Heater for sun room/green house.

My husband bless his heart had a 12'x18' sun room added to the back of the house this summer. It has 3 walls of glass that are 12" from the floor to about 4" from the ceiling. Fall winter and spring I will be using it to over winter some of my container plantings, rhizomes and bulbs, plus starting seedlings in the spring.

At first he wasn't going to heat it and then I figured with WI winters my tropical hibiscus, alstromeria, etc couldn't stay in there and would need to come in the house anyway.

He decided a heater would be a good thing after all.

He purchased a heater from BioTech research the EdenPURE 1000-XL.

Has anyone ever heard of this before?

It is supposed to produce safe clean economical heat by using Infrared Quartz Heating elements that will prevent wasteful accumulation of heat on the ceiling. They are supposed to produce heat that is as safe as the infrared rays of the sun, producing natural outdoor heat indoors.
the heaters are supposed to have low operating and maintenance cost.

They are supposed to provide even heat distribution and warm floors.They operate at a max of 70 - 72 degrees and supposedly a room at 68* is supposed to feel like 72*.

My husband did not want to have to heat this room but he also wants to keep his living room which is where all the plants would go.

I just wondered if any one had heard of this particular one and had any opinions one way or the other. He's doing this for me and I'd hate for it to be a bust for him. I only want to keep it between 40 -45 degrees anyway in the worst of the WI winter.

Any opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Cherie

You may want to check this site out and look at the reviews posted. I also checked at Consumer Reports Online and based on the price of the unit they rated it last of all the Quartz radiant heaters. Their top choice in this catagory was a "Holmes Quartz Tower" model HQH319. The cost for the Holmes unit was $60.00 vs $400.00 for the Edenpure. They both had the same BTU output of 1500 watts. :-(

http://www.infomercialratings.com/product/edenpure_heater_reviews

HTH
Nautical

Cece,

I've been home catching up on some reading in the forums and linked onto your sun room thread, then found this one and I was wondering how it's working for you this winter.

My greenhouse is a converted (for the winter only) orchid house/patio. 15X30 feet. We put plastic up on the outside (4 mil) and put in 2 storm doors in the walkway openings. My BF gave me his kerosene heater.

Now I know, you can pshaw me, I do live in Florida, but up this far north and out where I live, we get temps down in the teens. Granted not for extended time periods, 4-5 hours only before the sun comes up and brings the warmth again. My mobile home provides the back wall for the structure and is not real energy efficient so a lot of heat leaks out of the walls and windows. Good news for the GH. With only plastic as the barrier between the out of doors on 3 sides, the cold can creep in on the worst nights. The floor is dirt and our ground here does not freeze, so this is good. The GH faces the south.

The kerosene heater holds about 2 gallons of fuel and will run on a low flame from 10 pm to 6 am and not run out of kerosene. We have had 18 outside and 38 in the GH on lowest flame. Turn it up a bit and it will bring the temp to 40. We turn it off when we go to work and within a couple hours, the sun is up and sending it's rays to warm up the GH.

I know you have consistently much colder temps up north, but you also have what looks to be real glass in your southern wall, much better insulator than visquene.

So how is your Sun room treating you this winter?

Molly
:^)))

I'm thinking of getting the Portable Furnace for my GH as the main heat source next year. I've read the info on the EdenPure and the reason I won't buy that one is that the tubes last an average of 3 years and then you have to send the whole thing back to the company to have new tubes put in. With the Portable Furnace you just buy the bulbs and replace them yourself. Both units cost about the same and report the same amount of heat for an 800 sq ft area.

MollyD

Molly the sun room is working out fairly nicely. It has gotten down to temps as low as 30 even with the heater on but that was when night temps got to below zero. Three times for the month of January so far. The plants don't seem to mind as far as I can tell and I think it is because it is a frost-free area. During the day it gets to be anywhere from 60.7 to 78.5 degrees in there without the heaters when the sun is shining and between 48 and 58 when the sun is not shining.

I've even had my tropical hibiscus bloom for me and a dragon wing begonia is blooming right now. I had my coleus cuttings bloom as well.

I had suggested to hubby about putting up plastic up around the outside of the room and he nixed it but then over the weekend he said next year I think we should try a heavy plastic on the outside. I had remembered from the first year I was on Dave's Garden (2006) that that was what you did. Because it is connected to the house and our house is stone the inner wall stays pretty much around 48* even in the coldest night. The heater seems to work o.k. and we do have two fans we run on low at night to circulate the air. We also keep the back door open at night do some heat comes from inside the house worm its little way out.

We have a concrete floor and covered it with indoor/outdoor carpeting just cause it was cold to the feet and the people we bought the heater from suggested covering the concrete as concree would absorb most of the heat.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the sun room and the difference it has made. Yes it still gets cold but my plants seem to be thriving out there and that is the bottom line. Less cash to been spent buying replacements or those that didn't survive.

That reminds me of something! The fish that we had in the pond over the summer is still ALIVE! Not in the pond that is frozen.

We had put them in a 5-gallon bucket and forgot them in the garage! I happened to notice it one day and went to check and all 6 had their little tails waving back and forth. We're trying to melt snow to put them in fresher water because the water is turning black but they are still alive. Unbelievable! They have been in the garage since October! I found them New Year's Day!!!!! How's that for strong goldfish


Cherie :)

Cheri,

That's great about the GH. and the fish too. Go to the aquarium store and buy some anachris to put in there. That plant is the best oxygenator and it also helps to clean fish poo. The fish will also snack on it and it grows back pretty quickly. That should get your fish through the rest of winter.

I have 2 ponds outside that depend strictly on plant matter for this. I had to stop feeding the goldfish because they get too tame and when that wild hawk comes fishing, I don't want them to think he's there to play.

Molly
:^)))