The cold has never been a friend of mine. Give me summer over winter any day of the week and although I do enjoy a nice toastie day in bed, all duvet-ed up with enough hot chocolate to sink a battleship; I would choose a beach, hammock, sunshine and pina colada every time. However, one of the downsides of living in England (and lets face it there are many!) is the cold. With this in mind, I purchased the cheapest heater that money could buy in order to keep myself warm at the times when I just don’t want to bankrupt myself by putting the central heating on. I purchased the Tesco Value Fan Heater FH11.
What is it?
Costing only 9 English Pounds, this is a 2 kilowatt stand up heater, not very big – just 24.5 cm high, 22.5 cm wide with a depth of 13.5cm. This white and grey heater weighs just 1.17 kilos. It is thermostats controlled with 2 heat settings with overheat protection and safety tip over switch. There is no timer unlike many fan heaters and it cannot be wall mounted, so has to be rested on a flat surface like a floor. It has a cool air feature which the weather has yet to be warm enough to use yet.
Does it Work?
To a degree, yes this cheap little heater does work. I have a few heaters scattered around the house and garage and although this heater was by no means the best, it does a decent enough job. It took about 10 to 15 minutes to heat up a smallish sized room, although the lack of a rotator in the fan means you physically have to move the fan to ensure the whole room gets heated. However, being very light and portable, to move the fan isn’t a problem at all. The compact and not-unstylish design of the heater lends to its portability which is important in a fan with a rotator.
I kept the fan on for a few hours at one point and sure enough the overheat protection kicked in cutting its power. I also knocked it down accidently on the floor a few times and each time the safety tip over switch worked almost instantaneously.
Negatives
Other than having no rotator, the biggest negatives I can say about this heater was the noise and smell. Firstly, for a relatively little heater, it makes quite a bit of noise. We are not talking Heathrow flight path noise but still noisy enough that it doesn’t go unnoticed when on. As I said previously, I have other heaters, some bigger and some more powerful and in all honesty, they are much quieter than the Tesco Value Fan Heater FH11.
The burning smell was a little bit of a problem too. If left on for long periods, there was a slight burning smell emanating from the heater. It wasn’t overly obtrusive but certainly noticeable. The final negative I have to say is the amount of electricity this little heater uses up. I wanted to see if I could see the difference in the electricity being used when it was on and sure enough I could. I do actually believe that this used up more electricity than some other bigger heaters I own but I do not have the stats for this – just an opinion.
Overall
All in all this is a good functional product for its price.
£9 from Tesco is as cheap as I have seen a heater anywhere else and overall it did the job it was supposed to. It heated a smallish room quickly enough and most importantly safely enough. Ok, there was a bit of noise and a bit of smell when on for long periods but it did exactly what it said on the tin. The lack of a rotator was negated by compact portability and the different settings allowed for variation in warmth.
The Tesco Value Fan Heater FH11 is stylish enough, practical enough, functional enough and certainly cheap enough that it scores highly in my consumer review and I would give this a definite 8 out of 10. For the price that it is available in Tesco’s, I would even go so far as to say that it cannot be beaten or matched on value and would certainly be recommending this product to everyone.
I'm a Fan 
