# Area heating



## lefsellama (Nov 4, 2007)

Howdy All, 
     Read through all this and had to join just to post.  We use under area rug heating mats for our downstairs and have fallen in love with the product.  All our bedrooms are in the basement, and the pellet stove (Harman XXV - love it!) is on the main living floor above keeping us toasty when we want to be.  But last winter was the first in our new house, and those basement floors felt coooolllllddd even with large thick area rugs down.  I found & bought this product - http://speedheat.us/rug_buddy.htm - and have them in the occupied bedrooms plus one in bathroom and one in the hallway downstairs.  LOVE THEM!  Low energy use, low cost to use.  Keeps the bedrooms nice and even, not hot or cold; we just unplug them if we're going out of town.  
     It took a day or so before the rooms really felt like they were being warmed using these, but now they are perfect.  We use a 5.5'x8' in the master bedroom, a 5'x7' one in the boys room, a 3'x5' in the large bath and a hallway runner one.  I like a moderate temp at night for sleeping (not that warm) so we keep the bedroom door open all the time, although this had more to do with the dog and cats and kids it ended up working out the best temp-wise too...  For the boys at night we don't close their door, just pull it to halfway and the room warms up noticeably for sleeping.  Interior doors are open downstairs during the day and the passive heat rising keeps the edge off things upstairs when we're at work/school.  Pellet stove doesn't have as far to start from with these things going, and our electricity bill has not taken much of a hit at all!
      Jeez I should be getting paid for this much smarm eh?  A kickback at least maybe... 8-/ 
     We just didn't have the budget to put in radiant floor heat into the basement slab as we dearly would have liked to (built our own place, in a year ago last fall) knowing that our bedrooms were going to be down there.  These under rug mat things have made an enormous difference for us downstairs.  We were using Cadet wall heaters, only on when we were in the rooms and set to between 55-58 degrees when not occupied and they were huge electricity suckers.  The units we have were supposed to be fairly efficient etc. but the basement still never felt that warm unless they were cranked on high all the time.  Even then the floor area still felt chilly.  Now, I happily sit on the floor in my boys room and enjoy being downstairs again.  I loved being down there before in the summer heat as it was 15-20 cooler than outside, and at least 10 degrees cooler than the upstairs:D  Now we'll just unplug 'em when the weather warms up again.  Don't even know they're there.
     Sorry about the tome, but thought I'd add a different alternative to backbreaking amounts of experimental ductwork...  Anybody else out there using these?


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## begreen (Nov 4, 2007)

So many folks come to the forum trying to heat a space with a stove either at the other end of the house or even upstairs. 

I've started this thread for folks to talk about alternatives they use for area heat (outside of a wood or pellet stove).


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## begreen (Nov 4, 2007)

Interesting product. I may try one for my office, under the desk with a timer/thermostat. Most of our area rugs are in the middle of the room. I wouldn't want to be tripping over a cord. For area rugs I would think that the cord attached would create a safety hazard.


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## lefsellama (Nov 5, 2007)

We haven't had any trouble with the cords at all, but none of them cross a walking area either.  I've had much more trouble with lamp cords myself - two torchieres and a desk lamp later... The cords are heavy duty and are quite durable enough to be walked on, I guess you'd just need to tape them down if they had to unavoidably cross a traffic area.
We've used three or four different space heaters in previous houses, as well as the Cadet and also King brand wall heaters and we've like these under rug mat thingys the best by far.  Lower utility bills and we don't freak out about open doors and blankets or drapes across stairwell anymore.  A nice change there.
I'd love to have another small pellet stove downstairs too, but aside from lack of funds _and_ space it'd have difficulty heating each individual room without cooking the room it was in
Anybody else have any good economical basement (or slab floor) room heating solutions?  These things weren't cheap to purchase, but have been quite cheap to run so far.


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## Highbeam (Nov 5, 2007)

We have the cadet style, actually King brand, wall heaters in every room. Each with independent thermostats. These little heaters are just the ticket since they only come on when the thermostat in that room calls for it, they have no duct losses, are cheap to buy, and are not a portable or temporary heat source but an actual heating system. The only downfalls are the noise which is like a refrigerator in that you get used to it and the other downfall being the cost to run since they use 100% electric though they use it at 100% efficiency unlike ducted electric resistance heat which loses a major cut in the ducts. Our electric is cheap so these little heaters make a lot of sense as a back up or supplemental heater for when the wood burner is unable to get the job done. 

I bought a kerosene heater before I knew any better. One of my poorest decisions since the kerosene fuel is so expensive. It works great though and if kerosene ever got really cheap then maybe I would consider it more in the event of a firewood shortage. It needs to be tended and watched just like a woodstove.


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## ilmbg (Nov 16, 2007)

The site does not say how much wattage the '4' lightbulbs were rated at.  With having 4 of the warmers, that would be the equivilant of running 16 lightbulbs- that would get pretty expensive- especially without a thermostat.  The cord would scare me also- it might be good for something like 'BE Green' mentioned, but for myself I would not consider them.


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