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[Hilton]

I just thought I'd share a good read on heating from the University of New South Wales. It influenced my purchasing decision around heaters for our home this winter.

http://ems.unsw.edu.au/HeaterTutorial.shtml

We have a very large open plan house with central reverse air/con that will cost several thousand to repair, and since we're still renting this year its not an option for us to repair.
It was barely working last winter but it's doing nothing this year!

The main issue is the kitchen, living, family and dining room are all open plan and very large areas.

We have a small 2200W ceramic fan heater that's great as a personal heater but the rest of the house is just freezing, getting down to 12c overnight inside and heating at best to 17c.
My office is fine with the computer pumping out plenty of heat from the quad SLI rig blasting 1500W of heat into the room.
My daughter has a 2400W oil heater for her room set at about 75% on the thermostat which does a good job for her room.

So after doing some research, I'm picking up a 2000W micathermic heater for the lounge room and another ceramic 2200W for the kitchen and other areas when we move about.

I'd never heard of micathermic heaters, they sound like a great idea with 80% radiant heat and 20% convection heating.  Almost none of the dangers of old school radiant electric bar heaters with the benefit of radiant heat and convection heating.  Fast start up too, full heat in 1 min!

I'm interested in other peoples experience with heating their home, particularly larger areas.

[Hilton]

Wow you can really feel the difference with the micathermic heater.

The air temp has gone up from 14c when I got home to 19c in a couple hours. The old central heating would struggle to get up to 17c in 3hrs.

Sitting on the lounge with it angled towards us @ 45 degrees @ 2M (~6ft) and I've had to take my jumper off!
@ 19c room temp now and with my jumper off it feels very comfortable even moving around the house.  It's like sitting in the winter sun!

Apparently the infra red heat from the Mica stone on the outside of the heating element travels until it hits an object in the room and then heats the surface of the object, much like the sun does.
The radiated heat can be felt across the room!
There's also a fair bit of convection heat coming from out of the top. Enough to comfortably warm your hands in about 30 seconds.

The one I've got is a slightly different design to some of the micathermic heaters I've seen.
Its a Goldair 2000W micathermic GMH500 designed in New Zealand.

http://www.goldair.co.nz/product-catalogue/heating/micathermic-heaters/2000w-micathermic-heater-gmh500



It has two micathermic panels, one facing outwards on each side, and an airgap between of about 15cm where the convection heat from the back of each panels rises up through the centre.
It's a similar concept to panel heating but with the added advantage of the mica infra red radiating heat.
It's also super light, I can lift it with my pinky finger.

I have the 2000W Micathermic in the lounge room with a 2200W ceramic in the kitchen and 2200W ceramic in behind the lounge to circulate the air.  

Now I'm comfortable I've turned both ceramic heaters off and I'll see how the Micathermic does on its own.

Have to say so far I'm extremely impressed.  
The main open lounge area is about 12M x 12M (40'x40') and kitchen / dining area is 12M x 8M (12'x10') with a 2M opening between kitchen and living area.
I'm impressed it did so well in such a short time.

The Ceramics are remote controlled 2200W Delonghi DCH7092ER heaters which are great small room and personal heaters, but it had no chance of heating my open area.

http://www.delonghi.com/en-au/products/comfort/portable-heating/fan-heaters/dch709er-ceramic-heater-0114482058