Ceramic heaters - sensible for use on-board??

stefan_r

stefan_r

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I presently use a 2kw oil filled radiator to keep the chill out of the boat over the winter...I have just seen a couple of 1.5kw ceramic heaters in the Telegraph today.


Any reports on these things?

They seem smaller than the oil radiators and the blurb says efficient, safe etc etc

Cheers
Stefan

mailto: stefan@athito.com
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by stefan_r on 02/01/2003 14:40 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
This doesn't seem right to me... when converting one form of energy to another there is always some loss isn't there?

If you put 2 kw of electricty into an electric fire and am pretty sure you don't get 2 kw of heat out do you?

Nick

Despite the high cost of living, it still remains popular.
 
On the contrary, the law of conservation of Energy says that the amount of energy out equals the amount of energy in - neither more nor less. The advantage of electricity is that all the energy out of an electric heater is in the form of heat in the room, so they are 100% efficient.

Other forms of heating tend to waste energy e.g. by venting hot exhaust gases into the outside air, so are less than 100% efficient..
 
Marketing con....

Ceramic fan heaters are a bit of a marketing con, aimed primarily at pensioners who are scared silly of electrical appliances. Typically, ceramic heaters are promoted as being compact (which they are, but it doesn't really matter in 99.9% of uses), efficient (which, as others have pointed out, goes without saying) and safe (which all fan heaters basically are).

You'll find claims such as "no electric coils just special heat conducting ceramic panels". True, but the ceramic panels are electrically heated!

Ceramic heating technology does have benefits in some specialised applications, but for ordinary room/space heating, it's hard to beat an ordinary electric fan heater.

For winter use in a boat, the heater ought to have a thermostat control (so the temperature doesn't get unnecessarily high) and a frost stat (so it only turns on when the air in the boat approaches freezing).

B&Q will sell you a 2kW fan heater, with a thermostatic control, and a frost stat setting, and a safety thermal cutout, for £13 - inc free delivery. The Telegraph offer you mentioned was a 1.5kW heater for £35. Know which I'd buy!
 
Re: Don\'t like fan heaters though...

Thanks very much for your response - think I'll stick with my oil filled rad.

Not a great err fan of fan heaters...ever since an old one (with loads of dust from several year of use) started smoking and burning in from of me.....

Oil radioators seem that much less prone to burning up.

Cheers again though!

mailto: stefan@athito.com
 
Give or take a tiny amount of energy converted into visible red light, I agree. If the curtains are closed, even that will end up as heat so 100% is pdc.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.geocities.com/yachtretreat/>http://www.geocities.com/yachtretreat/</A>
 
FYI

I just bought an oil-filled radiator with a frost setting to keep my engine compartment warm over the winter. (Dimplex make, from Argos)

All very well until it got dark while I was experimenting with it, when I noticed that when the thermostat cycled on and off it created a big blue flash internally - presumably from a spark as the contact was made and broken.

As mine is a twin engined petrol boat, I quickly removed it and have now replaced it with two tube heaters which are permanently on. If any petrol fumes had concentrated in my engine room, this could have caused an explosion.

Perhaps this would not be so much of a problem for diesel powered boats as diesel is a less volatile fuel? But the risk is still worth considering.
 
100% efficient?? Depends if you consider the system or the appliance.

100% of electirc going into heater ends up as heat

BUT BUT BUT Traditional Power station is probably only 40% efficient with most of energy going to waste (2nd law of thermodynamics). Transmision losses over miles of pylons and transormers - 10% (of the 40% ?)

Whilst all similar heaters are very efficient units the system may be much more wasteful than a coalfired stove - and not as much fun
 
I'm amazed by the heaters you guys put on board. I put a 60 Watt greenhouse frost heater on board (and a dehumidifier).

No wonder the electrics on marinas keep tripping out.
 
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