Honeywell HZ-709 7 Fin Oil Filled Radiator Heater with Digital Controls
by Honeywell
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Honeywell HZ-709 7 Fin Oil Filled Radiator Heater with Digital Controls
Customer Review: WOW! This heater really works!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The Honeywell HZ-709 comes very well packaged with solid styrofoam wrapped around the unit all inside a heavy duty cardboard box. When I opened mine I wasn't surprised that there wasn't a scratch on it. It comes with the radiator unit, four plastic casters, two brackets, two u-bolts, owners manual, and warranty card. There is basic tool-free assembly required to put on the casters, but its so easy a cave man could do it. The instructions to do this are also very easy to understand.
Once the unit is assembled then it is time to plug it in. The digital settings are very easy to adjust with one power button and three two-way switches. One switch is for adjusting the thermostat, which can be set to the max of eighty five degrees fahrenheit. Another is for setting the power low (600 watts), medium (900 watts), and high (1500 watts). The last switch is for setting a hourly timer for shutting the unit off. The temperature switch can also be used to change from fahrenheit to celsius within the first few seconds of powering the unit on. Let me add that this unit is extremely silent, I had to check it a few times to make sure it was on.
I purchased this heater a few weeks ago from Target after we got a blast of cold weather (hovering below and above freezing at night) for a couple of weeks because my home does not have central heat and air and I have about 20 space heaters of which none have ever made my house feel close to warm during the winter. I decided on this unit because it was the most expensive one so I figured it must work for that price and plus I had never tried a oil filled radiator style heater before. I am so glad I decided on this heater.
This heater is in my bedroom which is roughly 700 square feet 26x26. I have a 52" ceiling fan which I set to low on the updraft setting. I tried to place the heater in the center of the room but the cord was too short, but I do have a pretty huge bedroom, so I just put it as far as it would go toward center from the wall outlet. I turned the heater on the highest power setting and highest temperature setting about 5:00pm on an evening that was going to drop below freezing. I have a thermometer on my night stand and the temp in the room read fifty nine degrees. By the time I went to sleep at around 10:00pm the temperature had already raised to seventy two degrees. When I woke up the next morning the temperature was seventy eight degrees. I was shocked!!! It was actually warm in my room. My wife was in shock too. What is amazing is that the unit itself is not extremely hot to the touch like quartz radiant heaters are, while it is still hot I don't feel like it is a fire hazard like quartz heaters are and I feel comfortable leaving it on all the time, even when I am not home. I am still a bit confused on how it does such a great job of heating but it really does. For the past two weeks I haven't been cold in my bedroom at all and I love this heater. It hasn't gone above seventy eight degrees in my bedroom, but I don't want it more than that anyway. It was definitely worth the money. I want to purchase 2 or three more of these units for the whole house now.
I just wanted to update my review a little after a year that I wrote it. It went through another winter and kept us warm, I had since bought a couple more. Still very happy with the units. I had people ask about energy consumption and decided to put a formula on here so you could figure it out for yourself since it would be different for everyone:
It is very easy to figure how any electrical device will affect your electric bill.
Use the formula:
Cost = (watts x hours used x rate per kwh) / 1000
So if you use the unit on high (1500 watts) for 12 hours a day at your electric company's kilowatt hour rate (mine is always changing but usually stays around .02 cents per kwh) then divide that number by 1000 you get your cost which would be:
Cost = (1500 watts x 12 hours x 0.02 kwh charge) / 1000 = $0.36 cents per day or for 30 days: 30 x 0.36 = $10.80
You can use the formula for any electronic device in your home.
Customer Review: A Definite Money Saver in the Right Location
Summary: 4 Stars
My wife and I purchased this heater as a way to offset the ever-increasing cost of heating our home. We were pleased to find that this little space heater worked to reduce our gas and electric bill by approximately 30% during the peak winter months, which amounted to about a $100 savings monthly.
We have a 1,700 ft., single-family home that's not very efficient: 6" insulation in the attic, limited attic venting, R11 insulation in the floors, and R19 insulation in the walls. That's pretty bad by today's standards, but not uncommon for 1974. It made little sense to heat the entire house when the two of us are in the family room, or, worse yet, heat the entire home while we're sleeping in the bedroom.
So we purchased this Honeywell oil heater and it was a great decision! The heater allows you to preset three different heat settings. You can program in the exact room temperature you'd like the unit to maintain and it has a standby mode that shuts the heat off when the programmed heat has been reached. There's also an 18-hour timer that can control how long the unit is operational.
The energy consumption for the heater is as follows:
Standby: 55 Watts
Low: 600 Watts
Medium: 900 Watts
High: 1500 Watts
For an average home with eight-foot ceilings, the way you calculate how many Watts of energy you'll need to heat your room is to multiply 10W by the amount of room space. So, for example, if you have a 100 square foot room, that would be 100 sq. ft. x 10 Watts = 1,000 Watts. This heater isn't really designed for rooms over 150 sq. ft. It will work, but the larger the room, the longer it will take to heat it and if it's too large and too cold, it won't be able to maintain a comfortable level of heat.
