Best small electric heaters

smkettner wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

MrWizard wrote:
Most are around 1500 watts which is 12.5 amps at 120vac ...

In theory yes but in reality hardly does any electric heater advertised or labelled as "1500 watts" actually consume that much power, in some cases much less. I have a gaggle of so-called "1500 watt" electric heaters and only one of them comes anywhere near close to drawing 1500 watts, rather ~ 1440 watts, with all the rest much less. My Kill-a-Watt meter is a handy device for measuring actual draw like this. :)

I believe the rating is at 125 volts. Wattage drops fast because with less voltage there is also less amperage.

Most portable heaters have 16 gauge cords and if you include the voltage drop in the supply wiring to the recept. it's plugged into I would guess that a heating element never sees the nominal rated voltage. If you look at the label on a heater it will say "120 volts" on it and it would have to comply with a UL standard and be ETL or CSA, etc. safety listed. The correct way to see if a heater draws it advertised wattage would be to open it up and measure the voltage at the element's terminals and if necessary compensate by calculation if the measured voltage isn't at it's rated/listed voltage.