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Thom Dunn is a writer focusing on home heating and cooling. He once blew up a power strip with a space heater and a Marshall half-stack. diesel forced air heater
We’ve added some new models to the Competition, and updated our Care, Maintenance, and Safety with some new advice for using indoors propane heaters. (Namely: don’t.)
Whether you need to offset the chill in a drafty bedroom or give your home’s heating system a little boost, it’s always good to have a space heater on hand. We’ve researched over 100 models and tested 75 since 2011, and we think the Vornado VH200 is the best space heater for most people. A lot of space heaters can make you feel as if you’re sitting in front of a hair dryer. But our picks can warm an entire room faster and more comfortably than other models, while still offering plenty of reliable safety features, just in case.
The Vornado VH200 offers the best combination of power, comfort, and quietness. It heats a room faster and more evenly than other models we tested.
The Vornado AVH10 was the most powerful space heater we tested, and it has a few thoughtful details that set it apart from others. But it tends to cost more.
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This effective portable heater works quickly and lasts for years. But its narrow stream of hot air doesn’t feel as comfortable as the heat from models that warm a whole room, and it lacks some safety features.
Oil-filled radiators are silent but slow. The De’Longhi TRD40615T is the best of its type because it’s sturdier than competitors, with an exterior that stays cooler to the touch.
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This attractive space heater is able to oscillate, which helps to spread the heat quickly and evenly around the room.
This wide, tall, flat heater takes up surprisingly little space in the room—especially if you choose to mount it on the wall.
If you need an electric heater for the bathroom, the Dreo DR-HSH004A will do the job safely.
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The Vornado VH200 offers the best combination of power, comfort, and quietness. It heats a room faster and more evenly than other models we tested.
The Vornado VH200 has been our top pick since 2018. That’s because in speed and overall effectiveness, it has consistently surpassed nearly every other space heater we’ve tested, delivering an immediate temperature increase that builds steadily and evenly across the room over time. The VH200 is incredibly simple to use, with just three buttons (including the power switch). It’s also quieter than most other ceramic heaters we’ve tried, emitting only a soft, fanlike whir, and it’s compact enough to tuck away in a corner. Plus, it has all of the safety features we look for, along with a generous five-year warranty, just in case anything goes wrong.
The Vornado AVH10 was the most powerful space heater we tested, and it has a few thoughtful details that set it apart from others. But it tends to cost more.
May be out of stock
The Vornado AVH10 is a lot like the VH200, with a few added features, such as a digital display, a convenient cord-wrapping post (for easy storage), and a countdown clock when you turn it off (for added safety). This model made the room hotter and warmed it faster than our top pick, but it also didn’t distribute that warm air quite as evenly. And it usually costs around $30 to $50 more. But the AVH10 is a great alternative if you find it for a good price, or if you really want those extra features.
This effective portable heater works quickly and lasts for years. But its narrow stream of hot air doesn’t feel as comfortable as the heat from models that warm a whole room, and it lacks some safety features.
We’ve been recommending the Lasko 754200 Ceramic Heater since 2013, and it remains one of the cheapest and most reliable space heaters you can find. It warms up faster than most fan heaters we tested, and it has a compact, lightweight body (about the size of a loaf of bread) and can fit right under your desk. This heater’s focused stream of hot air is great for warming the area directly in front of it, but it’s not as good at spreading the heat around. So the Lasko 754200 is a better choice for a small bedroom or an office than for a large room. But overall, this is a consistent, reliable, and affordable powerhouse.
Oil-filled radiators are silent but slow. The De’Longhi TRD40615T is the best of its type because it’s sturdier than competitors, with an exterior that stays cooler to the touch.
May be out of stock
May be out of stock
Most space heaters can deliver quick heat to a single person, but oil-filled radiators are better at heating a whole room for a longer duration, and the De’Longhi TRD40615T is the best of its kind. Like most oil-filled radiators, this heater warms up much more slowly than a ceramic model. But it also retains that heat longer, providing a cozier, more-ambient warmth throughout the room. The TRD40615T’s burly, all-metal construction is more durable than that of our plastic picks, but it does take up more space. De’longhi also makes a near-identical model, the De’longhi TRD40615E, which has a digital interface in place of the analog controls, but otherwise works just as well.
This attractive space heater is able to oscillate, which helps to spread the heat quickly and evenly around the room.
The Dreo Solaris Slim H3 (DR-HSH003) stands out not only for its stylish appearance but also because it’s the rare oscillating heater that actually succeeds at spreading the warm air evenly around the room. It can’t warm you up quite as quickly as some of our other picks, but its steady arc of motion creates comfortable and uniform heating throughout your space. It also just looks great, with a sleek design and simple controls that let you choose between basic heat settings and a specific, dialed-in temperature. Plus, it has all of the usual safety features that we look for. It is still technically a tower fan, though, so it’s not fun to clean.
