"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/09/2019 at 12:16 • Filed to: None
2
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"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/09/2019 at 12:16 • Filed to: None | 2
| 18 |
I just bought a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at the recommendation of a coworker and man oh man do I love this thing. I live in a 3-story townhouse where our biggest TV is down in the basement, which as you can guess is not as warm as the other floors in our house. Enter, the wonderful world of portable heaters.
One habit we developed when we lived in Wisconsin, and have brought with us to Maryland after moving here coming up on a couple years ago, is not running the heat too high in the winter, and turning it lower when we sleep, to save on energy costs. Also, my wife loves putting too much bedding on the bed in winter, and she goes to sleep earlier than I do. After she goes to sleep, I hang in the basement with a hoodie up over my bald head, and a space heater.
We had this cheap crappy little space heater with a fan that was fine, but not really, because the fan is much louder than desirable when watching TV. It wasn’t really all that hot but cranked to full blast it was acceptably decent at keeping me warm, even occasionally toasty, while I hung on the couch. At least !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
I randomly mentioned to a coworker that I was in the market for a new space heater, and she said, you gotta get the HeatDish! It’s awesome! I was like, dafuq is a HeatDish, but I googled it and discovered that it’s this Presto HeatDish, and it has no fan. Which I realized might actually be perfect for my basement.
So, what the hell is a Presto Heat Dish? It’s a space heater that looks kinda like a circular fan, but there’s no fan. The heating element is in the middle, and the back is a parabolic reflector that
beams
the heat towards you.
This is not a very good solution for heating up a whole room. But who needs to heat up a whole room while hanging out on the couch if you can instead beam radiant heat right in your goddamn face?
Before I committed to buying the HeatDish, I looked into other fanless heating solutions for the basement. One other interesting idea that I hadn’t seen before is these modern electric oil-filled radiators, like
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
. If you want to heat up a whole room, this seems like a neat idea.
But for my use, this seemed like it’d be less ideal, because these are good for providing a nice slow room-warming heat. Which is great for a drafty room you want to keep warm all the time, but for me hanging in the basement for an hour or two after my wife goes to sleep, roasting myself with the HeatDish is quicker and probably uses less electricity than heating a whole room.
There are some crappier-looking parabolic heaters like the HeatDish available on Amazon, but they seemed kinda jankity compared to the HeatDish. I also love my Presto electric griddle, and the Presto company is headquartered in none other than Eau Claire, Wisconsin. All of which made me feel like it was the right move instead of those jankity other options that I’m purposefully not linking to here.
So, I grabbed a HeatDish from my local Costco, where it’s $70, vs. $90 and change through 3rd party sellers on Amazon, Walmart & eBay who I assume are buying HeatDishes at Costco and marking them up for resale on those other marketplaces. I felt pretty confident in my choice before I went to Costco, but when I got there, they had a demo model on the shelf which I briefly stood in front of and it was intense.
The HeatDish is capable of beaming heat at you that’s way more powerful than you could ever possibly want or need . Medium-low on the dial is more than enough, like it’s noticeably fucking toasty. Which feels kinda good to someone like me, because I’m weird and enjoy being sometimes uncomfortably hot.
But you have to be careful with the HeatDish. The other night I had been hanging out in front of it for a couple hours when I went to the bathroom and noticed in the mirror that I looked a bit red in the face. At first I thought the HeatDish might be sunburning me, but I realized I was just overheated. I had to drink a glass of water and turn the HeatDish down below that medium-low setting for a while.
A couple days after I got the HeatDish, I picked up some late-night post-gym falafel at the Halal Guys that has still not fixed its front window that had been !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I was waiting while they fried up my falafel balls, and noticed that I felt really warm, in a familiar way. Then I realized the table where I was waiting was directly next to the gyro vertical rotisseries behind the counter, which also work on the concept of reflecting/directing radiant heat.
I don’t know if the HeatDish can cook a meat cone, but either way, that directed heat is some strong shit.
Now, one thing to keep in mind is the HeatDish is not completely silent. The heating coils are rather powerful, so as the thermostat cycles the coils on and off there’s a metallic buzzing/whirring kinda noise as the coils warm up again. The first time I turned it on I was a little puzzled by this sound, but it’s normal. It’s a little noticeable if you’re using it in an otherwise-silent room, but if you’ve got the TV on at a moderate volume level you pretty much only hear an occasional click on or off accompanied by the orange light from the coils, and not the whirring.
So, for anyone else in the market for an item such as the HeatDish, I give it a rating of 6 falafel balls on a scale of 5, because it’s total fucking overkill, in a good way.
MonkeePuzzle
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:21 |
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I use a heatdish in my uninsulated garage. there’s no point attempting to heat the whole thing, the dish pointed right at me is sufficient.
functionoverfashion
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:24 |
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I use one of the oil-filled things for my office because I can’t stand hot air blowing on me, for one, because of contact lenses. But it does take a while to warm up the space.
I was recently at a party where one of those things was being used right near a drafty door. I’d never seen one, but man, I wanted to stand next to it and just bask in its heat. Fantastic.
