Shelece vs. the Space Heater

So, you may have noticed that it's winter now. It's been pretty cold in Provo lately.

I live/work out of the basement room in my apartment, so it's a little chillier than the rest of the unit. Fortunately it comes with a built in wall heater to help keep things comfortable. At the beginning of the winter, the unit was great. But I noticed that as the temperature slipped down into the teens and 20s, my heater just couldn't quite keep up.

So I investigated the lovely world of space heaters. Went on Amazon, picked out a cheap one with very high reviews, and waited eagerly for it to arrive so I would be toasty and warm.

Then I decided I should probably research space heaters a little bit before I use one, since they tend to have a dangerous reputation. And promptly deeply freaked myself out.

I knew you never left a space heater unattended, but I didn't realize it needed to be the only thing plugged into its wall socket (NEVER an extension cord), that the most way space heaters start fires is by igniting the wires in the wall because you're using so much energy. In other words... I can use my wall heater or I can use the space heater. Not a good idea to run both at the same time.

I read that you shouldn't leave space heaters on carpet or wood. So I thought about setting it up on my counter top desk, only to learn that you should never put them off the floor. I thought maybe this would just need to be something I used in my bathroom, only to learn that you should never ever put one in a bathroom because if it gets wet, it can start a fire.

Basically it turns out that space heaters are complete death traps, and I'm a little freaked out to even use mine. But, it's here now, and I'm going to give it a well-supervised shot. I'm just wishing I'd researched it a little more thoroughly in advance... maybe I would have decided it wasn't worth buying!