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Cheaper to heat one room w/electric heater than whole house w/gas?
- Thread starter JEDI
- Start date
Engineer
Elite Member
So are you turning the gas furnace off completely? The electric heater will only keep the room warm if you close it off but it would be cheaper than running the furnace if you turned it off completely.
Natural gas is very cheap (historically) right now.
Typical small heater at 1,500 wats = 1.5kWH x .10 (guess at average costs per kWH_ = $0.15 per hour x 24 * 30 (days) = $108 per month.
With a sealed off 12 x 12 room, the heater (at 1,500 watts) may not need to run 24 hours depending on the insulation of the house.
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JEDI
Lifer
not turning it off completely. setting it to like 60F. after all i still need to use the bathroom + kitchen.
(bedroom not a problem since i use electric blanket when i sleep.)
I'm surprise that you can't figure it out for yourself.
Price of gas per therm vs. electric per KW
Room volume vs. house volume, and exterior walls
Temperature of outside, house, and room.
IMHO, it is definitely cheaper to run the space heater on electric to heat up a single room than the entire house even those NG price is extremely low at the moment (roughly 1/2 of electric for same amount of energy).
Price of gas per therm vs. electric per KW
Room volume vs. house volume, and exterior walls
Temperature of outside, house, and room.
IMHO, it is definitely cheaper to run the space heater on electric to heat up a single room than the entire house even those NG price is extremely low at the moment (roughly 1/2 of electric for same amount of energy).
Blackjack200
Lifer
even better would be a kerosene space heater. Just don't burn your house down.
Engineer
Elite Member
Just get an electric blanket, turn the gas furnace down to 48...profit! :biggrin:
Even if the R value between the inside wall is low (2 * 0.45 = 0.9 R) it is not going affect the change because of the low different in temperature between the walls.
Engineer
Elite Member
By the way, I used up to 3 of the small, electric heaters (set at 1,000 Watts) vs using my gas furnace (turned down to 62 or so) because my furnace was so inefficient (was 68% when new but was 20 years old). Just replaced it with a new 95% efficient furnace, turned the heat up and turned off the electric heaters. Will check bill next month so gauge the difference.
Yes it is.
I and many people now have adjustable thermostats. So mine drops down at night and I have a small electric heater in my room that has a thermostat on it as well. My fuerance is a 93% model so even then its cheaper we have found.
Also keep the tnermostat at 50 or higher is usually enough to keep the pipes from freezing. That is in a insualted house and the pipes are in the heated part of the house. I also wrap all my pipes with the basic/cheap foam tubes from lowes/HD.
I and many people now have adjustable thermostats. So mine drops down at night and I have a small electric heater in my room that has a thermostat on it as well. My fuerance is a 93% model so even then its cheaper we have found.
Also keep the tnermostat at 50 or higher is usually enough to keep the pipes from freezing. That is in a insualted house and the pipes are in the heated part of the house. I also wrap all my pipes with the basic/cheap foam tubes from lowes/HD.
48....could lead to negative profit!
What is the out side temperature and humidity of your house?
It could be that you are increasing the dew point condition in the exterior walls if the humidity is high enough. Which, would cause condensation that leads to black mold.