Aremmes
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:29 |
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Hahaha, that’s awesome. The Korean grocery near my house sells a variety of heaters that follow the same formula, including some pedestal-mounted units with 20-inch dishes. The most powerful ones I’ve experienced, though, are the ones installed at the entrance of the nearest Costco, where walking underneath them feels like “cold, cold, cold, SOLAR DEATH RAY”.
Meanwhile I have one of these in my living room to supplement the forced-air heat system. I have it set to 64°F and it keeps the temps nice and even.
lone_liberal
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:29 |
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My local Costco used to always have one of those on as a demonstration and even passing by it would toast you.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Aremmes
12/09/2019 at 12:32 |
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After I had decided to buy the HeatDish, but before I got around to doing it, I had a similar solar death ray experience at Home Depot . Except I enjoyed it thoroughly.
CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:34 |
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one stop shop for burning your house down!
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Aremmes
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:38 |
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Textured Soy Protein
> CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
12/09/2019 at 12:39 |
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Yes, it’s definitely a fire hazard. There’s a safety switch in the base. The middle of the base is a spring-loaded platform that compresses when you place the HeatDish on a flat surface. Tip it over, pick it up, or otherwise remove the pressure from the platform, and it shuts off . If you trip the switch while the coil is powered up it also blares a s uper loud annoying buzzer at you. When I first set it up I tried picking it up to reposition it while it was turned on, which I very quickly regretted.
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:44 |
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I have an adjustable reading lamp hanging over my bed and lately I’ve been severely tempted to replace the bulb with one of those reptile heat bulbs from the pet store
Nom De Plume
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 12:51 |
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Did you partake in any sauna competitions while living in the North woods. Sisu!
Don’t drink water when you overheat. Immerse your [typically head it sounds] in ice cold water per the above question.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Nom De Plume
12/09/2019 at 13:02 |
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I lived in the “North Woods” of the c ity of Madison, but no I did not do any sauna competitions.
Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 13:04 |
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Lol you cold northerners! Here I was contemplating turning my AC on at home yesterday because it had reached 76 degrees inside my apartment when I was going to bed. Thankfully just opening a window and throwing the fan on for a while got it cooled down enough to not need it.
I am moving to an area near the coast up a mountain though so it might get cold at night. House isnt well sealed either and I have no idea if it even has decent heat. So Im probably going to look into an oil filled space heater at some point. But it will be to combat the overnight temps in the high 40s/50s of winter here haha.
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Nom De Plume
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 13:06 |
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How about drunken dives into aerated section of a lake mid-Winter?
Anyways, the centuries old positive physiological reaction was noted for you to do what you will with it. Enjoying being really uncomfortably hot lacked the correct historic reference in these alienated times.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
12/09/2019 at 13:23 |
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I’m in the DC burbs, this isn’t exactly “northern.” We’re only a hair farther north than, say, Sacramento. Our winter is generally pretty temperate as winters go. But, if it’s 40 degrees outside and we’re only heating the house to 68 at night, the basement has a bit of a chill to it.
This is my second DC winter after many Wisconsin winters and I’m still much better able to tolerate colder outside temps than most folks here. But I just like to be warm in general.
In the summer here, which can get hot and so humid that going outside feels like walking through soup, it keeps getting hotter until about 9 or 10 at night. I don’t shower at my gym, I just change out of my sweaty workout clothes to my going-home-from-the-gym clothes, and when I’m still hot and sweaty after a workout I loooove walking out into that soup to go to my car. It’s fabulous.
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Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 13:48 |
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Definitely north compared to los angeles in terms of weather haha. Im also in a 5th floor apartment so we rarely run the heat at all. The other units in the building provide too much heat as is generally. Hence why the AC needs to be cranking just to keep things at 74 in the summer. And in the winter its rare to see it dip below 70 even with the heat OFF. Occasional cold snaps (into the 30s as a low ) might dip it to 68 or so and so we will use the heat in the morning for that.
You just described my worst nightmare, that sweaty sweat that just doesnt go away. At least when its hot here, its a dry heat. Anything over 90 or so will see humidity below 20% for sure. Its the 80s with 40-50% humidity that feels awful to me and thats not even humid by other places standards. It means I have to drink a lot of water to not die when Im outdoors but thats fine, at least im not sweaty. And since the humidity is low, its always cool at night in the summer. I make it a habit to always bring a jacket since its often needed at night.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
12/09/2019 at 13:58 |
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Our soupy summers here are definitely a challenge if you’re trying to avoid sweat. Like if I worked downtown, had to wear dress clothes, and used a combination of subway and walking to get to work, I’d probably hate it. Doing hard work or exercise outside in that kind of weather is also a challenge. But since I live and work in the burbs and lead a typical car-based lifestyle, I thoroughly enjoy my soupy post-gym walks to my car. It’s a nice little punctuation mark after a good workout.
Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
> Textured Soy Protein
12/09/2019 at 15:59 |
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Heat dish is the most instantaneously satisfying, but like you said a lousy way to actually heat the room.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
12/09/2019 at 16:12 |
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Right, if it were a more frequently-used room, we’d probably go the electric oil radiator route. But since one or both of us tend to hang out there for a (relatively) short stint, this seemed like an ideal usage scenario for the HeatDish.