Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review

While the main reason you’re buying a space heater is to keep yourself toasty, you’re going to be looking at it a lot too. If you like to be surrounded by beautiful things and you’re partial to the mid-twentieth century aesthetic, you’ll love the retro-designed Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater. 

Of course, it wouldn’t be one of our best space heaters unless it also lived up to its promise to heat a whole room. If you want to know more about it, read our thorough Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review.

Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review: Price and availability

The Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater is available at Amazon for $160 and Kohls for $170. It comes in seafoam green and white.

Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review: Design

The Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater is beautifully designed to look like a mid-20th century fan. It’s particularly retro-looking in the seafoam green colorway. With its all-metal construction, this is a sturdy unit that sits securely on the floor. The head can be tilted to change the direction in which it blows hot air.  

This heater is small at 8.7 X 9 X 13.7 inches, but not compact and it doesn’t have a handle. However, at only 10 pounds, it isn’t overly heavy to move around. In terms of controls, there is one simple toggle switch with two heat settings and a thermostat dial numbered from 1 to 10. It shuts off automatically if it tilts or overheats to prevent fires.

Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review: Heating performance

The Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater was able to raise the temperature evenly in a 10 x 15 foot room by about 4°F on its high heat setting. While this wasn’t a stellar performance, you can pivot the head to aim the hot air towards your lounge chair or work area for more direct heating. It used less energy than most of the other heaters that we tested — using an average of 0.26 kWH.

When it’s operating on high, this was one of the loudest space heaters we tested, with a noise level of 59.6 dBa, or the equivalent to an electric toothbrush. Its surfaces get hotter than room temperature, but at a high of 90°F, nowhere near high enough to be a burn hazard.

Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review: Ease of use

With just low and high heat settings and a thermostat dial to regulate the heat, the VHEAT is extremely easy to use. However, it doesn't come with a remote control so you will have to get up to turn it off or adjust the heat.  

It can be easily cleaned with the brush attachment of a vacuum cleaner. Although this isn’t a large space heater, it is awkwardly shaped, so it won’t fit neatly in a closet.

Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater review: Verdict

We think the Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater is the best space heater you can buy if you care about looks as well as performance. With just two settings, it’s extremely easy to use and it’s small and lightweight enough to move from area to area without much of a struggle. 

The only major downside is that it’s a little noisier than most and it’s far more expensive than other space heaters that will heat just as effectively. If you care about heating performance above all, we suggest the Lasko FH500 instead. As our winning space heater, this heated the same space in the same time by 10°F.