Best Heating in Ireland This Winter: What’s Warmest for Your Wallet?

Below we compare five kinds of heater on what they actually cost to run at current Irish electricity prices, starting with the cheapest way to heat a large room and working down to the cheapest way to keep one person warm. Every figure uses the Electric Ireland standard unit rate of 38.04c per kWh including VAT, correct from 1 July 2026, and gas is costed from a standard 11.34kg butane refill.

Jump to What You Need:

Shop All Heaters at Heavins.ie ›

Gas Heaters: The Cheapest Way to Heat a Big Room

Here is something that surprises people. Bottled gas delivers heat more cheaply than electricity does. A standard 11.34kg butane cylinder holds roughly 155 kilowatt hours of heat and costs around thirty nine euro to refill, which works out at about 25c per kWh of heat against 38c for electricity. Gas is roughly a third cheaper per unit of warmth, and that is why it starts this guide.

The practical trade off is the cylinder. You have to store it, connect it, and replace it, and a heater running flat out will get through one in under a week. The upside is that a gas heater needs no wiring, moves anywhere on its castors, and keeps working in a power cut.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Portable Gas Heaters ›

How Long a Cylinder Lasts, and What to Check First

A cylinder holds the same energy whatever heater it feeds, so run time comes down entirely to output and setting. On a low setting you will get roughly 111 hours from one cylinder. Open a 4.2kW heater up to full and that falls to about 37 hours, a little over four days at eight hours a day. Running on low or medium in a smaller room is the difference between refilling once a month and refilling once a week, and it is the single biggest saving available with gas.

Electric Blankets: The Cheapest Heat You Can Buy

An electric blanket heats you rather than the room around you, and that one difference makes it the cheapest heat in this entire guide by a wide margin. A single underblanket draws about sixty watts. A fan heater draws two thousand. Both leave you warm, but only one of them is paying to warm the air near your ceiling as well.

Two things are worth knowing before you choose. An underblanket sits beneath your sheet and warms the bed itself, which is what most people want and what most of our range is. An overblanket sits on top like a duvet and warms you directly, which suits anyone who feels the cold badly. Beyond that, look for a timer if you want the bed warm before you get into it without leaving the blanket on all night, and dual control if two of you disagree about heat, because it lets each side run at its own setting.

Single Electric Blankets

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Single Electric Blankets ›

Double Electric Blankets

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Order Online at Heavins.ie ›

King and Super King Electric Blankets

This is our deepest range, and it is where dual control earns its keep. Every model below runs each side of the bed independently, so one of you can have it on three while the other has it off entirely. The mattress protector versions do a second job as well: they stay fitted to the mattress rather than shifting around, and they protect it.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop King Size Electric Blankets ›

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Super King Electric Blankets ›

Heated Throws for the Sofa

A heated throw is the same idea moved to the living room. Instead of running a room heater through a whole evening at seventy odd cent an hour, you run a throw over your lap at about five cent an hour. For anyone who spends their evenings in one chair, it is the easiest saving in this entire guide.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Heated Throws ›

Oil Filled Radiators: Steady Heat That Lingers

An oil filled radiator is the closest a portable heater gets to central heating. It warms up slowly, holds its heat, and keeps radiating for a while after you switch it off, which is why it feels gentler than a fan heater and why it suits rooms you occupy for hours rather than minutes. There is no fan, so there is no noise and no draught.

The catch is wattage. A full size model draws two kilowatts, which puts it in the same running cost bracket as a fan heater at roughly seventy six cent an hour. What saves you money is the thermostat: once the room is up to temperature the radiator cycles off, and the oil keeps working while it does. Set a thermostat sensibly and a timer around the hours you are actually in the room, and real cost lands well below the headline figure.

Sizing matters more than any feature here. A full size 2kW radiator is right for a living room, but for a bedroom, a study or a nursery you do not need two kilowatts at all. A 500 watt model draws a quarter of the power, costs about nineteen cent an hour, and will hold a comfortable temperature perfectly well in a small space. It is also the safest heater in this guide to leave running in a room with children or pets, because there is no exposed element and no fan. Both sizes are in the table below. If you want a slim column shape in black, the Dimplex OCR 2kW oil filled column radiator is worth a look alongside them.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Oil Filled Radiators ›

Infrared Heaters: Low Wattage, Aimed at You

Infrared works differently to everything else in this guide. Rather than warming the air, it warms surfaces and people directly, the way sunlight feels warm through a window on a cold day. Because none of the energy is spent heating air that then rises to your ceiling, a much lower wattage delivers the same felt warmth.

