For the 20 years that we've owned this house, our kitchen has been colder than the rest of the house (Natural Gas, Steam and old cast-iron radiators). My belief is that it is under-represented with radiators because when the system was put in, there was very likely a big stove of some sort in there (you can still see the large circular "patch in the plaster where the duct work must have been). It's typically in the low-50's (!) first thing in the morning and in the low 60s through the day during the winter months.

We keep one of those 120v, 1500-watt tower-type heaters in there, but of course, it's insufficient and it takes so long to start making a difference that it's kind of pointless much of the time. By the time it starts to warm it up, we're done in the kitchen anyway. It's only useful for those days when Joyce is in the mood to cook and is spending 3-4 hours in the kitchen at a time. Joyce has been diagnosed with Lupus and though she doesn't complain, her joints are frequently uncomfortable and being cold doesn't help. She loves cooking but avoids it more and more and the kitchen just isn't comfortable for her. I really want to take care of this, but can't spring a few thousand right now.

I almost picked up a 220v HD workshop heater the other day but the plug was different than the stove outlet I would have plugged it into. My thoughts were that it would heat the room in ten minutes, then it could be unplugged and the regular little tower heater could maintain the temp. I didn't feel confident in replacing the plug when dealing with a unit like a 220v heater.

We've considered a stove (originally pellet, but then I was convinced that NG would be cleaner and easier since we had NG in the house anyway), but there's still too many issues: Space, venting, cost.

I had also considered putting one in the basement below the kitchen, adding some heat to my workshop and hopefully adding quite a bit through registers I would cut into the kitchen floor...not to mention some radiant heat through the floor itself. This could be less expensive because it wouldn't have to be pretty like the one in the kitchen should be.

When I was checking into that 220v workshop heater, I kept coming across far infrared heaters such as the EdenPure heaters.... there's a whole bunch of brands that all look the same and get only "somewhat good" reviews.

This weekend, while watching the HomeTime home-improvement program, I saw that they were using far infrared wall-mounted panels as the only source of heat in a garage/studio building: Clip from show here. I Googled a bit and came up with this manufacturer.

I like the fact that a larger panel mounted on the ceiling of the main part of the kitchen and a smaller panel ceiling-mounted in the pantry (it's an odd-shaped room), on a timer- thermostat to come on when we wake up, could be ideal supplemental heat.

Does anyone have any experience with these or have any other ideas to offer?

By tower heater, do you mean the oil-filled radiator type?

No, Ken, it's this style of ceramic (I think this is the actual model, come to think of it!)

How big is the kitchen? How many openings to other rooms?

Mark, our kitchen has always been colder than the other rooms in our house. We purchased an EdenPure infrared heater which does a great job. It is a very even heat throughout the whole room. We bought another this year for our living room. Old house with poor insulation and 9 foot ceilings. We are very happy with both of them. Not sure if this helps out any.

Those panels they use in that video sure look nice though. Our heat at work is similar in that it heats objects in the room.

Ken, it's about 250 square feet or so:

Ed, thanks for that first-person experience. It definitely makes me feel confident that the EdenPURE heaters are not a scam!

Well, look at Mister Fancy Graph. Where's the snow?

That's not the famous square room is it?

No, Steve, that's not a square. Count the sides, what does it look like? What do you call that?

oops, let me turn off "father of toddler" mode.

One thing that they said on the Home Time clip which was interesting was that the far infra-red panels continue to give off heat after being 'excited' which makes you wonder if they've experimented with some type of on/off, quick timer to make them even more efficient.

Imo, Mark, I'd get a ceramic heater for the rest of this winter, then do a little more thorough research on permanent alternatives in the summer. Who knows, maybe you'll get a better deal in the off season as well.

I didn't think that was possible til they reached the "I know everything" mode

A little late here but as a precaution to the now gone blizzard of 2011 we had bought the same exact model Mark linked to. We were lucky enough not to need it but decided to give it a test run today.

We have it in our 13x20x7.5 living room. Right now it's 5F with a real feel of -15 and this little heater has keep the room at 69 to 70F constant. It's been running pretty much non stop but it has done a good job.