Almost everyone can buy lightweight, inexpensive, and efficient individual heaters. There are several types of heaters, but the most common are oil-filled radiators. They have high reliability, excellent heat transfer coefficient, and average energy efficiency. You can find a lot of models of oil heaters on the market: from cheap Chinese versions to expensive European or American.

At the same time, the power of the heaters, the number of sections, and the time of continuous operation vary greatly. The better the radiator, the more expensive it is, but the cheaper it is to use. However, oil heaters also have some disadvantages. One of them is the relatively slow time of heating the room, especially when compared with other tyre of heating using a suitable heat guns.

Also, many consumers are a little confused about security issues. In particular, those who first turned on the oil filled radiator often complain of the clicking noise. Is this normal?

If you hear this sound only in the first 2-5 minutes, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Why does the oil heater click?

There may be several reasons:

Water gets to the container with oil. Most often, this is water vapor entering the radiator when assembling in the humid air. When you turn it off, it cools, and the water condenses. But when you switch the heater on, the water warms much faster than the oil. It is boiling. Hence the sound. When all the water proceeds into a vaporous state, the sound stops.

Air bubbles can be the second reason. When mowing the radiator, you can shake the oil, and air enters into it. When heated, the bubbles increase, go up, and burst, which causes a clicking noise. It also stops after turning the radiator off. The problem can be solved if you install the heater on a flat horizontal plane.

Microscopic increase of metal elements during heating. Metal makes the noise, and this sound also stops immediately after warming up.

None of these problems is a dangerous problem and is almost unrecoverable. The situation becomes more critical if the sound continues some time after heating. It should not be, and this indicates a defect in the body or breakdowns in the electrical part of the radiator. If the clicking noise continues for a long time, you should repair the radiator.

Possible malfunctions

In addition to the above reasons, the source of extraneous sounds can be electrical connections. It is dangerous, and you shouldn’t use such a device due to the risk of a short circuit. Clicking noise that does not stop after heating the radiator is one of the signs of electrical contact fault. If you can smell burned wiring and hot copper, turn everything off.

How to fix the problem

As a rule, electrical contacts start to burn either on the power adjustment rheostat or on the device switch. If you drag the power cord strongly while moving the heater, contacts may also loose at the point of connection. You can often see the problem with the naked eye. The signs are blackening and charring of the braid and the contact itself. Also, as a result of over-heating, the copper wires get a specific reddish-pink shade.

To fix the problem, you need to clean the wires if they are not already damaged and check the security of the connection. If the wire has already become fragile, you need to replace it. You should also renew the welded steel contacts that go to the copper part. If, after applying the above measures, the sound does not disappear, you should give the heater for repair or invite a specialist. He will identify and eliminate the cause of the malfunction. We do not recommend that you fix the fault yourself without appropriate knowledge and skills to avoid a complete failure of the device.

There is another question that worries the owners of oil heaters – can they explode?

The oil is not explosive, but some risk is associated with the likelihood of hot oil leakage due to damage to the radiator case. If there are no visual defects in the case, then the risk of this is almost reduced to zero.