Small Room ?????

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rombi

Member
Dec 17, 2007
112
Green Bay Wi
I have a 170 sq ft room that is a nightmare to run the forced air into. At the moment we are heating it with a 1500w portable baseboard heater and it is working fine. Even at the moment of -15f . I do not like electric heat and I was looking at the Napoleon Torch and I like it a lot. At 6000 BTU's do you think it will work as well as the 1500w electric? Is there any other brands like the Torch that go in a 2x6 wall and direct vent? We have a ceiling fan and the room will pull warm air in from the rest of the house but I don't want to dump $1300 on something that won't keep up.
 
rombi said:
I have a 170 sq ft room that is a nightmare to run the forced air into. At the moment we are heating it with a 1500w portable baseboard heater and it is working fine. Even at the moment of -15f . I do not like electric heat and I was looking at the Napoleon Torch and I like it a lot. At 6000 BTU's do you think it will work as well as the 1500w electric? Is there any other brands like the Torch that go in a 2x6 wall and direct vent? We have a ceiling fan and the room will pull warm air in from the rest of the house but I don't want to dump $1300 on something that won't keep up.

1 kW is 3,413 BTUs. Therefore, 1500 Watts = 5119.5 BTUs per hr for a 1500 Watt heater. So yes, a 6k btu gas heater will work just fine if your 1.5k electric heater is doing the job.
 
6000btu x 75% efficiency will leave you with 4500BTU going out into the room.

Maybe that is enough to heat your room depending on insulation? Maybe you could find a larger heater?

Matt
 
From what I can see this unit has no convection air vents into the room which means it's radiant heat only. I don't know where the 75% efficiency figure came from, but most all-glass units like this are less then 50% efficient at best. I've seen these (all glass, no blower) units P-4 CSA listed as low as 12% efficient while the brochure is claiming 84%.

Not to say you won't like it, but keep in mind that long after you've paid off the install it will still cost you more to heat with this unit verses the 100% efficient electric heater.
 
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