cowboyind's Full Review: Lakewood 792/JR Electric Utility Heater
Because electric heaters are not usually expensive, many consumers view a heater as an incidental purchase and put little thought into selecting it. However, despite their low cost, these are potentially dangerous items that should be chosen carefully to minimize risk to life and property: According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, electric heaters in a typical year cause about 4,400 house fires in the U.S., resulting in 90 deaths.
A solid, ruggedly-built metal heater like the Lakewood 792/JR is, in my opinion, far safer than competing models that are made mostly or entirely of plastic, and the 792/JR has other safety and design features that contribute not only to safety but to economical and convenient operation. I believe it's an excellent choice for someone who needs supplemental heat for a cold room of the house, a garage, utility room, or other area. Its solid construction also means it should stand up to many years of use: I have had one for over seven years now, and it still works perfectly.
Amazingly, this heater is often available for under $20 on sale -- cheaper than many all-plastic heaters that are probably less safe and would not hold up over the long-term anywhere near as well as this one.
The Lakewood 792/JR is a fan-forced convection heater, which means it warms air directly by moving it quickly past the heating elements and out into the room. Compared to a natural convection heater such as a radiator or baseboard unit, a fan-forced convection heater warms the air more quickly. The downside is that the area nearest the heater is likely to be warmer than areas farther away.
This makes the 792/JR perfect for a garage or workshop where heat is needed quickly at a specific location. While a natural convection heater would take a long time to warm an area up, the fan-forced heater provides instant warmth to an area where a person is working or sitting.
This model features a thermostat that will cycle the heater on and off to maintain a desired temperature. The thermostat in this heater is better than most thermostats in portable heaters because it has "snap-action" contacts that positively open and close. (You can hear this as a clicking sound that will occur somewhere in the thermostat's temperature range as you turn it up or down.)
Most portable heaters of this type and price range do not have snap-action thermostats -- they have simple and cheap non-snap action thermostats that weakly open and close their contacts in response to very slight temperature fluctuations. (You can detect this by turning the thermostat all the way through its range of adjustment and noting that you never hear a click.) These cheap thermostats in most heaters of this type will arc significantly internally, shortening the thermostat's life, and they will also tend to cycle a heater on and off in ridiculously short intervals -- on for ten seconds, off for five, on for three seconds, off for ten more seconds, and so on.
In contrast, the thermostat in this heater is reasonably effective at regulating a room's temperature, and it will run the heater in tolerable-length cycles -- on for a few minutes, off for a few. The thermostat works best if you run the heater at its 750-watt setting rather than 1500-watt. (Most likely this is because the 1500-watt setting creates more heat right near the thermostat, causing it to shut the heater off too soon.)
So, my suggestion for best use of this heater is to run it with the thermostat all the way up on the 1500-watt setting to initially warm the room to a comfortable temperature. Then, turn the power level down to 750 watts and slowly turn the thermostat down until the heater clicks off. The heater will then run in reasonable-length cycles to maintain the current room temperature.
In addition to allowing the thermostat to work better, the 750-watt setting can help users save power by cutting the heater's maximum power usage in half, and can also enhance safety by reducing the tendency of a heater to overload a household circuit that already has other loads on it.
The metal housing of the heater is very rugged and sturdy, making the heater highly suitable for use in a garage or shop where its rigidity would be an asset. I know there are many heaters now made out of plastic, but I do not believe plastic is a good material out of which to make something like a heater that contains heating elements that can, under easily foreseeable conditions, become red hot. (Example: The fan motor fails, or the airflow becomes obstructed by a drape or other obstruction, allowing the heating element to overheat.) In this situation, a plastic heater could melt and possibly catch fire or cause a fire in a nearby object. A metal heater would not do this.
The fan in this heater is quiet but fairly powerful, pushing heated air a good distance from the unit.