Our main family room is about 270 sq. ft. In the dead of winter when we get home, if we let the house get into the upper 50s, it takes a couple of hours for this heater to get the room in the upper 60s. We typically use the furnace to get the room up to the mid 60s, then turn the furnace off and use the Honeywell oil heater.
If you have a larger room space you're trying to heat, you may want to consider a 220V baseboard or hydronic baseboard unit, which can deliver much more Wattage that will translate into more heat energy. Oil heaters, like this one, are a great solution for zone heating of smaller room space, but shouldn't be considered for larger areas.
Now to share some experience. We found this heater had the greatest impact in our bedroom. Again, it's a smaller space and it was absolutely perfect for that room. One thing we noticed is this heater dried out the air considerably. So we purchased a humidifier and set it to the recommended 60% level. This does two things: first, it provides needed humidity, which is good for the sinuses and breathing passages; and second, it helps hold the heat in the air. When air gets dry, it's less able to hold heat energy. You remember how heavy the air feels on a hot and humid day? This principle holds true with the air in your room. If you maintain a healthy level of humidity, it assists in maintaining a comfortable level of heat.
Normally, I would have given this product a five-star rating and still feel it's worthy of such, but due to the fact that our heater died after about a year, I have to give it a reduced rating. I have read other reviews from owners who have had problems with the thermostatic control build into this unit, so just be forewarned that you could run into some problems. Save your receipt and be prepared to turn it in for warranty service, if necessary. With us, the unit was running great and we heard a "tick" noise from it and it went dead. We didn't save the receipt, so we purchased a new one. I'm not too upset. In the year we owned it, it paid for itself in money saved many times over.
Had this not occurred, we would definitely have given it a full five stars. Hopefully you'll have better luck than we did.
Customer Review: better wheels and side panels would have made it 5 stars, still a good heater
Summary: 4 Stars
"i'm curious: someone said it took 10 hrs to heat a room to 72 degrees, how cold was the room to start? I'm just starting to work on an empty studio apt attached to me home...i would guess it's about 15 x 30' with the bathroom and kitchenette. the start temp was about 53 degrees F. when i started, i checked in it about 15 min later and found that it shut itself off. having never read the instructions i decided to do so...that darn timer really works. after setting the timer correctly, the entire studio was heated up to 72F. i read that a lot of people were having trouble with it turning itself off and just wonder how many had the same problem i did. i purchased this one from Walmart and used it in two different rooms in my large home here in Ventura county CA. our home has 5 bedrooms + the studio with only 2 bedrooms being occupied. we have a gas heater but don't use it because we really don't need to heat the empty rooms or the 2 lg family rooms where the thermostat is located. a few months ago i purchased a different make here at amazon, it is the Delonghi TRD0715T Safe Heat Oil-Filled Radiator. not nearly as nice looking as the Honeywell but i believe it works much better and has a much better timer in that it allows for many on/off cycles. its timer is like one that you find on many of the Malibu lighting timers. it has little tabs (96 i think). this allows for really versatile settings. here is a scenario: set it to turn off at 10pm and stay off until about 1/2 hr to 45 minutes before she gets up about 5 in the am, it then turns off just before she leaves, until my turn to get up rolls around, then the process repeats itself, turning itself off about 15-30 min before i leave for work and then stays off all day until about 30 min or so before we get home, then the process repeats itself. the Delonghi TRD0715T Safe Heat Oil-Filled Radiator also has what i consider a great advantage to all the other radiator type heaters: the sides where the fins are have a piece of sheet metal attached to them, the sheet metal goes down from the top of the fins to about 2" or so from the floor. looking down from the top of the heater you see what I'll describe as 6-8 channels on each side of the heater; this causes what is known as a drafting effect. the hot air rising through the channels causes the cold air from the floor areas to be sucked up the channels, gaining momentum and actually acting like a fan that really pushes the heated air up fast enough so that when it hits the ceiling it kind of bounces back down creating pretty good circulation and stops the hot air from just sitting on the ceiling. for those of you that are mechanically inclined, I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about, for you others: if you can't figure out what I'm talking about, just trust me or get a friend to help you with that concept. owning both heaters, both rated at 1500 watts (max) it is really easy for me to see (feel) the difference.
we live in a home that is about 40-45 years old and has it's share of unwanted drafts, poor insulation etc. when we spend a lot of time in the family rooms we just leave the oven on, sometimes with the door open, sometimes with it closed. it's also not unusual for us to go to bed and just leave the oven on set at 200-300F (door closed), this really helps keep the bitter chill off the rest of the house. this actually uses very little gas and helps us to balance the baseline cost for the gas and electricity. we also use smoke and carbon dioxide detectors just in case.
I have been buying from Amazon and using the reviews for years. Amazon has been really good to me as have the thousands of reviews i have read, this is just my way of giving a little something back. i hope it helps someone...David" incidentally: none of the heaters i looked at had wheels that i consider any good. mu guess is that the mfg didn't pay more that 25 cents a caster, more likely, i would think 10-15 cents each. Better wheels would make it roll a lot better and add that well built feeling to it.
