Lasko MyHeat Personal Mini Space Heater

PrefaceI own several of these Lasko 100 MyHeat Personal Ceramic Heaters, all purchased from Amazon, and I LOVE them! Before purchasing the first two for my particular planned primary use, I had first done a lot of due diligence (i.e., research) to determine whether these small 200 watt heaters would actually adequately address my particular needs. Once I had determined, from some research, that they should indeed do the job, I then ordered two of the heaters (I ordered more later for even other tasks....!), and, sure enough, they turned out to work perfectly for the intended primary use!Basic Product Description and Bassic SpecsOne of the big weaknessess of Amazon Marketplace is that it allows many vendors/sellers list products without listing the basic specifications and a full description. The current Lasko 100 MyHeat heater listing is not overly complete, and while the basic product specs would be completely obvious to someone with an engineering background, such as myself, they may not be obvious to certain other prospective buyers. Here are the basics about the heater that I have been able to determine:-- This is a 200 watt electric heater. It draws about 200 watts at 120 VAC. Current draw is about 1.7 to 1.8 amperes (aka amps) at 120 VAC.-- It is equipped with a 5 or 6 foot AC power cord designed to plug into a standard US 2-prong 120 VAC power outlet.-- The heater incorporates a ceramic heating element and a very small internal electric fan to circulate the warm air.-- The heater produces about 200 watts of heat when turned on and operating. This is equivalent to about 682 BTUs (BTUs, International Table, aka BTUIT) per hour.-- The heater is not equipped with a tip-over shut off safety device, but the manufacturer's listing states that it is equipped with an over-temperature safety shut-off device.-- The heater is equipped only with with an on/off AC power switch. It is NOT equipped with an internal thermostat, as are some of the larger 1.5 kW heaters. (The heater can easily be turned on and off as needed to regulate temperature by use of an appropriate external thermostatic switch.)-- No, the heater is not "wireless"! (see note below)-- No, the heater cannot be powered by plugging it into a USB port, nor by plugging it into an Ethernet port! (see note below)-- No, the heater cannot be powered by "batteries", such as AAA, AA, C, or D cell batteries! (see note below)[BTW, I must confess that the kind of people who ask the questions that were addressed in the three previous items really worry me; I wonder about their IQ, and their ability to think clearly, and about their understanding of the basic laws of physics and electricity!]A Cautionary Note About the Whiny Reviews re "Not Enough Heat"I will tell you about my primary use for these heaters in a moment, but first, in light of the abundance of reviews here at Amazon that I have read for this product wherein dissatisfied reviewers have complained that the heater did not, in effect, deliver sufficient heat, I do want to remind all readers of this review that these heaters are plainly and explicitly and clearly stated by the manufacturer to put out about 200 watts of heat; in terms of BTUs per hour, that would be about 682 BTUs per hour (BTUIT/h). So, if your particular heating need requires only 200 watts (682 BTUIT/h) of heat at most, then you should be eminently satisfied with this reliable little heater.On the other hand, if you order this little 200 watt heater from Amazon when you really needed the amount of heat that, in reality, could only be delivered by a 1.5 KW heater (that is, somewhat over 5,000 BTUs per hour), then yes, you are gonna be dissatisfied, and you will likely end up being one of the many cranky reviewers who post inane negative one-star reviews stating that these little heaters did not deliver sufficient heat! Got it? ????The Main Body of My ReviewOkay, now back to my review, where I recall that I had earlier promised to tell you about my primary use for these heaters, and how well they are working in that application (BTW, I also use others to handle cold spots around our large old drafty house):I live on a forested mountainside in the Appalachian mountains. The climate gets pretty cold here in cold weather season (to get an idea of average winter temperatures here, you can check out climate tables for Waynesboro, PA or Chambersburg, PA...). I have an insulated and heated 14' x 12' Amish barn structure up in my backyard that serves as my workshop and laboratory. The Amish barn stands about 10 feet tall, and it contains essentially one floor of workspace plus a very spacious attic/loft for storage. The building is insulated, but not super well.And, since air infiltration is usually the biggest source of heat loss in most buildings, I will note here that this building does tend to have reasonably low air infiiltration, just sufficient for adequate ventilation (adequate ventilaion with these Amish barn structures is REALLY important, since, without decent ventilation, the interior space would -- due to the massive amount of VOCs off-gassing from large amount of pressed fiberboard and plywood-type materials used in the building construction, plus, in the case of my workshop, additional VOCs off-gassing from wall and ceiling insulation foam, and from carpeting -- tend to contain lots of VOCs and related toxic gaseous compounds.So, the workshop/lab Amish barn structure is insulated, and it measures 14' x 12' x about 10' tall. Due to the equipment (much of it sophisticated electronic test equipment) that I keep, and use, in the building, and also due to the fact that I use the workshop/lab year-round, I want to keep it at an interior temperature of at least 63 degress F during cold weather season, although I do not mind very rare dips of interior temperature to about 55 degrees F on the very coldest winter days/nights (i.e., a string of minus-5 degree F days and nights).I designed the building to be heated solely by electric heat. However, there is not much AC power available in the building for heating purposes, and for the following reasons:1) There is only a 15 amp AC line (120 VAC; USA standard) feeding the building.2) Much of that power is needed for those times when I wish to run