Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Space Heater Plug-in Thermostat

I’m “plugging” (pun fully intended) a product here that I recently started using. It’s the Lux WIN100 Smart Temp 5-2 Programmable Outlet Thermostat.

Electric space heaters typically have some kind of the thermostat, but after a year of use I’ve discovered that their settings appear to be relative to the ambient temperature. For instance, our dining room can get quite warm on a sunny day, but the heater continues to run, even though when the ambient temps are lower the heater would have shut off, and the room ends up way too warm.

At one of the weekly coffees with the other ministers I learned that plug-in thermostats are available for around $30-40. I looked it up on Amazon.com and found one that seemed to fit my needs. I ordered three (because I’ve learned that around here it’s often good to have spares of hard-to-replace items) of the units (inexpensive flat shipping for any number of items, direct from the mfg.) and received them last week. I’ve put two in service and they’ve been doing very well at maintaining a constant temperature.

I used to have temperature swings of up to 10-degrees between nights and days, but with this it just sits steady within 1- to 2-degrees. I no longer have to fiddle frequently with the thermostats. I have a feeling this will, in the long run, save some on the heating costs.

The one catch is that the space heater must be able to remain in an On position (most are), or start out On when plugged in. I have one electronically switched unit that defaults to an Off setting so I can’t use the thermostat with this particular heater.

Highly recommended.

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