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Electric baseboard heaters ?

6K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  AllanJ 
#1 ·
I need to install an electric baseboard heater in a small bedroom . I shopped at lowes and they have 2 different types 1.standard electric 2.hydronic electric baseboard . both are made by Fahrenheat my question is it worth the extra money for the hydronic electric or is the standard one just as a good there is a significant price difference. if there is any one out there who has dealt with this recently i would appreciate your input thanks .

 
#5 ·
Sorry I was confused I thought he was talking about the portable plug in oil jobs. If you already have a hot water circ. system in your house you should buy the hydronic and tie it into th existing system.
 
#7 ·
The "hydronic" one:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_107221-4928...&pl=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=baseboard+heat

is filled with silicon oil. I'm not sure who the marketing guru was who thought silicon=hydronic but whatever.

The other is likely a plain, nichrome resistive element type (like a toaster) with no silicon oil/"hydronics".

Thermodynamics being what they are, you can't get more energy out than is put into a system. So, for every watt of energy spent heating up the oil, those can't be used for heating the air in the room. Intuitively, it seems to make sense that the oil would "retain" the heat, but, again, what is put in, is taken out. Otherwise, this would be akin to a perpetual motion machine; just heat it a bit, and it continues to give heat longer than it should. People on Amazon who have them and reviewed the silicon one seem to like it. How big is this room you are trying to heat? Where do you live? How hot do you want it to get? etc.....Children involved?
 
#8 ·
i live in nj the room is 90sf with 9 1/2 foot ceiling the room is not insulated and will be used for a nursery . the rest of the 2 nd floor where the room is heated by large 90 year old radiators just this room gets cold because there is no heat in this room ..
 
#9 ·
The "hydronic" electric baseboard will tend to minimize cool draft feelings since it takes longer to cool down. Other then that, it has no advantage as far as electric consumption.
 
#12 · (Edited)
It's filled with silicon oil instead of water so:
(1) The oil does not rust out the interior of the heater as water would,
(2) The oil is non conductive compared with slightly rusty water and would not make for a short circuit if the heating element should fail.

Otherwise the behavior would be the same as a water filled heater unit.

The "dry" heater and the oil filled model of the same wattage will deliver the same number of BTU's. While the oil filled heater will take longer to warm up when turned on, it will also take longer to cool down when turned off.

If the dry heater does not have visible glowing heating elements, both it and the oil filled heater, once warmed up, will behave in almost the same way in heating the room. Any differences depend on the shapes of the parts of the heater and the ways air can flow about the heater.
 
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