This heater also has a three-prong grounded cord, which not all heaters of this type have. Keep in mind that the heater's cord and plug are only 50 percent of the wiring safety equation: The other half is your home's receptacle. If the heater's plug does not fit snugly into your home's receptacle, do not use the heater in that receptacle. Plug it in somewhere else, or have the receptacle replaced. On a high current item such as a heater, a loose fitting plug will generate heat in the receptacle and the wiring behind it. The heat often becomes so great the insulation is burned off wires in the wall behind the receptacle. I have personally seen this happen twice in homes where I have been doing renovation work. This is a serious fire risk.
Before closing, a few comments about what a heater such as this will and will not do. When I read reviews of electric heaters, sometimes I see comments like this: "I put this in my garage and ran it for an hour and it didn't do any good, so I took it back."
With electric heat, generally a watt is sufficient to heat roughly one cubic foot of interior space. An average-sized 20' x 20' garage is 400 square feet, and it probably has a 10 or 11 foot ceiling, so you have at least 4,000 cubic feet. So, right off the bat you can see that 1,500 watts is only about a third of the heat this area needs. And then on top of that, there is probably an overhead door with little or no insulation, and plus some cracks around the bottom and top of that door, and the temperature of the garage may be 20 or 30 degrees F or less -- maybe a lot less, if it's a very cold day -- and all objects in the garage are sitting at that temperature, too, so they'll start soaking up any heat that's put into the room until they all get warmed up, which will take hours.
No 1,500-watt heater will detectably warm this space in any reasonable length of time. If you want to go out in this garage and work on your car, you must use either far more wattage (only available on 240-volt heaters), or use a heater such as this as a "zone heater." (In other words, position it so it blows directly on you as you work.) Radiant heaters (quartz or others that glow red or orange) are also good for zone heating.
In a big area of the house, such as an unheated basement, the situation is a little better, because you are starting at a more reasonable temperature -- maybe 55 or 60 degrees F, at least, but you still have to be realistic about what 1,500 watts will and will not do. If a room is larger than 150 to 200 square feet and your only option is a 1,500 watt portable heater, you will need to think more in terms of zone heating -- directing heat at people in this space -- rather than warming the whole space up ten or fifteen degrees.
Also, one other thing to remember is that with electric heat, a watt is a watt. There may be 20 different brands and styles of 120-volt electric heaters on the store shelf, but they all have a maximum power of 1,500 watts, so they all produce the same heating effect, and they all work with the same 100-percent level of efficiency. That's the long and the short of it. Frequently, on the heaters' boxes you will see statements such as, "No heater has more power," or "Maximum power available." Both claims are accurate but misleading because they imply that only a certain heater has those features, when, in fact, they all do. No heater has more power because they all essentially have the same power, and all operate at or near the code-established maximum of 1,500 watts. A few heaters do operate at 1,200 or 1,300 watts instead of 1,500. Because they consume less wattage, they produce a little less heat, but the lower wattage models may be more suitable for homes with older wiring.
(Some companies even sell high-priced electric heaters online for $300 and $400, calling them "mini-furnaces," and claiming they produce more or "better" heat than other electric heaters and that they can cut your energy bills by taking the place of your central heating system. Like all other 120-volt heaters, they are limited to 1,500 watts, and they don't heat any more or any better than any other heaters that consume the same wattage, so save your money and buy this Lakewood heater, instead. Also, because of the physical properties of air, all forms of heating dry the air by reducing its relative humidity. This is an unavoidable consequence of heating air by any method. All electric heaters have the same effect on indoor relative humidity, so do not believe claims that one electric heater dries the air less than some other electric heater. Electric heaters, in fact, dry the air less than fuel-burning heaters that use inside air for combustion and are vented outside. Compared to fuel-burning heaters that draw combustion air from outside and are vented outside, electric heaters have the same effect on indoor humidity.)
So, select a heater based on it having a safe, proven design and other helpful features, but keep in mind that all heaters of the same wattage will produce the same amount of heat.
I recommend the Lakewood 792/JR highly. It is a good quality heater that would be suitable in many different applications. In addition, its design shows that some thought and care were put into several areas, especially the thermostat and the sturdy design of the housing.
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