Quietest Space Heaters
These toasty models turn up the heat but not the noise
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Of all the appliances in your home, a space heater is probably among the least noisy. But unlike a dishwasher or vacuum, the hum of a space heater is pretty much constant—and often just a few feet away. So it makes sense to choose a quiet one.
But that’s not as easy as it seems. As we’ve found in our tests, the quietest space heaters aren’t necessarily the top-performing ones. In fact, some of the quietest space heaters are among our lowest rated.
“Radiator-type space heaters are the quietest because they lack a fan,” says Chris Regan, who oversees our space heating tests. Although all of the radiator-style models in our tests earn an excellent score for noise, you won’t find any of these oil-filled heaters on our recommended list because they heat up so slowly, missing our benchmark of heating a room in 15 minutes. “Still, if you’re using one in a guest room and can turn it on an hour or two before bedtime, the room will get toasty,” Regan says.
Space heaters with fans distribute heat best, but they can be noisy. One of our top-scoring space heaters, the pricey Dyson Pure Hot+Cool HP04, is also one of the noisier models, earning just a middling score on that test. Noisier still is the small Honeywell HCE323V, which matches Dyson on excellent room heating but falls a notch short in our tests for spot heating, ease of use, and noise. But Regan says, "noisy" is relative. Some fan space heaters, like Vornado models in our ratings, are still relatively quiet, just not as silent as the fanless type.
CR’s engineers measure sound by positioning a sound meter at a “working distance” from the source of the noise, which varies from product to product. For space heaters, we clip a microphone to a test dummy and place the appliance 4.5 feet away on the floor. We then take two noise measurements with the heater running on its highest setting.
For the models we’ve tested, the decibel readings range from 20.6 dBA to 59.3 dBA. Most of the space heaters we test have a decibel level in the mid-40s, averaging 46.4 dBA. “That’s a huge range,” says Les Blomberg, director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, a nonprofit group. By comparison, he says, the level of background noise in a typical house ranges between 25 dBA and 40 dBA. “The quietest heaters fit into that background noise, but anything above that will be the dominant sound of your environment.”
Here, in alphabetical order, are six high-performing space heaters from our tests. Each earned an excellent or very good rating for both overall room heating and spot heating, though some may be hot to the touch on their highest setting. They all rate excellent for noise, meaning they’ll barely make a peep while keeping you toasty.
For more advice on choosing a space heater, check out our free space heater buying guide. And CR members can access our complete space heater ratings to see how all of the models we recently tested stack up.
At 16 pounds, the Midea MSF15AH6LB is among the heavier large space heaters in our ratings, but it’s also one of the quietest. Along with excellent noise and fire safety scores, this heater is very good at heating a standard room and spot heating people within 15 minutes. You’ll need to make room for this space heater, which features a tip-over switch, an oscillating fan, and a remote control. It comes with a two-year warranty.
The tall and slender PureGuardian HTR410B is the second of two large space heaters on this list. A breeze to operate, this super-quiet model is very good at heating a standard-sized room and excellent at thawing you out when the chill is on. It has a multispeed oscillating fan with a remote control and a timer. We did find it to have a hot-surface burn risk on the highest setting if you accidentally bump into it, but it does have a tip-over switch and an excellent fire safety rating.
The Vornado MVH Whole Room Heater earns its name with very good scores for room heating and spot heating. Even with its fan, this heater is another super-quiet model from the brand, rating excellent for noise—or lack thereof. Lightweight (a little over 4 pounds), it has an excellent fire safety rating aided by its tip-over safety switch. But on the highest setting, its heat exhaust outlet gets warm enough to pose a burn risk, so keep it away from kids and pets. It comes with a five-year warranty.
The Vornado VH10 space heater is a champ at heating a room and almost as good at bathing a person in direct heat. It gets top marks in our fire safety test, but its heat exhaust outlet can be a little warm to the touch, so it’s not the best choice if you have young children or pets. It does have a tip-over switch, which automatically shuts off the heater if it’s knocked over, a great safety feature.
Though the Vornado VH200 is super-quiet and boasts an excellent spot-heating score, it does have some drawbacks. It doesn’t fare well in our hot-surface test, which means it can be hot enough to cause a burn when on the highest setting. CR’s testers also found its controls to be a bit tricky to use. On the plus side, this model is equipped with a tip-over switch and, at 4 pounds, is very lightweight, making it easy to move around. And along with its generous five-year warranty, its price is right, too.
One of the quietest (and priciest) small heaters in our tests, the Vornado VMHi600 gets an excellent score for spot heating an individual quickly, and it does a very good job of heating a standard-sized room within 15 minutes. It has an excellent fire safety score, too, bolstered by its tip-over switch and a timer that allows you to program when the heater turns on and off. It weighs 10 pounds and has an easy-to-use fan and a remote control. Another plus is Vornado’s five-year warranty. But watch out for its heat-exhaust outlet, which can burn you if you touch it.
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