Oil-Filled Radiators

Topics: Heating, Staying Warm

I have an oil-filled, electric, radiator-type heater. It's gives off a mild but toasty warmth, and the timer is very versatile and useful. It's even on casters, so it can be rolled around easily. (It's rather heavy otherwise.) But (unless you're leaving it on all the time) you _do_ have to plan ahead and turn it on (or have it turn itself on) a good 20 minutes before need (more in colder weather).

Even with all the maintenance hassle, for heating up a room quickly and thoroughly, there's nothing like a toyu (oil-burning) heater! (Or cheaper to run, I think.) The classic ones still have the flat top that you can keep a kettle warm on. Unfortunately, for safety their timers are limited to run for only 3 hours after being turned on. This wasn't enough to keep warm through the winter night in my previous place, a little house in Saitama. There the winter night temperature dropped to 5 deg C _inside_ the bedroom (and a few times must have been _below_ 0 deg C; temperature too low to register on the heater).

ES