Than to keep warm

Oil radiator

At one time, when it was very, very difficult to get something in the store, the heaters made themselves or got by with what could be taken from somewhere. My friends are still saving themselves from the winter frost with a tram stove, which their grandfather picked up from no one knows where. However, most modern types of heaters existed several years ago, but it was not easy to find them. The most common type of heater, which is now used in every second home, is oil heaters. They deserve nationwide love primarily with their power..

One oil radiator is capable of maintaining an acceptable temperature in a room up to 30 sq. meters, not in winter cold, of course, but if the outside temperature is not lower than +10 degrees with an oil radiator, the house will be warm and cozy. In winter it will come in handy too. In total, an oil cooler provides about the same heat output as a standard steam heating battery. This device is arranged quite simply: inside a sealed metal case there is mineral oil, in the oil there is a spiral. The spiral heats up from the electric current, the oil heats up from the spiral, the body from the oil, the air from the body. It is due to the oil inside this radiator is so heavy.

Such a device can be heated to a rather high temperature. (about 1500C) – this is enough to warm the room, and not enough to start a fire. In addition, this device does not burn oxygen, so the air in the apartment remains healthy. Older oil cooler models have one major drawback: the inability to regulate the temperature. The radiator could turn a room into a sauna, and the only way to regulate this process is to disconnect the unit from the mains. This deficiency has been corrected in modern oil heaters. Radiators with a capacity of about 1.5 kilowatts have 2-3 power steps. It is good because it can be used indoors, regardless of area: after all, to heat a six-meter bedroom and a twenty-meter living room, different operating modes are needed.

The thermostat allows you to set the room temperature with an accuracy of 1-2 degrees. In addition, the power regulator allows the use of an oil cooler even where the electrical wiring leaves much to be desired and cannot withstand too many electrical appliances turned on at the same time. Most modern oil coolers are equipped with a 24-hour timer. It adjusts the room temperature level depending on the time of day. This is especially suitable for those who do not want to waste energy: such a radiator mode allows, for example, the device turns off ten minutes after you leave for work and turns on half an hour before returning so that the house does not meet you with the Arctic cold.

But the oil cooler also has one significant drawback: from the moment the device is plugged into the outlet until the room temperature reaches an acceptable temperature, it takes from 15 minutes to an hour. Another drawback of an oil cooler is that no device for air ventilation is provided in its design. It is quite warm near the heater, but in another corner of the room its effect is not felt strongly. However, there were models of oil radiators equipped with fan heaters. They cost significantly more than both oil coolers and conventional fan heaters..

Heat gun and fan heater

A heat blower is also called a heat gun. The latter definition applies to especially powerful devices – from 5 kW. This appliance is a conventional high-pressure air blower. He himself does not heat it, but passes it through heating elements (heating elements). These can be electrically heated spirals or a hot water heat exchanger.

However, it is not easy to find a water fan heater, but electric ones are produced by almost every company that develops household appliances.

Fan heaters are used as household heaters even in rooms where no other heating is provided, as well as in industrial premises. Their popular distribution is for drying walls and ceilings during renovation. A fan heater is a kind of hair dryer used for an apartment. A household fan heater looks little different from a conventional desktop fan. The device has two or three modes of operation: supply of cold, warm and hot air (some models have no possibility of heating with warm air). In cold air mode, this appliance works like a regular fan: the heating elements are off.

The modes of supply of warm and hot air differ little from each other: in the first case, the heater will warm the room for a long time, at low power, in the second, quickly at high power. In addition, fan heaters are equipped with a temperature controller: the device heats the air to a certain level, set by you, and turns off. After the temperature in the room drops, it turns on again, without your intervention, and heats up the room again … It is especially convenient to maintain the temperature like this at night – you will not be too hot or too cold. The standard power of a household heat fan is 1.5-2 kW. For those who are not familiar with the technical details, I can give an example: with a fan heater in November outside the city, in a house without a stove, you will not only not freeze, but you will also think more than once that it would be nice to lower the temperature of the heater. This is verified by my own experience..

Fan heaters are floor-standing, wall-mounted, ceiling-mounted. (all these are stationary devices) and portable. In everyday life, mainly portable fan heaters are used, in industrial premises – stationary. The main advantage of fan heaters is the continuous air movement they create, due to which a uniform temperature is established throughout the room. When using, for example, the oil cooler described above, only the air closest to the device heats up, which then begins to circulate under the influence of the temperature difference. The fan enhances and speeds up this process.