the drill press or the circular saw: obviously, if there were also a 1.5 kW portable electric space heater running in the building at the same time, I would blow a circuit breaker every time that I turned on the drill press, the circular saw, or any piece of electronic equipment drawing over about 200 watts!So, for heating this building during the cold weather season, I simply cannot afford, for many practical reasons, to employ a standard 1.5 kW electric heater with a built-in thermostatic control, whether on the high power (1.5 kW) setting or even on the half-power (about 800 watts) setting; such a large heater simply draws too much AC power while it is turned on. Rather, I realized that I needed small heaters, either one or two heaters in the 200 watt power range.So, here is the heating setup that I use to keep the workshop/lab buiding at the right temperature during cold-weather season:First, a certain amount of incidental heat, about 160 watts worth, is emitted non-stop, 24 hours per day, by several CFL lamps that are left turned on at all times, and by a few pieces of essential electronic equipment that operate 24 hours per day (this electronic equipment is used to monitor and log various conditions and parameters of a nearby space-time rift, located about 40 feet from the building; based upon popular request, some more notes on this rift in the space-time fabric may be found in a footnote at the end of this review). So, the lamps and the electronic gear emit about 160 watts of heat as a baseline.For the remainder of the heating needs for the building , I use a wall-mounted thermostatic switch (a Suncourt DS100 DuctStat Plug-In Thermostat, purchased here at Amazon), with the thermostat set to 63 degrees F, to control either one or two of these Lasko 100 heaters (they are plugged into the thermostatically-switched AC outlet on the Suncourt device), as follows:If the lowest temperatures for the next two weeks are not predicted to fall much below 25 degrees F, then I leave only one of the Lasko heaters plugged into the thermostat. (The other one is left unplugged and turned off.)On the other hand, if the lowest temperatures for the next two weeks are predicted to fall significantly below 25 degrees F, then I leave both of the Lasko 200W heaters plugged into the thermostat's AC power outlet.Bottom LineThese Lasko heaters, coupled with the thermostatically-controlled switch mounted on an interior wall of the workshop, work perfectly in this application. And, if I need to be work in the building on a cold day, and I therefore want to temporarily raise the interior temperature of the building to the 72 degree F range for my increased comfort, I simply re-adjust the thermostat setting upward by abouty 10 degrees for a few hours, and the heaters kick in to add some extra warmth!So, for my current heating needs in this building, where the floor, walls and ceiling/roof currently exhibit an average R-value of 13, I need two of these Lasko 200 watt heaters (controlled by the thermostat, as needed) to meet my needs during the coldest portions of the cold-weather season (it is helpful to remember, that in addition to R-value related heat losses, there is some heat loss from the building due to deliberate-but-thankfully-limited crossflow ventilation).Some Other PossibilitiesNow, of course, if I were to crank down the already-very-minimal crossflow ventilation (which would not be at all healthful for any persons and/or cats using the building, due to the aforementioned VOCs, and also due to need for fresh oxygen (O2) exhibted by humans and cats....) to almost zero, and if I were also to invest quite a bit of money into increasing the average R-value of insulation in the floor, walls and ceiling/roof from an R-value of 13 to an average R-value of 40, then I would need only one of these Lasko heaters plugged into the thermostat on even the coldest days and nights.And, it is also true that if I were to spend even more money (and time and effort) to increase the average R-value of the insulation properties of the floor, walls and ceiling/roof to an R-value of 400, then I would not need any of these heaters at all, and, instead, the incidental stray heat (~160W) from the CFL lamps and the electronic monitoring equipment alone would be more than sufficient to keep the interior of the building toasty warm during even the coldest weather (i.e., a stretch of minus-10 degree F days and nights)!Of course, on the other hand, if I had never bothered to insulate the building, then the insulation value of the floor, walls and ceiling/roof of the building would be an average R-value of about 1 (R-value=1), instead of the current R-value of 13, and then I would need from 12 to 15 times as much electric heat to heat the building in the cold weather season!FOOTNOTE #1: Information About the Time-Space Rift, in Response to QuestionsThis footnote about the time-space rift in my mountainside backyard has been added due to popular demand, because a number of inquirers wished to learn more about the time-space rift, and also wanted to know why and how it is being monitored by equipment in my workshop/lab building located near it.Briefly, this particular rift in the space-time fabric seems to have existed for at least many thousandes of years, and it's location does not seem to move at all. The main reason that I am paid by various not-to-be-named private and government agencies to use the earlier-mentioned gear to monitor the nearby space-time rift is because periodically, things come through the rift into our world from other worlds, and from other times. You really do not want to know any more than that about these things that come through, and, in any case, I am not allowed to say any more; you may simply consider them to be flotsam and jetsam from across time, space and various dimensional worlds.And, likewise, sometimes various things from our world seem to home in on this rift and then enter it at high speed, after which they seem to disappear permanently from our world.The earlier-mentioned monitoring gear in my workshop/lab is used to monitor and log a number of basic parameters and conditions at the space-time rift boundary, and also to track things (both animate and inanimate) that enter or leave the rift.[END OF FOOTNOTE #1]