This wide, tall, flat heater takes up surprisingly little space in the room—especially if you choose to mount it on the wall.
If you’re strapped for space, or you just don’t like having large, hot objects sitting on your floor, the De’longhi HMP1500 Mica Panel Heater is a great choice. It offers a wider, taller heating area—enough to warm several people sitting in a medium- to large-size room—but the heater itself is hardly more than 2 inches wide. Think of it as a big, hot picture frame. You can roll it from room to room on the included coaster feet, or save even more space by using the handle on the back to mount this heater up on a wall. Just be warned: The front panel gets really hot to touch—all the more reason to get it up off the floor.
If you need an electric heater for the bathroom, the Dreo DR-HSH004A will do the job safely.
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The Dreo DR-HSH004A are the most effective and—more important—safe way to bring some infrared warmth to your bathroom. Although you should still try to keep your space heater far away from water, this model comes with an ALCI safety plug as well as overheat protection, for added safety in the case of stray splashes. In our tests, it did a great job of warming up the cold bathroom tile, too, and it even comes with a remote control so you can heat things up before you get out of bed.
Whichever space heater you choose, there are some common safety concerns that many people overlook: You can’t use any space heater with an extension cord, and you shouldn’t leave any heater unattended. And most heaters can’t be used in a bathroom, unless they’re specifically designed for it. We go over these and other considerations in detail in our section on space-heater care, maintenance, and safety.
We’ve tested more than 80 different space heaters since we first started reviewing them, back in 2011. Over the years, we’ve interviewed experts from places including the Office of the Fire Commissioner in British Columbia and the global safety certification company UL. We’ve also spoken with product designers and engineers from companies such as De’Longhi and Vornado. And we’ve pored over reams of data and research from the U.S. Fire Administration (PDF), the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Fire Protection Association, among others.
The current version of this guide was written by staff writer Thom Dunn, who has also written Wirecutter’s guides to portable air conditioners, window air conditioners, heat pumps, and outdoor patio heaters. And he’s learned firsthand that plugging a space heater and a half-stack Marshall guitar amp into the same power strip can cause some pyrotechnics (and not the cool, rock ’n’ roll kind).
Space heaters are great for supplementing the heat in certain rooms. Maybe there’s an area of your home that has noticeably poorer heat distribution. Perhaps your office is too cold, and you want a small, personal heater to keep at your desk. Or maybe you want to save money—and energy—by spot-heating a room (or yourself), as opposed to filling the entire space with hot air or pumping heat into a room with no one in it. A typical 1,500-watt space heater costs just under $1.50 to run for a full eight-hour workday, assuming average US electric rates for fall 2023—a fair price to pay for a little more comfort in the cooler months.
For that same reason, however, you probably shouldn’t rely on a space heater as the primary heating source for your entire home. For that, you’ll want to winterize your windows and look into getting a heat pump. But if you can’t do that, or you still have a room that just won’t warm up sufficiently, then a space heater could be your savior.
If you do think you need a new space heater, we recommend getting one before the cold weather hits. Retailers usually stock them seasonally, and that means prices and availability can fluctuate wildly in the winter months.
It’s also worth noting that space heaters can be dangerous. In the US alone, there are more than 1,000 home fires each year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Though we try to limit our picks to models that include certain built-in safety technologies, you should be aware that getting a space heater—any space heater—could still mean you’re bringing a potentially deadly hazard into your home. If you’re not sure whether a space heater will work for your specific situation, our section on space-heater care, maintenance, and safety could help you make your decision.
Space heaters can be dangerous—we combed the manuals and spoke to experts to get advice on using them safely.
A good space heater should make you feel more comfortable. That may sound obvious, but a space heater needs to do more than just keep you warm. It should also be convenient and easy to use, as well as safe. Below we list some of the things we look for when selecting models:
You’ll notice that we didn’t mention anything about efficiency or power. That’s because, technically speaking, most electric space heaters put out the same amount of heat: 1,500 watts (about 5,110 BTU) on high and 750 watts (about 2,560 BTU) on low. They’re all technically 100% efficient, too, which means that every watt they use gets converted directly into heat. The difference between a good space heater and a lousy one is how well it moves that warmth around the room—plus the aforementioned safety and user-experience factors.
When it came time for testing, we let each space heater run in a room for four hours, and we took measurements on things like:
While the heaters ran, we also took subjective notes about our experiences with the controls, as well as the overall comfort and feeling of the room.
The Vornado VH200 offers the best combination of power, comfort, and quietness. It heats a room faster and more evenly than other models we tested.
