Presto HeatDish Parabolic Electric Space Heater Plus Footlight

Product Description

Large 15" Diameter Dish Glows Orange from heating element Off, Lo, Med, and Hi Settings. *light bulb for footlight not included. 40watt - small bulb.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125643 in Home Improvement
• Brand: Unknown

Features

• Safety Feature turns unit off when tipped over
• Sends direct heat aprox. 10ft
• Metal Mesh Grill Cover

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
Advantages and Disadvantages of this Heater:
By J. Winters
I purchased the Costco version of this Presto heater and LOVE IT, but it's critically important to know what you're getting into:

Infrared radiant heat from these parabolic dish heaters does NOT heat ROOM AIR much at all! It heats primarily water, things saturated with water (like we Humans), and coincidentally many Plastics---all assuming a narrow infrared focus range peaking at 3 microns (3000nm wavelength). Even longer wavelengths (3-10 microns) are possible but less specifically-aimed at human bodies and thus put heat into nearby concrete, wood floors, people, and most other materials, including many metals.

*Directional Infrared Heat* (i.e., focused Radiant Heat from these dish heaters) is VERY EFFICIENT if your goal is to put all/most of the heater's energy into YOU and not into a large room's air (or outdoor air).

BUT, this means you have to stand IN FRONT of the heater :) Otherwise, you'll barely notice much heat at all (just the s mall fraction of heat that escapes via convection into the air, or the wavelength falloff range that extends sufficiently to radiantly heat concrete, wood, rocks, plastics, metals, etc.

IF you use regular forced-air heaters (often the same tungsten filaments found in cheaper radiant dish heaters, nearly all quartz heaters, and heat lamps) you'll be heating most everything via convection through the air - which means the larger the room and more objects to heat the more the heater's energy must be divided. That is, 500 watts of directional radiant heat will feel MUCH hotter to someone standing in front of the parabolic dish heater than would standing in front of a forced-air 500 watt heater due to air turbulence and molecules that don't have the opportunity to conduct by colliding into you (think of convection as touch-conduction in a fluid medium where each molecule of air/water/fluid is an individual messenger or heat carrier that drops off/transfers some heat to each thing it bumps into). However, you needn't stand in front of a forced-air heater vs a dish radiant one, but if you don't then the same watt forced-air heater will take a loooong time before you start feeling warm.

Most Metals Reflect Infrared wavelengths similar to a household mirror, which is why a parabolic dish heater's thin metal dish won't feel hot on its backside unless ran for extended lengths of time where convection and the non-100% infrared reflectivity efficiency losses have time to heat it (pure elemental gold metal reflects infrared best at around 95% and is why applied to backside of expensive quartz filament bulbs :)

The BEST filaments for radiant heating of water/humans are the pricier carbon filaments. They have near instant-on heat and generally peak closest to our target 3000nm wavelength we humans like to feel when we stand out in the sunlight warmth. I've not checked whether or not these dishes use carbon vs tungsten, but look s like decent tungsten upon casual inspection.

FYI: Old "radiant" steam heaters are a misnomer since they primarily heat the air by creating a natural heat-rise current in the air (aka: convection heating). Incidentally, this is the same reason why the gap size between double-glass insulating windows is so important since otherwise those windows become mini-convection heat-loss/heat-transfer panels in your wall :)

Try this at home: hold a piece of UNCOATED/UNPAINTED metal in front of a true parabolic dish heater with tongs/whatever such your hand doesnt heat the metal, and at same time place your bare hand at the same safe distance beside it and observe which heats up. Result: metal has barely warmed at all whereas your hand gets toasty fast and if too close even starts to get too hot feeling. If the metal is flat think of it as a mirror---you can make some of the heater's heat "turn a 90-degree corner" like using a mirror but to heat.

Plasti cs & Radiant Heater CAUTION: Some plastics like common polyethylenes coincidentally absorb infrared radiation optimally at 3500nm (3.5 micron wavelengths) which is near that of water's 3000nm. This means many plastics will absorb and heat as fast as you will in front of heaters like these, which weakens/ages them by fracturing polymer chains.

