Space heater rules, before the cold snap
Annual · typically November
Why it matters
A space heater is a 1,500-watt appliance — a full circuit's worth of load — that lives on the floor near fabric and gets moved around by whoever's cold. Used right, they're fine. The fires come from the same three mistakes every year, and November is when the heaters come out of the closets.
Your winters are long enough that "temporary" heater habits become permanent fixtures. This annual reset is about catching the setups that quietly calcified last season.
What skipping it costs
$0–$50,000
Space heaters are involved in a large share of home heating fires, and the pattern repeats: cord or strip instead of the wall, three feet becomes one foot, running all night. The rules below are short because the failure modes are — and insurers deny claims over exactly these details.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
The rules — enforce them once now, and when guests visit:
- Wall outlet only. Never an extension cord, never a power strip. A heater's draw cooks cords rated for lamps.
- Three feet of clear space in every direction — bedding, curtains, couches, laundry. Three feet, not "roughly a foot."
- Hard floor beats carpet; never on a bed or table.
- Check the safety switches: modern units shut off when tipped and when overheated. If yours predates those features or the guard is broken, its retirement party is today — replacements start around $40.
- People present, heater on. Room empty or everyone asleep — off. If a bedroom needs heat all night, that's the hire-it-out conversation, not an overnight heater.
- Feel the plug after an hour of use. Warm plug = worn outlet — see your outlet-check card.
Hire it out
$150–$400National fair range — local labor moves this number.
There's no space-heater service call — but there IS a smarter call: an HVAC tech's comfort diagnosis on the room you keep heating, which runs $150–$400. A blocked duct, a crushed flex run, or missing insulation is often a few hundred dollars to fix — and it retires the heater permanently, along with its electric bill.
Do the math with the tech: a heater running six hours a night all winter costs real money every year, forever. The permanent fix only costs once. Any pro who hears "this room is always cold" and reaches straight for a bigger furnace instead of a duct probe is skipping the diagnosis you're paying for.
Ask the tech
- Which room is under-heated and why — duct issue, insulation, or undersized system?
- What would balancing the system or adding a duct run cost, versus me running a heater every winter?
- Can you show me the temperature difference between registers?
Red flags you're being upsold
- 'Just add more electric heat' without asking why the room is cold — that's treating the symptom at 3x the operating cost.
- A whole-system replacement pitch for a one-cold-room problem.
- Anyone selling 'miracle' infrared heaters at $400 — a $60 unit with a tip-over switch obeys the same physics.
Second opinion time: Any ductwork or system quote over $2,000 for a single cold room — a heat-loss look costs a fraction of that.
The call
DIY the rules — they're free. If you NEED a space heater to be comfortable every winter, that's a house problem worth hiring someone to actually solve.