19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
Great heater for small/ medium sized rooms
Date of Review: Nov 24, 2008
The Bottom Line: This heater did everything I was hoping for when I bought it last year. I am very pleased.
I bought a heater this past year because my 18 month son's room happens to be the coldest room in the house. His room is on the second floor where the heat has somewhat of a hard time making it up anyway, and compounding the issue the attic access is in his closet, bringing in very cold air.
My wife and I also tend to like our bedroom to be a bit cooler at night, but it just was not possible with cold air that made its way into my son's room. Our room might be cool, but his room would just be flat out cold. He tends to shift a lot at night and kick the covers off so we need to keep his room warm. This lead to us having to really turn up the heat to get his room to a comfortable level, leaving the rest of the house very warm.
A room heater seemed to be the obvious solution but we had safety considerations with the room being expressly used in the room of my 18 month old son. Noise level was also a big consideration.
After researching all kinds of heaters online I decided on the Delonghi. I knew I did not want anything that required fuel, used heating coils that got red hot, or anything with a loud fan due to the fact my son tends to be a light sleeper. These factors pretty much narrowed it down to a self contained oil heater.
I finally decided on this model. I wasn't looking for many options on the heater but I appreciated the timer, even if I don't use it all the time. When I got the heater home I decided to try it in my unfinished basement to start. I made several observations:
1. I had heard that at times these kinds of heaters can emit a oily gas smell upon their first few uses, or just in general. I tried the heater on a low setting initially as well before cranking it up. I was pleasantly surprised that there was no odor at any point including when I left in on high.
2. My basement is fairly large and when I initially entered the room I didn't feel a lot extra warmth ( some though), but a few steps later I sure as heck did. The area around the heater was very warm. This goes to show you that his heater is not well suited to large rooms with high ceilings. It gets the immediate area warm, hot if you are not careful. The if the seiling is a standard height, it will deflect a lot of the warmth down, spreading around to the rest of the room.
3. The unit as it is warming up from a cold start creaks. Its not loud, it sounds very similar to a house that contains radiators for its heating. None the less, it could potentially wake up a child or anyone else that was just starting to nod off. Lesson here to use the timer to have it turn on before you need it, or just manually do the same thing.
4. The heater gets to the set temperature gradually. To reach the low settings it takes about 15-20 minutes. This is where the timer might be helpful if you are using it for a child's bed time. Set it to turn on 30 minutes before. ( Again the units appears to have intensity levels but I always used the lowest so I can not comment on how quickly it can hit your designated temperature level)
With my test complete I but the heater on the medium setting and placed in his room. After about two hours I checked on the temperature of his room and it was HOT! Word to the wise, especially if you are using the heater for a small room....start with the heater on low and gradually adjust the temperature level until you are comfortable.
Safety:
With no hot coils exposed this heater uses a self-contained oil system to do the heating. Their are external cards on the heating units that do not heat themselves but can get hot to the touch depending on how high you set the temperature. Just by briefly touching the unit however I do not believe it would be possible to damage your skin like touching a hot coil, or even a stove burner would. The outside edges of the unit where the handle and controls are located stay cool.
This unit does have a rather high center of gravity and despite its decent wait could be knocked over fairly easily. For this reason Id be tentative to allow in small child's room that might play with it. I Did not test what would happen if the unit was kept on while laying on its side.
Also due to its weight, if it was pushed or pulled on small child it could do damage as the unit does weigh a good 30-40 pounds….again probably not a great option for a young child. Works great for my child in still in his crib however.
Conclusion:
All in all I am very happy with the purchase. It does exactly what I was hoping for. It allows me to keep my son's cold room warmer without heating the entire house. The timer works well and that's all I could ask for.