Finally, for those curious about what differentiates this type of 'radiation' from 'nuclear radiation', remember that any lightbulb (LED, CFL, FL, Incandescent), radiant heater, all radio and TV signals, lasers, x-rays, and of course sunshine is ALL electromagnetic radiation (EM) delivered by way of photons and it is the EM wavelength (energy per photon rather than number of photons) that determines whether the radiation is 'scary'. Scary or bad EM usually means ionizing radiation like UV, x-ray, or worse) whereas non-ionizing EM includes all visible light, infrared, TV/radio, microwaves, etc. Note, however, that right at the border of deep violet visible light and UVB/UVC ultraviolet is non-ioninizing UVA/violets now thought the principle cause of the deadliest melanoma skin cancers fueled by indirect DNA damage of free radicals generated by UVA/violets EM energy and catalysts (such as, ironically, non-metals-based suntan lotion as well as other naturally-occurring compounds in our tissues). Once you get into regular visible light and longer wavelengths (radio, microwaves, etc.) most people believe to be safe as the energy per photon falls to such low levels. Nuclear radiation, on the other hand, is entirely different yet and deals with non-EM particle radiation (e.g., stray neutron bombardment) which is extra 'scary' of course and not found in our heaters or lights LOL (unless you bought a second-hand looted chernobyl-irradiated heater I suppose).

Hope that helps. :-)

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Spot Warmth Where You Need It!
By R. Cross
This is a radiant heater, designed to throw a "beam of heat". As a science teacher explained in junior high some 40 years ago, they do not heat the air or a room, but the objects in the path. If you are looking to warm a room, especially quickly, you want a forced air ceramic/quartz heater. If you want to warm yourself in an otherwise cold room, this is your baby. Sadly, almost every time I go to CostCo, I see someone returning one of these. Reading reviews of similar products on the web, it is clear that many folks have no clue about radiant heaters.

Like one of the other reviewers, I bought this at CostCo but for some friends who smoked on their patio and froze during the winter. They've both passed on now and their relatives gave it back to me. (I also have one in my shop.)

Our furnace is out at the moment and it is doubtful we can afford to fix it before winter is over. Here in Las Vegas it is currently 41 outside with an expected low toni ght of 29. Last night it was 21.

I'm sitting here writing this with this heater about six feet from me and on medium. I'm comfortable (and shirtless) even though it is only in the low 60s in the house. (We have a couple of oil filled heaters.) My right side (heater side) is hot to the touch, my left side is cool. Over all though, I'm comfortable.

Where this unit excels is in my shop which is basically a walled in carport, but walled in by louvers. I.E. it's 41 in my shop. But I just aim this at my workbench from about six feet away and stay toasty while there at the bench.

My wife is a lizard. Very cold blooded and is always cold if the room temp is below 80. All I have to do is aim this at her on the couch and she's warm and toasty without driving me out of the room.

If you use these types of heaters as intended, they are more than enough to cook you.

The one thing I really like about these is that at full power , they only consume 1,000 watts. Our oil filled and ceramic/quartz heaters start at 900 watts on low and go up to 1,500 watts. That will run up the electric bill (about $100 a month per heater) and two of them on the same circuit will blow our circuit breakers. So using these radiant dish heaters as spot heaters do a better job for less money.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Couldn't give it 4 stars despite the intense heat
By CT music fan
I owned this for about 3 years before it died. Purchased from Costco (there are more reviews on there).It gives off a tremendous amount of heat in a limited space of 3 feet but that's it.
The footlight is pointless and stop working after a year. One of the Costco reviewers had this to say: "Owned a few of these and the experience is the same - and matching quite a few others here.This is an effective, LIMITED LIFE, product. It does what it says - sends a very nice stream of heat in a very limited direction. BUT it has a limited life span of 1-3 years, depending on use and luck.
The problem always seems to come down to a faulty "tip" sensor, so that the "alarm feature" - meant to warn you that the device has fallen off its perch - goes off continuously, rendering the device useless. Clearly Presto has skimped on parts there and has little interest in correcting this - as evidenced by user reports of this problem going back years... .
Note to Presto - spend a few more pennies on parts and design improvement, and a few less on the marketing required to re-package the exact same thing every year and you have a winner here. As is however, strcitly, buyer beware."

I couldn't agree more.