The unit features an overheat safety cut out mechanism so that the unit does not overheat and cause a fire. So let’s carry on with our Glen 500W Wall Mounted or Freestanding Skirt Heater review and explore the product’s pricing. The brand of product you buy can vary in importance, from person to person. Some people will of course be much more particular about the brands they will use. Whilst others aren’t interested in the brand and are more interested in the overall quality or price of the product itself. Thankfully Glen is a brand that many customers have grown to love over the years and is very popular for items in the Heaters and radiators category. The next step was to try and narrow down our search even more. So we’ve already looked the prices of products in the Heaters and radiators category. Then we’ve also looked at the prices of products from Glen. So this step combines the two and looks specifically at the price you’d expect to pay for Glen branded products in the Heaters and radiators category. Although the comparison might make your electric heater look cheaper to run, bear in mind that it will only be heating a much smaller area, whereas your central heating will be aiming to heat your whole home.

Dimplex is a leader in the small appliance market so you know that by purchasing this product you are buying a great brand name with great customer service. BEAB Approval These can still be bought, but they aren't as popular or widely available as fan or convector heaters. If you were to try replacing the use of your central heating by putting an electric heater in each room, it will definitely end up costing much more. The next step for us was to look at all of the products that fall within the Heaters and radiators category, of which we found 55 products at Argos. So we pulled together all of the prices of these products to analyse the average prices as well as finding the cheapest and most expensive options.

Central heating is much more effective at maintaining a stable temperature over a longer period, whereas the heat from an electric heater will soon dissipate if the rest of your home is cold. Frost protection The heater can be set to heat automatically when the temperature drops below 5°C, but you'll need to have it on standby for it to run, so this can limit its usefulness. The oil in the radiator acts as a heat reservoir, which stays hot for some time after the heater's switched off. Some are called 'oil-free' and function in a comparable way, just with an internal heating element instead of any oil. Under current energy prices, the electric heaters we've tested can cost anything from 9p to 87p per hour to run on full blast. We use a force meter to record how much is needed to topple each heater over and a decibel meter to measure how much noise each one makes while running.

Some portable heaters have useful extras, such as an LCD screen that displays the current temperature or a remote control for turning the heater on from across the room. These features may come in handy: In our tests, we set every heater to run at full blast so you can see the maximum amount it cost to heat our medium-sized test room. If you have the thermostat of your heater set to a desired temperature, the heater will toggle on and off once it reaches that temperature – depending on what's needed to maintain it. The heater won't operate continuously, so won't cost you as much to run. Are electric heaters cheaper to use than central heating? On the downside, this type can be quite noisy and they don't have some of the more advanced features you can get with convector heaters. Pinning down an exact comparison of how much central heating and electric heaters cost to run is nigh-on impossible, as the factors below are just some of the variables that play a part:The Glen 500 W Skirting Heater features BEAB approval from the British Electrotechnical Approvals Board as it contains some great safety features. Of the 55 products, we discovered that 28 were more expensive and 23 were cheaper than Glen 500W Wall Mounted or Freestanding Skirt Heater. Prices from Glen

Just before we get into the detail of analysing the price of this product, we want to briefly highlight the importance of setting yourself a budget before you spend too much time shopping around for a suitable product. It’s all too often that we get carried away when shopping and find ourselves buying a fantastic product, but probably actually overdelivers on what we need and therefore costs a lot more than we should have spent. So spend a bit of time looking around at the sort of price you can expect to pay for products in the Heaters and radiators category and use that alongside your own financial situation to set yourself a budget.Adjustable thermostat Using this function, a portable heater will heat the room and when the desired temperature is reached, it will try to maintain the room at that temperature. Most of the cheaper, simpler heaters we tested have a dial thermostat that doesn't let you choose specific temperatures in °C. You'll likely need to buy a more expensive model for that. Our tests also found that they're rarely 100% accurate and will probably think the room is a couple of °C warmer or cooler than it is. If the brand you buy is important to you, our best advice is to spend some time writing up your own list of ideal brands. That way when you come to the point where you’re comparing product options you can filter to only show the products from brands in your list. Price is another really important factor for analysing the quality of Glen 500W Wall Mounted or Freestanding Skirt Heater vs other products in the Heaters and radiators category. It’s obvious, but you will need to set your expectations of quality based on your budget and the price of the product you’re looking at, against the price of alternatives. We assess how easily each electric heater can be set up and how easily understandable the controls and settings are. We used any handles to lift the heater and move it around. While some heaters can be used straight out of the box, others have complicated program and timer settings. Also the front of the unit features a neon light that tells the operator whether or not the machine is working or not.

Keen to optimise home heating? See our advice on boiler controls and thermostats , smart meters , and loft insulation

Due to the long list of factors that come into play to calculate your central heating costs, the only way you can confidently compare a heater to your central heating is to install a smart meter. You then divide your weekly heating cost by the number of hours you have it switched on and compare that figure to the cost of running your heater. Next up is material. Read through the product description for Glen 500W Wall Mounted or Freestanding Skirt Heater to get an understanding of the materials the product is made from. Some materials will obviously be known for delivering better quality item than others. You might also have decided that you’ll only accept a product made from a particular material. Convector heaters are usually taller than fan heaters, but thin and light – making them larger, but still relatively easy to move between rooms. Portable electric heaters use electricity, which costs 28.62p/kWh under the current energy price cap. Depending on how effective the heater is, they can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour to notably raise the temperature of a medium-sized room, so if you're only planning on using it until the room gets up to temperature, it will likely cost you between 28 and 57p.