Best Oil Heaters in the UK

The De'Longhi TRDX41025E is sleek and effective. We've seen more aesthetically pleasing units before but its streamlined and even somewhat elegant profile will be able to add to most settings. The company's signature white housing mixed with this black insert, two buttons, one dial, and an LED screen looks good enough to make this appliance much more appealing than most oil heaters.

Setting aesthetics aside, the unit is quite massive. Measuring 70.6 x 63 x 17.6 centimetres, we've seen more compact heaters before. Likewise, the weight of the heater reaches ~19 kilograms, so you might face some transportation challenges.

You should be able to overcome these challenges relatively easy though because as the pre-assembled rubberised wheels enable excellent manoeuvrability and are more than suitable for most surfaces.

The standard side handle will also let you move this unit around the house, which is nice but you probably won't have to use the handle especially often since the aforementioned wheels are much more comfortable and convenient.

The PureMate Portable Oil Heater might not be the purest mate but, at the very least, the unit is up there. We're not sure about its purity but there's certainly something clean about its appearance, something elegant, something that will fit even more upscale settings. The lines are clean, the white housing is meshing seamlessly with the grey control panel, the dials are not bulky, the whole thing looks like everything is in its place.

You can even wrap and hide the cable using the hook below the dials, enabling hassle-free storage and transportation. What will also enable hassle-free transportation is the carry handle and the manoeuvrable wheels on the bottom, letting you move this sizable (50 x 24 x 62 centimetres) unit between different rooms without feeling like you're lugging an immovable object. All that being said, the metal brackets that are supplied with the package and hold the wheels are a little thin, so do make sure you're careful with initial installation and subsequent relocation(s).

Where appearance meets operation is the 11 fins that the unit's distributing warmth with. Owing to these 11 fins (as well as the 2500-watt output), the model can maintain spaces as large as 75 metres³, not something that you can usually say about oil heaters within this price bracket. What you can usually say about them is that they come equipped with timers, not unlike this one, so you can set the unit to turn off at night or when you go to work without worrying that you might forget to do that manually.

The Delonghi TRD4 1025T Dragon-4 is up there with the most brilliant oil heaters within this price bracket.

First and foremost, the unit has been designed incorporating an elegant, smooth, and, at the same time, safe profile. Featuring rounded edges, the model looks stylish, uncluttered and streamlined. The pure-white finish makes the unit especially modern and elegant, elegant enough to seamlessly mesh with most settings and even class up some rooms.

On the front, there's this equally sleek and streamlined black control panel with silver dials that contrasts really well with the pure-white body, creating this modern aesthetic. The dials will let you control the heater's functions that we will cover soon enough.

At the same time, the pre-assembled castor wheels and this surprisingly ergonomic side handle make this electric oil-filled space heater safe and relatively easy to move around. We use the word relatively because the unit weighs 17.5 kilograms, which is fairly high compared to most heaters within this bracket.

The Russell Hobbs RHOFR5001B rubs elbows with traditional oil heaters but not without borrowing a few tricks from the new school. Sure, this is not the most impressive appliance we've seen yet but, where medium-sized flats and large rooms are concerned, this unit more than covers cold spells and months between ~August and May. Not unlike its direct (as well as indirect) competition, the model comes equipped with 3 heat settings: low heat (600 watts), medium heat (900 watts), and high heat (1500 watts). Switching between these settings, you can add a little heat, keep an average room warm, or even maintain a perfect heat level inside sizable premises. Likewise, the heater's integrated thermostat will be regulating the temperature around the unit, keeping it optimal. Once the desired temperature's reached, the appliance switches off. When the same area cools down, the unit automatically switches back on.

Needless to say, with its peak 1500-watt output, the model does not quite land among the most powerful oil heaters. The good news is that its weight has been informed about this decision beforehand as well. Whereas most oil-based heaters these days usually weigh around 15 kilogrammes, this appliance does not even reach 7 kilos, making the unit more than luggable and enabling easy relocation between rooms. As expected, the model also features an integrated handle, so you should be able to move this appliance alone without much trouble. But, when carrying it is not an option (or you don't feel like it), the built-in castors should also do the trick, letting you roll the unit from one room to the next without applying much effort.

Designed for medium to large apartments and houses, radiator heaters are a perfect way to warm up the room in a short period of time. And this model from DeLonghi is not an exception.

The 2 KW Dragon 4 heater is able to heat up the rooms no larger than 60 square metres, which is a quite economical power/spent electricity ratio. Thus, the radiator is suitable for medium to large rooms such as living rooms, offices, etc.

Instead of a digital timer, this version of DeLonghi Dragon 4 is fitted with timer with a manual dial for setting, which will be convenient for people that prefer preheating rooms or using the heater only at a certain time of a day. The heater has a switch that features an indicator light that will conveniently show if the device is on. Alternatively, when the convector reaches a maximum temperature it will automatically turn itself off with a distinct click sound, which some users may find a little bit loud. However, it doesn’t reach a non-safe level of 20 dB so it should not annoy or bother you that much, once you get used to it.

Moving on, the radiator has a special handle, which in combination with pre-assembled castors makes it quite easy to transport or carry around the house, despite the fact that the heater is quite heavy.