Space Heating Compared to Central Heating

Central heating is used in most homes and offices today. There was a time when space heaters were the top of the line methods for heating homes and businesses. Before the space heaters became popular there was the old fashioned wood heater. These appliances have changed through the years and for the majority of people the systems that provide the same amount of warmth to all areas of the structure are the only ones they would use today. For some other people the use of space heaters is still the way they provide warmth to their homes and there are still some using wood burning stoves.

Central heating allows for every room inside the structure to be kept at a constant temperature, and most of the time the residential style appliances have one thermostat that controls what the temperature will be in all of the rooms. In the commercial appliances there can be a different thermostat for each set of rooms.

A space heater is true to its name in that it heats an area, or space, of a certain size within a room. A space heater cannot generate enough actual heat to spread warmth throughout all of the rooms in a house. In order for one of these appliances to warm a larger area you must turn them up to their highest setting. When you do this the person that is closest to the appliance may receive more heat than they require while the people on the other side of the room may be chilled still. Every room in the house will require its own heater in order for it to be warm.

Central heating is more costly to purchase initially when compared to the price of purchasing the other types of appliances available. You have to consider that with the other type of appliance you will need one appliance for every room in the house and in some instances you may require more than one appliance per room to keep the room a comfortable temperature.

Central heating is contained in one place in the house with no electric cords to trip over, and no messy oils to have to fill the system with. When the weather outside warms to a point that you do not need heated air inside the structure you do not have to find a place to store the central heating unit. It remains where it is and it generally also functions as the air conditioner for the home as well as the heat source.

A device designed to heat a small space within a structure cannot compare to one that is designed to heat the entire structure and automatically turn itself on and off to maintain the perfect temperature chosen by the occupant.

When you consider the safety issues you will quickly surmise that more homes are burned by the misuse of a space type heater than are burned by the centralized boiler systems. The smaller units are more apt to have something thrown on top of them like an article of clothing that creates a fire hazard.