True Impact Of Sleeping With A Space Heater On
Twenty minutes before bed you come upstairs to switch on the space heater. It’s chilly outside, but there’s no point in heating the whole house when you’re going to be in one room all night, now, is there? When you eventually get into bed, you think “Oh, I’ll just leave it on a little longer…” And you fall asleep. What’s the worst that can happen? Well, experts have been looking into it, and they say there are some pretty serious implications.
Safety first
First, there’s the matter of safety, which actually depends on the kind of space heater you’re using. They all function differently, you see — just to confuse matters. Infrared heaters work in a similar way to the sun in that they radiate heat through rays. Convection heaters, on the other hand, use currents to warm the air in the room.
Lots of different kinds
Then, of course, there are fan-motored heaters. They work in a similar way to the fans people use in the summer — but in winter, they circulate warm air. If you’re fancy, you may even have one that does both. And last but not least there are panel heaters, which function like radiators. So instead of pumping out air, they have a panel that warms up and gives off heat into the room.
Nighttime use?
All of these will do a great job of heating your bedroom before bed. But should you leave them on overnight, that’s the question? Generally speaking, infrared and ceramic heaters are the safest on the market. Some even come with built-in timers, and others contain sensors that detect whether they’ve fallen over — bumped into by a pet, perhaps. So it sounds like it’d be okay to have these on while you sleep, right?
Eye-opening statistics
Well, the general advice is not to leave any space heaters running throughout the night. The statistics speak for themselves, really. According to the National Fire Protection Association, more than 80 percent of annual house fire deaths in America between 2014 and 2018 were as a result of moveable or fixed space heaters. And that isn’t all.
