When the weather turns cold, if your central heating doesn’t quite cut it – or if you’re in an area with no gas heating – then a portable electric heater (sometimes known as a space heater) is worth considering. 

“Portable heaters are great for situations where central heating has failed in your house,” explains Rob Bennett, technical service manager at Pimlico Plumbers. “But they all run on electricity, and that’s not exactly cheap at the moment, so you’re looking for the most heating output from the lowest electricity usage.”

In the home, you might consider using an electric heater if only requiring short, targeted warmth. Or, if you have a small outside summer house that doubles as an office, a portable heater means you don’t have to worry about connecting the space to your central heating system.

But portable heaters are “not so great for a constant heating source in a large area where heat disperses quickly,” Bennett warns, because they struggle to fill the space.

Which electric heater is best?

Fan heaters

These use an electric coil to create heat and then blow the warmth across the room. They are cheap and light, but noisy and the warmth can be quickly lost if you let in a draught. Modern models use ceramic elements, which get more resistant as they get hotter (they have a “positive thermal coefficient”). This means they produce  heat more quickly and retain it better, making them cheaper to run — as long as you use the thermostat wisely.

Convection heaters

These also have an internal heating element but instead of using a fan to circulate the warmth, they wait for hot air to rise and be replaced by cool air, which then gets heated. For this reason, convection heaters are slower to warm up than fans, but distribute heat more thoroughly. You can pick up a model for £20, but realistically the better products start at £50 and go north from there.

Oil-filled heaters

According to Bennett, these are the most reliable on the whole. They use an electrical current within thermal oil, heating the oil and circulating it around the heater, a bit like water in a radiator. Oil-filled heaters tend to be more cumbersome, as the oil adds weight, and can take a long time to warm up – upwards of 20 minutes – but they stay warm for a long time once they’re turned off. Oil-filled radiators are cheap to run and there is no need to replace the oil. Prices for a good model start roughly at the £50 mark.

Halogen heaters

Often used outdoors as patio heaters, these radiate heat directly onto objects, rather than relying on convection to circulate the warmth. They’re light and portable and can be cheap to run. However, they struggle in large spaces. Like most portable heaters, you can pick one up for under £20, but can easily spend over £100, too.

Scroll to the bottom of this feature for more on the running costs of electric heaters and safety advice. Read on for our Lifestyle Reviews Editor’s selection of the best heaters currently available.