To maintain an acceptable temperature in a room with an area of ​​up to 35 meters, you will be quite satisfied with a 2 kW fan heater. If you want to heat large rooms, get a heat gun. This device is capable of passing through itself several thousand cubic meters of air per hour and reaching a power of 70 kW. If you don’t like one strong air flow, install several less powerful fans in the room. It is possible to combine these devices into one network, so that the operating mode of one heater sets the rhythm for everyone else. The type of industrial heat gun most recommended by experts is a ceiling fan, especially if the ceiling height is at least 3.5 meters. At home, you will almost certainly use a portable one – low-power stationary fan heaters are produced by few companies..

Convector

Modern convectors very vaguely resemble “plates” and electric fireplaces familiar to us from childhood. And it’s not just the design. The latest models do not burn dust, do not eat oxygen, and even firefighters have struck them off the list of their enemies..

This effect was achieved by replacing the traditional incandescent spiral with a finned tube: the area of ​​the heating element increased markedly, and its temperature dropped just as sharply. That is why the body of a modern convector is no longer so hot..

Most appliances cannot heat up above 90 degrees Celsius, and for a number of models, the temperature of the decorative casing is generally kept at 55 degrees Celsius. This is significantly less than that of many heating devices, and therefore modern convectors are a good solution for a nursery. Suffice it to say that the “batteries” of water heating have a temperature of 90 degrees, and oil radiators are heated to 110-150 degrees.

Plus, for one hundred percent protection, many devices are equipped with additional protection against overheating.. If the surface temperature rises above normal (for example, if the owner decided to dry a towel on the convector), the automation will immediately de-energize the heating element. The same will happen if you drop the convector to the floor or close the heated air outlet. As soon as the cause of overheating has been eliminated, the device will continue to operate. Another advantage of the new generation convectors is their small dimensions. A device that gives out 2 kW, usually weighs 6-8 kg and has a thickness of no more than 7 cm.It is simply hung on the wall in an apartment, store or office, that is, installed permanently.

All modern convectors have a built-in thermostat, due to which the temperature in the room can be maintained at a given level, and the device itself does not work constantly, but in the mode of short switching on. If it gets colder outside, work breaks are reduced. This arrangement not only saves energy, but also significantly extends the life of the convectors. Many convectors can be equipped with a special control unit that allows you to program the operation of several devices at once. This is great in a large office. For example, in order to save heat, you can set the night temperature to +15 degrees Celsius, and an hour before the arrival of employees, heat the premises in full. And all this is completely automatic.

Infrared heaters

Another type of heaters are infrared heaters. They operate according to the same principle that the sun itself obeys, warming the earth: infrared rays transfer their heat to objects in the room, and objects transfer it to the air. Now this particular type of heater is coming into fashion..

Sellers emphasize the minimum of disadvantages: an infrared emitter allows you to smooth out the temperature difference near the floor and ceiling (as you remember, cold air goes down, warm air rises up), provide spot heating (for example, install the emitter directly above the workplace and not waste energy), and other delights of this device … True, it is not yet easy to find an infrared heater in a store: they have just started to come into fashion..

Of course, in addition to the heaters listed above, there are other types of similar devices, these are: air conditioners that provide maximum comfort in one or more rooms; convectors that replace ugly batteries and heat the air much stronger; underfloor heating systems capable of maintaining a perfectly even temperature both at the floor and at the ceiling in the room; wall heaters, actively advertised now, and many other appliances. Unfortunately, the scope of one material does not allow us to fully cover the advantages and disadvantages of all such devices. “BN” spoke about some of them in detail in previous issues, and some of them will return in the future..

power rating

The required power of the convector, fan heater or oil cooler is estimated as follows. With a ceiling height not higher than 3 meters per 1 sq. floor meter must have at least 70 W.
If we are talking about heating a brick house with high-quality “joinery”, or even better with PVC windows, then you can take these figures as a guide to action. In all other cases, it is advisable to play it safe and increase heat transfer to 100-120 W per square meter.
When the device is bought to help the central heating system, you can get by with less power – for an ordinary city room, a 1-kilowatt device is enough.

Text: bulletin.spb.ru, potrebitel.ru