Oil heaters vs electric heaters: Which one is better?

When it comes to the upfront cost, you can pick up all three - oil, electric fan or electric radiant - for a pretty decent price. In fact, you can even pick up a decent cheap heater for less than $50.

As you can see from our comparison table above, there are quite a few heaters with very attractive price tags. Coming in with our highest star rating for heaters under $50 is an electric fan heater from Kmart which will only set you back $17. Its power input is between 1800-2000W and weighs just under 1.4kg, so it's ultra portable. Plus it has safety features like a tip-over switch, so if it gets knocked over, it’ll just turn itself off. Great if you have small children or pets running around.

You can nab an oil heater from Kmart for as little as $39. The 5 Fin Oil Heater has three heat settings and a power source of 850-1000 watts. As a general rule, the lower wattages means they use less electricity so they’re cheaper to run (more on that below), but because they take longer to heat a room than a fan heater, the cost can creep up again.

Generally radiant heaters have, on average, a lower rating from us - especially for budget ones. While electric fan heaters and oil heaters are good at heating rooms, radiant heaters require fairly close proximity to feel the warmth.

The key to working out the running costs of your electric heater - be it oil, electric or radiant - is in the wattage of your heater. The higher the wattage, the more electricity it needs to run, and the more expensive the ongoing costs are.

Simple stuff, right?

Wrong!

Wattage certainly plays an important role in how expensive a heater will be to run, but so too does the amount of time you’ll have the heater running.

Most heaters will have different settings, too, so you can opt to use a lower setting, and therefore use less electricity.

As for what it’ll cost you - energy price averages across Australia in the previous financial year were around $0.14 per hour, per 1000W on a heater while it is switched on. If you were to run these heaters for 8 hours a day through all of winter, you’d be looking at an extra $103.04 per 1kW of power.

The general rule of thumb is that electric fan heaters will heat a room much more quickly than an oil heater can, but once you turn off an electric fan heater, the room will get cold quickly, too. Oil heaters on the other hand take much longer to heat up a room, but they’re better at retaining that heat.

You’ll also need to consider how much wattage is required to heat your room/house. Check out our guide below to get an idea of the wattage needed per m2.

Radiant heaters don’t really warm rooms up at all - they’re best for, say, mounting above an outdoor table so you can stay warm while you’re eating. You need to be in close proximity to a radiant heater to enjoy its warmth.

Oil heaters: are best for homes that have small rooms and great insulation. High ceilings, vast rooms and huge houses will find it takes much longer for an oil heater to get the job done, so while the lower wattage can save you on the running costs, it can cancel it out if the oil heater is on for hours trying to heat a large house.

Electric fan heaters: are best if you have small children and pets, to avoid any possible burns or increased fire risk. They tend to have a higher wattage though than oil heaters, so the ongoing cost can be higher.

Radiant heaters: are best if you don’t need to heat a room… Save it for the patio outside.

While a heater is an obvious choice for keeping your home warm in the colder months, there are other, cheaper hacks you can implement to keep the winter temps at bay. 

• Layer up with thermal clothes - it’s more effective than bundling on a big bulky jacket.
• Close any curtains or blinds at night to keep the heat in.
• Warm yourself from the inside with warm drinks and hot food.
• Cover your extremities, this is where we lose most of our body heat. Socks, mittens and beanies are your friends.
• Carpets are warmer than floorboards, but if you have the latter in your home, lay down some rugs to help insulate your home.
• It might be time to join a hot yoga studio…