Our living room is the coldest in the house. Mrs Zip likes to be warm , so what’s the cheapest ,most effective way of getting a room warm enough to grow bananas ?
Is the Dyson heater so incredibly fantastic that it warrants the price?

C’mon. You know the answer. You don’t come on STW and ask “that” question.

🙄

Bigger radiator?

Buy her a Slanket.

One of these works quite well…

setting fire to the room is definitely the cheapest option

Isn’t an oil filled rad the default answer?

I heard paraffin heaters have improved immensely, don’t know how economical they are?
I still have a fondness for the cabinet calor gas heaters but the bottles cost a bloody mint now.

What about one that works all around the house?

Address why it’s cold ?

Address why it’s cold ?

The cheapest most efficient and long-lasting answer is ‘find out why it’s so cold’.

Lack of insulation.
Lack of airtightness.
Existing heating system faulty / badly designed / badly installed.
A major problem not addressed by above.

Buying some extra heater to push more heat in without finding out why it’s so cold just masks the problem.

Sit in the room using a turbo trainer while Mrs. Zip is in there, this will heat the room nicely, is very cheap, it will also increase the humidity which is good as banana’s like both warmth and high humidity.

TooTall has it, things like draft excluders on the doors etc and thicker curtains (or even hang a rug off the curtain rail.

After that it depends how you use the room. Blown air is faster but less efficient. I looked at the Dyson and a mate had them in the bike shop and they were great.
Electric panel – worst of both
Oil Filled, set it to roll on and keep the heat in – crap if heat is escaping fast though. Utterly pointless if your going to turn it on to heat a room though

It’s a 30s house with a bay window. Apparently that is the weak spot.
We are double glazed with a recent boiler and 100mm of that insulating board in our rafters . The room faces west so never gets much sunshine in the winter.

If telling her to WTFU and get on with it/put her coat on isn’t an option, then a oil filled electric radiator is next best. We use one in an extension with no central heating and it works fine.

It has a thermostat and timer so that may work for you as it will turn itself off when the central heating has the room at the right temperature and kick in when it cools down to anything less than tropical conditions?

Log burning stove obvs

If telling her to WTFU and get on with it/put her coat on isn’t an option, then a oil filled electric radiator is next best

But surely spending money buying electricity and directly converting it to heat is not the most efficient solution.

How about an Antminer which kicks out about 1KW of heat. It is much more up front capital cost than an oil heater, but it pays you back my minting bitcoins.

Realistic enough to fool people unless they look closely.

Even fools the dog when it’s on!

http://www.diy.com/departments/focal-point-es2000-black-freestanding-electric-stove/109083_BQ.prd

Add another rad and/or find out why the current one/ones isn’t good enough?

Big heavy curtains over the bay window then my parents did this at theirs in the winter till my dad got round to rebuilding the whole bay window in a fashion that meant it wasn’t practically a perminantly open window.

How is the room currently heated? If it’s radiators, either you need to bleed it or get a bigger more efficient radiator, along with either better curtains or better double glazing.

The bay can be insulated – I pulled off curved decorative boards in one room, added breathable fibreboard insulation, wopped decorative boards back on and wider windowsill. The rigid insulation was cut into panels about 6″ wide, so creating a neat curve.

What is on the roof of the Bay? is it double height or single storey? If single, again adding insulation boards to a flat roof is not expensive.

Insulate the floor – do you have a carpet? I cannot believe how much warmer one of our rooms is now we have added underlay and carpet. I will be crawling around in the void this winter adding insulation too.

Curtains can be huge helpers – again have curtains that a floor to ceiling, close fitting and lined with thermal insulation. Also more private for when you need to sit naked next to a barely warm mrs_zippy as the room hits 30*.

Currently using an oil filled radiator in the evenings when it’s chilly. It needs to be very close to where I’m sitting to feel the heat, tend to blast it at the highest setting first. I’d say that you need to think carefully about positioning.

C’mon. You know the answer. You don’t come on STW and ask “that” question.

Of course you’ll need an axe and woodpile. Possibly some Hebtroco trousers and a tartan shirt, tattoos and a topknot.

The bay in our bedroom was / is utter poop.

Although its double glazed the people who installed it left loads of airgaps between the UPVC and the walls, and didn’t even fill it with expanding foam.

Took the plasterboard off and it was just a layer of plastic / rubber sarking and then the render. I then filled in between the battens with Celotex and covered it up with insulation backed plasterboard.

Curtains are a good idea as we only have slat blinds .
If however it means I have to spend my day off curtain shopping I shall buy her a Winnie the Pooh onesie instead.

Just googled them Dyson heaters. HOW MUCH????

Blooming heck, we use a oil filled radiator to ‘top up’ the current radiator in the conservatory through the winter. Seems to work for us and no way does it justify £400 on a heater.

Please justify it to me (Tempted….). Tell me its hotter than standing on the edge of a volcano. I need to buy one

Definitely get some thermal lined curtains. I believe you can order them via the internet!

The dysons are £200 on the refurb eBay site. Still not cheap but in the same league as some of the oil filled rads.
Plus it would be lighter and easier to store.

My wife knows my answer – not that it’s been cold at all yet this year, but if you are cold then drop and do 10 press-ups, not warm enough, do another 10.

Remarkably effective and also free (with the exception of spending some calories).

I like the turbo idea, although I’m not allowed in the house in my sometimes turbo jersey (usually it’s just the bibs). So much heat!

Was looking at reviews of Dyson heaters a couple of weeks ago, apparently they are pretty efficient and (could be a big plus) heat a room up very very quickly.

Ta for the eBay idea, may take a punt. I have a big pedestal fan in my living room at the moment but it’s really noisy so a quiet Dyson fan would be a bonus. I would go for the £250 refurbed AM09 though as it sounds a fair bit better than the (older model) cheaper £200 one.

Where is the radiator at the moment and is it blocked by other furniture. Radiators need the air in the room to be able to flow along the lower half of the room, up through them and out along the upper half of the room. If you put a sofa in front of the radiator ( even with a gap ), then that air flow is blocked and the heat felt from the radiator reduced.

Good thermal blocking curtains make a huge difference too.