Cuddling up in front of the heater on a cold day is undeniably inviting. However, beyond the cosy comfort, you can find yourself with a nagging headache, a scratchy throat, and a general feeling of being under the weather.
While heaters themselves don’t directly cause illness, the dry air and other factors associated with prolonged exposure can leave you with a variety of unpleasant symptoms.
‘I can’t breathe’
“The heater brings me discomfort because it makes it difficult for me to breathe when it gets too hot because I was born with troublesome sinus congestion,” says Mlondolozi Mngwengwe from Pretoria.
“Usually, if the heater is on for over 30 minutes in a small room, I get dizzy, headaches, and difficulty breathing. It’s better if the room is bigger, therefore allowing the hot air to circulate.”
Due to these effects, Mngwengwe says he has stopped using any heating methods altogether and only uses blankets to keep warm.
Thokozile Sithole from Pretoria shares an unpleasant experience with heater use, noting a range of symptoms that develop after a few days of continuous use.
“The heater usually affects my throat by giving me throat irritation. I also get a blocked nose, headaches, dizziness, flu, and eye irritation sometimes.”
Thokozile Sithole
“I’ve started using alternative heating methods, like a hot water bottle and an electric blanket.”
Dangers of using heaters
When using a heater, Thobile Thwala from Johannesburg Dobonsville notes that it often results in dry air, which can cause several discomforts.
“I experience dry air, sometimes dizziness, and I get thirsty a lot. My eyes also get a little irritated, and I experience tiredness sometimes.
“The humidifier helps, and interestingly, the gas heater is not as bad as the electrical heater, but I switch it on for an hour to keep the house warm, then off again. Wearing warm clothes helps too.”
Working as a medical doctor in Limpopo, Dr Polite Mabhena says heaters play a pivotal role in warming our rooms and making us feel warm during the winter.
Despite being the leading cause of house fires during winter, he points out that heaters can cause potential harm to our bodies, such as carbon monoxide poisoning.
Malfunctioning or improperly ventilated heaters can produce a very dangerous colourless and odourless gas called carbon monoxide. Prolonged inhalation of this gas is detrimental to our health. It causes organ damage to the brain, heart, and lungs in the process.
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Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning
Some symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include headaches, dizziness, generalised body weakness, chest pains, shortness of breath, nausea, seizures, and loss of consciousness.
- Dry air: Heaters significantly reduce the air humidity levels. Inhaling dry air can irritate the airways and potentially exacerbate pre-existing respiratory conditions like asthma, sinusitis, and bronchitis. Breathing dry air also causes frequent nose bleeds by drying the mucus membranes.
- Susceptibility to respiratory infections: The dry air that we inhale as a result of using heaters, dries our mucus membranes. The respiratory mucosa is specially adapted to clear dirt (viruses, bacteria, dust, etc.) from the respiratory tract. When dried up, the respiratory mucosa loses the ability to perform the clearing function; hence, you become more susceptible to infections.
- Dermatological problems: Due to the lack of humidity in the air, the skin fails to retain its moisture, hence we end up with dry, itchy skin and sometimes crackled lips. Heaters kind of mimic the warm, sunny weather, which predisposes many to acne, folliculitis, melasma, and heat rash, to name a few.
- Dehydration: The warm and dry air from our heaters causes excessive water loss from the body through the skin.
Precautions to keep you safe
To minimise the health risks associated with using a heater, Mabhena suggests:
- Minimising exposure time: Use it only when necessary. There is no need to keep the heater on while you are asleep.
- Keep a distance from your heater, preferably two metres away.
- Keep your skin well moisturised to protect yourself from drying the skin.
- Keep the heater out of reach of the toddlers.
- Keep heaters away from combustible items and always follow the manufacturers’ guidelines.
- Use air humidifiers.
- Ask professional technicians to service your heaters to prevent the emission of carbon monoxide from malfunctioning heaters.
Electric vs. gas vs. paraffin heaters
Highlighting the differences between electric, gas, and paraffin heaters, Mabhena shares insights on what to look out for and how to use them safely.
“Gas heaters use either natural gas, propane, butane, or liquefied petroleum gas and convert it to thermal energy; that’s their mechanism of producing heat. Their main advantage is that they have huge coverage; that is, they are more convenient for big spacious rooms.
“However, their downside lies in the overproduction of too much carbon monoxide if they are faulty. This problem can be solved by regular service,” Mabhena advises.
For paraffin or kerosene heaters, he explains that they operate by converting the chemical energy in kerosene into thermal energy.
“Paraffin heaters are quite effective considering that they consume quite an insignificant amount of kerosene in order to produce heat. Their main drawback is the bad odour that they mostly produce. This can be overcome by placing a pan of water on top of the heater.
“Electric heaters convert electrical energy into thermal energy. Apart from the electric shocks and short circuits leading to fires, they are relatively safer. Their downside is that they consume too much power for the amount of heat they produce. Hence, they are not as effective as the other two.”
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