Customer Review: WONDERFUL Heater: I just read all the 1 star reveiws, but I am still giving this 5 stars
Summary: 5 Stars
I was recommending this heater to a friend and wrote the following:
They are wonderful, I have one at home. Thermostatically controlled, temp and power settings, energy efficient, space efficient, completely silent, cute, not expensive - under $90. They actually heat the room, not just blow hot air around, or radiate heat to objects but not to the air itself. You can leave them on a low power setting and low temp and not use much power to keep a room at a set base temp when you are not there (come into a cold but not freezing room). (I've lived in many cold apartments and had many kinds of heaters ;). It is the good digital thermostat temp control that makes this one the favorite amongst similar types. (not a surprise as it's Honeywell)
Then I went to get him some links and noticed the 16 One Star reviews.
So I read them all. (But not any others, btw).
And now.... I am still standing by what I wrote to my buddy and giving it 5 stars here.
(I actually would give it only 4 stars normally, but with such a high percentage of 1 stars from people that just had a dud or did not know how to use it, on a product that is actually very good, I felt this nice heater deserved the little bit of positive counterbalance that I could give it ;-).
The one star reviews appear to me to be a few defective units, a few people who did not know how to operate the controls, and a few bad experiences (yeah, I would not close the kids bedroom door at night with any heater on unless I was checking in regularly (leave the door open a little when you go to bed).
But I have had about 10 of these in operation for 1 and 4 years, and I don't think one has failed nor have I gotten any complaints since. I am a commercial property manager of a couple of big old drafty factory loft buildings in new york city with a central boiler that also occationally goes down completly. So I have given then out to the few tenants who have complained, and I don't think I've gotten any further complaints from any of them about heat after they get one. That's number one reason I love this unit. LOL
The BIG number 2 reason is I have one at home and love it. Mine has worked perfectly for about 3 years, and I had another one before that in another place that also was great. The digial termostat control works perfectly - that maybe being my #1 fav about it. That combined with the 3 power settings. I had it on a circuit with other stuff and it would all pop the breaker. But only if on full power. Put it 1 or 2, and it was fine, and it still heated the room very well (maybe took alittle longer to warm up from cold, but once at the room temp you want keeps it there, no difference.)
It loses one star with me becaue the wheels are a little to cheap - 3 of the 4 on mne are now broke, although it is on a roughish stone fireplace threashold, and my wife may have been rough with it, but still.... I would tell Honeywell to spend an extra nickel each wheel for just one step up in the very long line of very cheap chinese all-plastic wheels. And I tell you to roll it gently and lift it when necessary. Also, maybe the controls could be more intuitive, and I never tried using the timer (it has a timer? who cares?), but it IS simple, and once you know it, it's easy.
I do reccomend this product.
Hope this helps
Steve in NYC
Customer Review: Absolutely poor engineering - a do not buy recommendation
Summary: 1 Stars
I had purchased the Honeywell HV-709 approximately 8 months ago after being lured into buying the product over others simply because of the Honeywell name. The unit has a digital thermostat, which I believed would make it easier to use for my mother in law. I was grossly mistaken.
Many of the complaints from other 'one star' commenter's are partially misinformed only because they had not carefully read the owner's manual. First, the HV-709 has 3 distinct modes of operation: 1) Low-Med-High static setting, 2) A timer which allows the system to shut off after a number of specified hours, and 3) a thermostat. Modes 1 & 3 are independent and can not be used at the same time. When the heater is first turned on, it defaults to a HIGH on setting; that is the heater turns to its highest power heating setting and remains that way regardless of the room temperature. This is quite an engineering blunder given that most people will simply turn the heater on and assume it has some type of idiot-proof safeguard to cooking itself to death, especially given the highly visible digital thermostat on the front panel. Additionally, if the power should be briefly interrupted (perhaps during a thunderstorm) OR one accidentally brushes the left most switch, the heater will reset itself back to the HIGH setting. NOTE THAT THERE IS NO INDICATION AS TO WHAT MODE THE HV-709 IS OPERATING ON THE FRONT PANEL. The operator is completely blind to assuming that he/she has correctly established their desired mode of operation.
If one is successful at programming the heater to cycle on/off with regards to the thermostat (mode 3), the system seems to run fine albeit the digital thermometer tends to be a few degrees off.
This morning, however, I entered my toddler's room to discover that the HV-709 heater had been generating the horrid odor of melting plastic. I immediately unplugged the unit and extricated the toddler from the room. Twenty-four hours later the room still smells toxic. I moved the HV-709 to a safe area and decided to plug it back in to investigate. Upon turning the unit power ON, I could hear the telltale hiss of an electrical short and smell the cooking insulation in the lower front panel of the heater. I can speculate that the HV-709 had reached an excessive temperature and began to melt a portion of insulation resulting in a progressing electrical short. Conclusion: poor engineering design and substandard quality components.
I am very fortunate to have caught the problem before serious damage/injury resulted, and I highly recommend you avoid this product. It is not worth the risk of property or life.