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Just as fan placement is key to keeping your home cool in the summer, heater placement is a major strategy to consider for winter. Space heaters can be dangerous, of course, so the first thing you need to do is familiarize yourself with some safety tips to avoid accidentally starting a fire.
Here’s where to put your heater—and where not to put it.
Space heaters are meant to heat single rooms
A space heater isn’t going to heat up your whole home, according to manufacturer Lasko. They’re not like fans, which can circulate and cool air for quite a distance. Instead, they really only warm up the area they’re in, so make sure you put your heater in a room that is chilly and where you’ll be spending your time. Never leave it unattended. Pick a room that can be sealed off with doors, too, so you can trap the heat in with you, and consider an oscillating tower heater if you want the heat to be somewhat dispersed.
Don’t put your heater by a wall
Unless you have a heater that is specially designed to be put by a wall (with intake and exhaust vents on the front of the machine), you need to give it a foot or two of space, so choose a room where you’ll be able to keep the device away from walls. Don’t put the heater near anything flammable, like curtains, and give it a buffer zone of about three feet around the front of the heater so kids and pets don’t accidentally get burned on nearby objects that have been heated up. The buffer isn’t just about safety, either: If there are objects in the path of the heat, the room won’t heat up as well, so you’ll be wasting energy.
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Put the heater under a window
Manufacturer Adax recommends putting heaters under windows if you have a panel heater or wall strip panel heater. This will heat up colder air that comes down from the glass and keep the floor from being drafty—just make sure there are no curtains or furniture obstructing the heater’s flow. You can also mount panel heaters on a wall, but they need to be at least 10 centimeters from the floor and have a buffer of clear space in front of them. Check manufacturer instructions carefully.
Use more than one heater
You can use more than one heater to heat up a large room, but you have to keep each one far from the wall and any obstructions. You also need to make sure each one has its own outlet; a space heater should never be plugged into a power strip or extension cord, since these can overheat and catch fire.
Be mindful of water sources
Finally, don’t put your heater near anything that could become wet: Don’t keep it near sinks, showers, or humidifiers. Don’t even keep it by a table you’ll put drinks on. (It shouldn’t be by a table, anyway, but it’s worth repeating.)
