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Bob F Bob F is offline
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Default Natural gas space heaters


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I just installed a 30K Btu/h natural gas vent-free radiant heater in
a house near Allentown, PA, where kerosine now costs $3.50/gallon
and natural gas costs about $1.50/therm (roughly equivalent).

Empire Comfort Systems (Enerco) makes this "Mr. Heater." Tractor Supply
sells it for $229.99 as sku #2151954. It comes with a thermostat and
a blower and a digital temperature display. It has an oxygen depletion
sensor, and it can work without grid power, but there have been some
problems since installation.

The thermostat only has 5 temp settings, as well as "pilot only." It is
supposed to make the room about 55 F min, with 5 F steps above that, but
the temp sensing bulb is on the back near a cold floor under a cold single-
pane window. When the first setting heats most of the room to more than
70 F, the owner turns the thermostat back to pilot before the heater
turns itself off, while the temperature display still only reads 58 F, ie
the thermostat isn't doing much. The owner says with the knob between
the lowest and pilot settings, the heater emits interesting flaming blue
gas footballs instead of the usual red glow. And it makes condensation
on the indoor window surfaces.

We might fix the first 2 problems by putting a 25 watt light bulb near
the temp sensor with a $15 line-voltage thermostat on the wall that
turns the bulb off when the room is warm enough.


You could use a small "computer" fan to circulate room air to the thermostat
better. Or, add insulation behind the heater.