Tips for Purchasing a Supplemental Heater

So, Tuesday night I went shopping for a heater for the tenant. I was trying to decide what would be the best solution for her problem. She tells me her apartment is about 65 degrees, but she would prefer it to be 70. So, what I needed to do was find something that would give her those extra few degrees and put it in her control.

I had originally planned on installing a baseboard unit, but you know, most of those have to be hard wired in and I am not exactly up to date on my electrician's license. I decided to see if there was an appropriate plug in unit instead. My friend Catie had spotted a number of different units at Menard's, so I went out to check them out. (In addition to plug in units they also had oil filled heaters, but do I want my tenant dealing with that? No, I do not - especially not in a house built in 1847.) So, there I was, standing staring at all the different plug in models, trying to determine what made one better from another. A yard or two down from me was a guy who looked like he was doing the same thing. In frustration I asked him, "So, how do you pick out a good supplemental heater, anyway? What is the difference between all of these?"

And he told me.

Apparently he had just been doing a whole lot of research online and this is what he learned:

- You want ceramic for safety, especially if there are children in the home. There aren't children in the home, but as a landlord I liked the idea of extra safety.

- Speaking of safety, having a feature that it automatically shuts off when tipped over is a very good thing. This was another thing that I liked as a landlord.

- Most of the high end heaters have two settings: 900 btu and 1500 btu, so they are all pretty much the same there.

- A timer is a nice feature, then you can set it to automatically go off a hour after you go to bed, for example.

- Another good feature is a thermostat on the heater so you can set it to whatever temperature you want.

- He recommended one with a fan, so it could be used for more than just a heater and be dual purpose.

- We talked "low profile" (baseboard style) vs "tower" heaters. He liked the tower heaters because they were designed to move from room to room better. The low profile heaters are more difficult to move. However, one of the tower ones that we looked at was distinctly tippy, so I looked instead for one with a solid base.

My choice? The Lasko 5511. It didn't have the fan or ionizing filter like the one he picked out for himself, but it had all the other features and was about $20 less. Not only did it have all these features - it even comes with a remote. Hopefully this will work well for the tenant and this heat issue will be resolved. it came to $53.

But I can't help wondering about that guy in Menards... perhaps a guardian angle disguise?



Yet another photo by: JudeanPeople'sFront. I'm really into this person's photos.