The Vornado VH200 offers the best overall combination of heating speed and distribution, safety features, easy operation, and affordability. Plus, this heater is just generally pleasant to live with, thanks to its simple controls and quiet performance. There’s a reason it’s been our top pick since 2018.
The VH200 can warm a room faster than most other heaters. Vornado fans have a reputation for powerful air circulation, and the company’s space heaters are no exception. In our tests, the VH200 raised the temperature by nearly 20 degrees in just two hours. The only other models that came close to that were also from Vornado.
The VH200 also spreads that heat more evenly around the room. We measured an average difference of about 6 degrees between the sensor we placed 3 feet away from the VH200 and the one that was 6 feet away; that makes the VH200 one of the most consistent models we tested. This all-encompassing and diffuse heat felt natural, not forced, and it made the room feel more comfortable overall. Other Vornado models produced a little more heat, but there was a difference of about 8 to 10 degrees between their sensors. Our Lasko budget pick was a little more consistent than the VH200, but it didn’t produce nearly as much heat overall.
It’s surprisingly quiet, too. Despite its abundant heating ability, the VH200 operated with a quiet murmur that we didn’t find distracting or unpleasant. At the heater’s highest setting, we recorded a decibel level of 45 dBA at a distance of 3 feet and 44 dBA at 6 feet, making the VH200 quieter than most of the other radiant or ceramic heaters we tested. It’s still louder than a radiator, yet it’s also quieter than a household refrigerator (PDF).
The VH200 also comes with all of the safety features we look for, and more. The VH200 is UL-certified, with a tip-over switch that shuts off whenever the heater tilts off the ground, as well as built-in overheat protection. The overheat switch also activates when the airflow gets blocked, as an added layer of protection. The 6-foot-long cable gives you plenty of room to plug the heater into a wall outlet—not a power strip!—and still bring it near you. (You should never plug a space heater into a power strip!) During our tests, the exterior plastic shell stayed relatively cool, at around 95 degrees. Even the heat source behind the grille stayed under 140 degrees, making this one of the coolest models we tested. You still probably wouldn’t want to touch the grille at that temperature, but luckily, the fins are placed close enough together that even a toddler’s curious fingers will have a hard time reaching inside. To be clear, space-heater safety largely depends on using the heater correctly. But all of these features are still reassuring.
The controls are simple and straightforward, too. This space heater has a power button, three “mode” settings (one more than the typical low and high settings), and a thermostat dial with seven settings. And there’s also a built-in thermostatic climate-control feature, which is a bit less obvious but still nice to have. To activate it, simply turn the thermostat knob past your ideal temperature level. Then turn it back, counterclockwise, until you hear a click, and the VH200 will self-regulate to maintain the temperature where you want it, within about 1 degree. In our tests, we were surprised to find that this feature actually worked as advertised, too.
The VH200 has a slim, lightweight design, so it’s easy to tuck away. At 3.5 pounds, the VH200 is about the size of a coffee maker, and it can easily fit under your chair or desk. It’s not a particularly attractive piece of home decor, but it won’t stand out as an eyesore, either, and that’s pretty much exactly what you want. It’s also pleasantly pear-shaped, so it’s harder to tip over (and thus safer to use overall).
If anything goes wrong, Vornado offers the best warranty we’ve seen. The vast majority of space heaters are guaranteed for only a year, if that. But the VH200, like all Vornado products, has a five-year warranty—a generous coverage length that makes the VH200 feel like an even more reliable investment. And the company has a reliable reputation for delivering on these warranties.
The VH200 doesn’t come with a remote control or a timer feature. Either one would be a nice added convenience, and a timer would be particularly nice, since it could turn the heater off after you’ve fallen asleep, for example. You can, however, plug the VH200 into one of our smart-plug picks, which could replicate some of these same controls.
The VH200 doesn’t oscillate, and you can’t tilt the fan to aim the heat in a specific direction. To be clear, the VH200 outperformed every oscillating space heater we tested, and it still did a better job of distributing the warmth than any model with a directional heat source. But we also recognize that some people are skeptical of the VH200’s air-circulation claims. And some folks just really enjoy having something that blasts the heat directly at them, even for a brief moment. This is not that heater.
It doesn’t have a digital (or even numeric) thermostat, either. The VH200 could be frustrating for anyone who’s hoping to keep the room at a specific temperature. You can still set the thermostat knob to “4” if that’s where you feel most comfortable, but there’s no way to translate that directly to 72 degrees Fahrenheit (or whatever the actual temperature is).
propane greenhouse heater The VH200 also lacks a fan-only mode. This is really a bummer only because room fans are Vornado’s primary area of expertise, and so the lack of a fan-only mode prevents this model from becoming a year-round companion for home climate control.