Two practical advantages come with it. Because most models mount on a wall or ceiling, they take no floor space and stay out of reach of children and pets. And because these models include Wi-Fi control, you can schedule them around the hours a room is genuinely in use, which is where most of the saving actually comes from. A heater that runs only when you are in the room beats a more efficient heater that runs all day.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Infrared Heaters ›

Fan Heaters: Instant Warmth, at a Price

A fan heater is the fastest way to make a cold room usable. It is also, by a wide margin, the most expensive thing in this guide to run. Both of those facts are true at once, and the trick is to use it for the first one and not fall into the second.

The convector model in the table below is worth singling out. It works by convection rather than by blowing air across an element, so it is noticeably quieter and the heat feels less harsh. If you want something you can leave on in a room where you are working or watching television, that is the one to look at.

Specifications are a general guide and can change. Check each product page for the latest details.

Shop Fan and Convector Heaters ›

What Every Heater Costs to Run, Compared

Thermostats and timers cut these figures in practice. A blanket or an oil radiator cycles off once it reaches temperature, so treat the monthly column as a ceiling rather than a forecast.

Gas figures assume a full cylinder burnt at the stated output. Most portable gas heaters have three settings, and low is how they are usually run.

Is an Electric Heater Cheaper to Run Than Gas?

Per unit of heat, no. Gas delivers heat at about 25c per kWh against 38c for electricity, so bottled gas is roughly a third cheaper for the same warmth. Per hour, a small electric heater is cheaper than a gas heater, but only because it is producing far less heat. If you need a large room warm, gas is the cheaper way to do it. If you need one person warm, a blanket or an infrared panel beats both by a wide margin.

What About Heaters That Claim to Run for a Penny an Hour?

You will see that claim attached to low wattage heaters, and the arithmetic does not survive contact with Irish electricity prices. At 38.04c per kWh, one cent an hour buys you twenty six watts. No real heater runs on twenty six watts. The genuinely cheap options are the ones in the table above: blankets and throws at two to six cent an hour, and infrared panels at thirteen to twenty seven. Those are real numbers you can check yourself against your own unit rate.

Combining Heaters to Cut the Bill

Nobody heats a house with one appliance, and the cheapest setups are always a combination. The principle is simple: use something cheap to keep a person warm, and something powerful only for the short periods when a whole room genuinely needs heat.

The Lowest Cost Setup

The Setup Most Homes Actually Want

When You Need a Whole Room Warm

For a large living room, a kitchen extension or a workshop, this is where a gas heater or a full size oil filled radiator earns its place. Bring the room up to temperature, then throttle back. A gas heater on its low setting costs about thirty five cent an hour and will run for over a hundred hours on one cylinder, which is far better value than leaving a 2kW electric heater on all evening.

One habit is worth more than any purchase in this guide: heat the room you are in, not the house. Close the door, use a thermostat, and set a timer around the hours you are actually there. Every heater above gets dramatically cheaper the moment it stops running in an empty room.

Order Now at Heavins.ie ›

Safety, Buying and Maintenance

What to Look for When You Buy

Electrical Safety

Keep fan and halogen heaters well clear of curtains, bedding and furniture, and never use one to dry clothes. Do not run a 2kW heater through a thin extension lead or a daisy chain of adaptors, because the lead is often rated well below the load: plug it straight into the wall. Check the plug and cable once a season for scorching or damage, and stop using anything with a cracked or hardened cable.

Electric Blanket Safety

Modern electric blankets are designed to be used while you sleep, and most have overheat protection and auto shut off. Even so, inspect a blanket at the start of each season: look for scorch marks, exposed wiring, creasing in the element or a frayed lead, and replace rather than repair anything you find. Never fold a blanket while it is switched on, do not use one on an adjustable or reclining bed unless it says so, and follow the care label rather than assuming it is machine washable.

Gas Heater Safety

Keeping Heaters Working

Oil filled radiators need their fins dusted once a year, because dust on a hot surface both smells and reduces output. Fan heaters need the intake grille cleared for the same reason. Gas heaters need the hose and regulator seal checked before the first use of the season, and the ignition tested before you rely on it. None of it takes long, and all of it is cheaper than replacing a heater a year early.

Shop Now at Heavins.ie ›

Shop All Heaters at Heavins.ie ›