Honeywell HeatBud Ceramic Space Heater, Black – Energy Efficient Ceramic Heater with Two Heat Settings for Home, School or Office

First, to clarify, the area I live in during winter has some nights in the 30s, a rare night in the 20s, but most nights in the 40s. Daytime temps in winter are 50s, 60, & 70s. I have a 3 bedrm 2 bath double-wide manufactured home. I first tried using my central AC unit, which sits outside, that has a heating element built in; it draws 5000 watts & my bills were too high so I switched to four 1500 watt space heaters. Bills were lower, but some areas of the house were chilly and my wife didn't like the ionized hot metal odor they produced. I investigated infrared, electric oil filled radiators, and ceramic heaters. The infrared mostly heated objects & not so much the air, the oil filled radiators were large and my wife didn't like how they looked, so that left me with ceramics. But then I did something counterintuitive. Instead of purchasing 2 to 3 large ceramic heaters with large fans that blow the heat through the house, I purchased 8 tiny ceramic heaters, with tiny fans inside, that are advertised for: 'heating your feet under your desk'. Whenever you blow heat you immediately cool it down, actually by a fair percentage. The biggest heater, my outside AC heater, has one heck of a large fan and consequently the heat coming out of the ceiling vents is about 110 degrees, and yet the hot coil, a half-mile away (a bit of an exaggeration), is actually hundreds of degrees hot. Now the oil filled elect. radiators don't use fans, their heat is distributed by convection, but again they are large and my wife didn't think they would go with her decor. So my reasoning was, wouldn't it be better to have small heaters, with tiny fans, spread through the house, instead of 2 to 3 large heaters with larger fans that spread the heat but also simultaneously cooled it down? How much heat did the tiny heaters produce, which on high only used 240 watts, compared to the heat produced by space heaters, which used 1320 watts on high? Most space heaters are referred to as 1500 watt heaters but actually consume about 1300 watts. So I did what any good farm boy would do (I grew up on a small potato farm) I broke out my laser infrared thermometer, my wattage meter, and went and found two of my wifes meat thermometers and proceeded to do some testing. The results of these tests amazed me. I took photos of the experiments and then added words to the photos so please check them out. As I said I have eight heaters, one in each room except for the 2nd bathroom; I have two heaters in the largest room, the living room. I included one photo of the living room to give you an idea of how small they look, in addition, they are also extremely quiet & we smell no odor. One last important detail, on cold nights, I put reflective foam board insulators in each window because I only have single pane windows.

So we built a cat shelter, a "catsle", and we bought this to keep the interior warm. We're in northern Montana, and temperatures here often reach -40ºF in the winter (and they've been known to hit -60ºF from time to time.) Keeping in mind the risks of pets getting too close to this kind of heater and the resulting potential problems that could arise if they did, I built an assembly to give the heater its own space. Here's the story:I took a heavy board, glued (with three different glues) the ceramic heater to approximately center of it, created a dependable strain relief for the AC cord, hinged a basket with lots of clearance on all sides over that, zip-tied the AC cord to the basket in turn so that when the basket is opened, the cord flexes rather than pulls, and then locked down the basket.This prevents the cats from getting too close to the input or the output of the heater, and if they do snuggle up to any one part of the basket, there will still be adequate airflow to allow the heater to work without risk of overheating or fire. The heavy board and wide footprint also prevent the assembly from overturning, although even if it did, it wouldn't cause a problem, because that heater isn't coming off that board without using a crowbar and a hammer due to the gluing of the heater itself to the board. We also have a security camera inside the catsle so we'd see it if that happened.I was going to use the other two nylon loops to attach a wire retainer to the heater, but it turns out that after the glue dried, I was able to pick the assembly up by the heater and shake it very hard and the heater won't budge, so... never mind.The heater itself is a relatively low wattage unit; it's more than sufficient to keep the catsle quite a bit warmer than outdoor ambient. That, along with the fact that there's no wind inside the catsle and the large heated pad that is also in there, provides a safe and cozy environment for the catsle's denizens.If it has to be serviced, pulling one screw will open the basket, and the heater would then be pried (or hammered) off and replaced. The entire assembly can be lifted out through any of the tower hatches if needed.