters for sale on online marketplaces to see those we identified as having serious safety risks.
Nearly all have some kind of carry handle for moving about and many have a safety cut-out feature, which will switch off the heater if it gets dangerously hot. On the downside, this type can be quite noisy and they don't have some of the more advanced features you can get with convector heaters. We set up each heater in the centre of our test room and run it on the maximum settings, with the room starting at a cool temperature. We monitor how much the room temperature changed over the course of an hour using temperature probes. We found the most drastic changes happen in the first half an hour and increases in temperature become more incremental after that. Some portable heaters have useful extras, such as an LCD screen that displays the current temperature or a remote control for turning the heater on from across the room. These features may come in handy:Convector heaters are usually taller than fan heaters, but thin and light – making them larger, but still relatively easy to move between rooms. We assess how easily each electric heater can be set up and how easily understandable the controls and settings are. We used any handles to lift the heater and move it around. While some heaters can be used straight out of the box, others have complicated program and timer settings. We use a force meter to record how much is needed to topple each heater over and a decibel meter to measure how much noise each one makes while running. The oil in the radiator acts as a heat reservoir, which stays hot for some time after the heater's switched off. Some are called 'oil-free' and function in a comparable way, just with an internal heating element instead of any oil.
The nature of convection heaters mean they usually take a little longer until you feel the heat (compared to a halogen heater for example), but it will heat the whole room evenly. Typically, convection heaters are around 2000W in power output which does make them more expensive to run. On top of this, you might tend to leave a convection heater on for longer periods of time too (compared to radiant heaters). Cold air setting Some fan heaters can help cool you down too. They're not nearly as effective as a dedicated air conditioner, but a light breeze of cold air is better than nothing. But when the cold weather closes in during Autumn and Winter, it’s easy to get carried away with exactly how much electricity we are using, especially when it comes to heating your home. Frost protection The heater can be set to heat automatically when the temperature drops below 5°C, but you'll need to have it on standby for it to run, so this can limit its usefulness. These can still be bought, but they aren't as popular or widely available as fan or convector heaters.Halogen Heaters are great for instant heat. They get their name from the halogen element inside the bulb or lamp of the heater which, when combined with electricity, heats up and provides a radiant heat. However, many of the other (more high-watt) heaters come with built-in thermostat controls and sometimes timers, which will allow you to regulate their power output and how long you have them on for. This will help to reduce running costs. Really, it all depends what kind of heater you’re looking for and more importantly how you use it.
Keen to optimise home heating? See our advice on boiler controls and thermostats , smart meters , and loft insulation Programmable timer Useful for setting a heater to turn on just before you get home or wake up, so there's no waiting around for the heater to warm up. Electric heaters (or space heaters) are a great way to heat individual rooms in your home. This means you don’t always have to fire up the central heating if you’re feeling chilly, which often ends up wasting energy by heating up rooms that you’re not using! Central heating is much more effective at maintaining a stable temperature over a longer period, whereas the heat from an electric heater will soon dissipate if the rest of your home is cold. Adjustable thermostat Using this function, a portable heater will heat the room and when the desired temperature is reached, it will try to maintain the room at that temperature. Most of the cheaper, simpler heaters we tested have a dial thermostat that doesn't let you choose specific temperatures in °C. You'll likely need to buy a more expensive model for that. Our tests also found that they're rarely 100% accurate and will probably think the room is a couple of °C warmer or cooler than it is.So, after looking at the different types of electric heaters available, due to its lower power-output, halogen heaters are the cheapest electric heaters to run. We buy all the electric heaters we test. We put the bestselling heaters from popular UK retailers through these tests: Heating speed, evenness, and accuracy The average wattage on an oil-filled radiator can vary quite a lot, which therefore means how costly they are can vary. However, many oil-filled radiators will come equipped with a built-in thermostatic control, which therefore allows you to control the power and heat output of the radiator. For this reason, they can be considered one of the most energy efficient types of heaters. Oil-filled radiators are great for a long lasting heat. They work by heating thermodynamic oil inside the body of the radiator. When switched on, a heating element submerged in the oil heats up. This in-turn heats the oil, which transfers heat to the body of the radiator. As the radiator gets hot, the room is warmed via both convection and heat radiation. Portable electric heaters use electricity, which costs 28.62p/kWh under the current energy price cap. Depending on how effective the heater is, they can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour to notably raise the temperature of a medium-sized room, so if you're only planning on using it until the room gets up to temperature, it will likely cost you between 28 and 57p.
It’s important to be conscious about our energy usage – it helps us look after both the planet and our bills. Pinning down an exact comparison of how much central heating and electric heaters cost to run is nigh-on impossible, as the factors below are just some of the variables that play a part: However, there are a number of different types of electric heaters on the market, which makes it difficult to know which type of electric heater is best suited to your requirements and which are more energy efficient than others. Although the comparison might make your electric heater look cheaper to run, bear in mind that it will only be heating a much smaller area, whereas your central heating will be aiming to heat your whole home.
Under current energy prices, the electric heaters we've tested can cost anything from 9p to 87p per hour to run on full blast. In our tests, we set every heater to run at full blast so you can see the maximum amount it cost to heat our medium-sized test room. If you have the thermostat of your heater set to a desired temperature, the heater will toggle on and off once it reaches that temperature – depending on what's needed to maintain it. The heater won't operate continuously, so won't cost you as much to run. Are electric heaters cheaper to use than central heating?
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