What heater to use

thegalleons

New member
Hi I'm just finishing off my studio. It's a smallish 4m x 3m wooden structure in my garden. It's a wooden frame with two layers of 18mm ply, 40mm Celotex, 50mm RW4 Rockwool and two layers of soundbloc plasterboard hanging on resbar. The window is made up of two triple glazed units one in front of the other so it's reasonably well insulated. With a British winter approaching however I'm aware that it would be good to have some kind of thermostatic heater that kicks in when it looks like the temperature may reach gear damaging lows. I'm thinking whatever I choose will need to hit the following criteria:

Not take up too much space and be movable/removable
Be safe to leave unattended overnight or whilst away for a few days on a timer switch or thermostat
Not cause rapid dramatic variations in temperature that could damage gear
Be reasonably cheap to buy and run
Be silent

At present I'm thinking a small oil filled heater with a thermostat but not sure how safe or economical these are. Also I'm wondering what kind of effect being in a cold environment might have on gear as I'm not an expert. I'm imagining speakers and mic diaphragms would be sensitive to temperature change but how about electronics? I'm on the south coast of England so it's not like the arctic but can get quite cold and certainly below freezing.

Any thoughts, ideas or experiences very welcome.

Thanks

Ben
 
The oil-filled ones are relatively safe to leave on for longer periods.
I have that I use in a front foyer area that has no built-in heat...there's plants there and also a stray outdoor cat that needs a winter home...so I'll leave it on for days, with the thermostat set on the low side, and if you have two wattage levels, also the lower one.

Other than that, if the place is small and well insulated, even a couple of light bulbs may keep the chill off the gear.

What you don't want for the gear is a constant up/down in the temps, as that will cause condensation and issues....otherwise, just storing the gear at colder temps is OK...but, once you get below freezing, things can compress, and PCBs can crack...cold is OK, but freezing would not be for the gear.

Ideally, some time of warm air setup might be the safest, but you need to figure out how to generate that.
Can you feed some heat/warm air from the house to the wooden structure...?
 
As far as I know, kerosene is the cleanest burning fuel. In fact, it is only around 2 steps down from jet fuel. It leaves soot. Oil will be about 10 times worse. Make sure you really dig into this, as soot and audio gear does not mix!
 
Make no mistake about it! NO HEATER is safe left un attended. That's how houses/buildings/people, burn up. Please don't take my word for it. Just find one single manufacturer who states their fuel burning heater, is recommended to be used and left un attended.
 

I have two of these oil-filled radiators (not that brand, though), one gets used in our spare bedroom when we have a guest (or I'm kicked out of the master bedroom). The room is about the same size as your described room, and fairly well-insulated, just no direct heat, and the heater has been left on for many days in a row with no issue. Left on the lower (500watt) side, with the thermostat dial round 2-3 is all the room needs. Doesn't use much electricity at all.
 
I had two oil filled electric heaters that heated the room above the garage for about twenty years. It worked out well. I left mine on all winter and never had a problem. Some disadvantages could be:

1. They are not silent. every once in a while the oil will pop or crackle.
2. I left them on because it would take three hours to heat a 240 sq ft room up to 70 degrees. Plus I kept my computer up there and didn't want the mentioned condensation issues
3. Both of mine leaked small amounts of oil. There was never any standing oil or anything (and the things were fine for twenty years). The reason I noticed was my floors were unfinished barnwood and it just left a stain wherever I moved them. If you do use an oil filled heater, I would recommend putting something underneath.

I am just listing possible concerns. Mine worked out fine and two kept up that room warm no matter what the temperature outside.

Brad
 
Only one way to go, a split system heat/cool air conditioner. You can set a temperature and the leave the thing on, in an insulated room it will use next to no electricity and maintain the set temperature. Also a split system will not need large holes in the walls as it only has pipes and wires running outside. I have them in my studio and if you get a good quiet brand you can even leave them on at slow fan speed when recording.

I used Mitsubishi LINK



Alan.
 
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