I know about radiative heaters - I've seen them with a catalytic element that just glows red-hot and gives off infrared. I'm way, way too lazy to look up the numbers, but one time I was in a survival situation (well, kinda - I was camping out, and it got really really cold); I ripped the handle off a little sieve, and heated it up on my little propane camp stove - it turned red-hot, and I hung some aluminum foil behind it, and I got just toasty-warm. ;-)
But it would be interesting to do a comparision of gas/electric radiative heaters.
What do they use at those ski bunny joints up in the mountains, where people have snowball fights in bikinis and stuff? ;-)
I've even heard of microwave heating - where they take microwave oven maggies but only run them at a few watts, and the microwaves warm up about the first .1mm of your skin, where all of your sensory nerve endings are.
Up high? Ick! Then your head roasts while your feet freeze. I was in South Korea in 1970 or so, and the winters are almost as bad as Minnesota. But the Korean houses use a coal-fired heating system; there's a little coal stove (it's kinda like "pressed coal" it's a perforated cylinder that they slide down into the stove), and the coal stove has an air jacket, which vents through ducts embedded in the floor.
It's awful nice to come in out of freezing weather, take your shoes off, and sit on a floor that's at 75 degrees F (~24C). ;-)
They _do_ warn us about the hazard of CO, so don't worry in that regard. :-)
I just bought a Reddy-Heater LP space heater (35K/btu). Love it! From a too cold front room, 15 mins and I'm lounging in my skivvies. I had a kerosene model (same brand) previously, but hated the smell. Radient kerosene is ok once it comes up to speed, but a kero space heater is always incomplete combustion and the fumes are atrocious. Looking at a Reddy radiant and my forced air which are both the same btu rating, they both consume the same fuel, 1.6lbs/hr. But, I'll bet mine warms faster. OTOH, it requires electricity for the fan. I'll take the hit.
Among the safest heaters are the ceramic element electrics with a fan. Nothing gets hot enough to glow red, so the case can be plastic (totally insulated).
I look at heating a work area in the same way I look at lighting it - if task lighting is appropriate, then so is task heating. Although it's the traditional way of heating workapaces, there's little point in heating a 20x20 space if your work area is 5x5 (less than 10% of the total area).
I use a 1250/1500 watt fan forced ceramic unit to heat a small area (just where I'm working) in a two-car garage. The thermometer on the inside wall might rise to a temperature of 50F or so, but it's appreciably warmer in the 5x5 space in which I'm actually working. And remember not to sit on the concrete floor - two layers of cardboard between your body and the floor will make a big difference in your comfort level.
It probably helps that I've worked on reducing air infiltration in the garage - replaced the rotting wood doors with insulated doors that have weather stripping all around, put storm windows on the two windows in the garage, etc.
I've used a kerosene heater for emergency heating (a piece of my Y2K preparations that saw use in January of 2000, along with the Coleman stove & lantern and a couple of oil lamps). I think the heater is in the range of 22000-28000 BTU and uses about 2 gallons/day (waking hours only) to keep 1000 sq.ft. bearable in below-freezing weather. Heating with kerosene doesn't smell very good, but it's better than being cold.
The price of fuel is VERY dependent on the supplier and the packaging. If you can manage a 55 gallon drum (about 500lb when filled), then I've seen 55 gallons of kerosene for $100. The local Home Depot has a
5 gallon can of kerosene for $34.95. The local Ace Hardware has kerosene for $2.99/gallon if you provide the container. I don't think that can is worth $20 ;-)
Quartz element heaters don't warm the air itself much but instead you're heated by a beam of mainly infra-red radiation ( nothing dangerous btw ! ).
So it's better at getting heat to a localised area as opposed to having to heat up all the air in a room. It does potentially sound like agood idea and they seem to be fairly inexpensive.
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