Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

richsoil.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 276 posts

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#31

Post by legohead »

Swizec wrote: post #6

This is where I really prefer the European model[1] - you heat the whole house with hot water. You make hot water with cheap natural gas. If you're lucky enough, you can even use geothermal. Then you use insulation. This especially is something that feels nobody in the US has heard of. At least in California. As a result, your radiators are turned down to 2 out of 10 all day (heating turns off automatically overnight…

its done that way in Russia as well, at least in the city. the downside is they have to turn off the hot water occasionally to do cleaning, which means no hot water for 1-3 days.

in village homes they use pechkas [1]. a giant radiant heater that uses firewood and sits in the middle of the home. most are adapted so that you can use them to cook too.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oven

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#32

Post by lutorm »

mangecoeur wrote: post #28
lutorm wrote: post #17

This is why changing out incandescents for CFL's in a heated house does almost nothing for saving energy... and if the heat comes from electricity, nothing for saving money, either.

Wrong. Does plenty to save energy. Reasons: - for half the year, you don't heat but you still light, so you automatically gain savings for that whole period. (also if you have air conditioning, in summer you heat the house with lights then have to cool the air again) - Lights are on the ceiling. Hot air rises. Therefore heat coming from lights does almost nothing to improve your thermal comfort. - If you are heating…

If you don't heat, you don't have a heated house. Hence my comment does not apply.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#33

Post by mbrameld »

redcap wrote: post #19

> The bathroom is the one room in the house that is heated normally. You can get heated toilet seats - they're quite common in Japan. One example: http://www.heatedtoiletseat.com

Alaskan here. Getting out of the shower in a cold bathroom is no fun. A towel heater can help a lot with that, though.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#34

Post by colechristensen »

sargun wrote: post #12
p_eter_p wrote: post #8

A similar approach works in hot climates. A friend of mine saved a substantial amount of money by getting an efficient portable AC unit for his bedroom, and shutting off the main air conditioner for the house at night. In a southern summer, the savings add up quick.

How does he purge the heat?

Portable air conditioners have small window-installed vents to exhaust hot air.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#35

Post by Swizec »

vacri wrote: post #18
Swizec wrote: post #6

This is where I really prefer the European model[1] - you heat the whole house with hot water. You make hot water with cheap natural gas. If you're lucky enough, you can even use geothermal. Then you use insulation. This especially is something that feels nobody in the US has heard of. At least in California. As a result, your radiators are turned down to 2 out of 10 all day (heating turns off automatically overnight…

Crappy insulation is the norm here in Australia as well, which is more of a problem down south where it gets cold in winter. I used to work with a Scot who highlighted the issue, saying that in a Scottish house, the insulation was good enough that you could basically heat a room with a candle. I once asked him if there were any wooden houses in Scotland, he replied "Yes, we keep our lawnmowers in them".

> I once asked him if there were any wooden houses in Scotland, he replied "Yes, we keep our lawnmowers in them".

Austro-hungarian empire outlawed wooden houses in the early 19th century. Hence we still don't have any, and if you live in a wooden house[1], you are considered to not have been able to afford a proper house and thus looked down upon.

[1] becoming common with drywall construction methods. Particularly because it's cheap and fast.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#36

Post by nostromo »

People should check out WattVision. It's a little device that attaches to your electrical meter so you can monitor your electrical usage.

What I've found is that almost all of our home's electrical usage comes from heating (heaters, clothes dryers, and hot water).

Everything else is almost a rounding error. For example: I saw almost no change when we switched from incandescents to LED lighting (even in the summer when we're not heating the house) but I saw a large change with efficient shower heads and washing clothes on cold.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#37

Post by jonknee »

vacri wrote: post #13

Why not use the reptile heater instead of the incandescent globe? Having a light shining right in my face would end the experiment in minutes.

Apparently he likes the light and thus the double usage (if you're already going to have a light on you might as well use its heat). I agree that the placement would drive me batty. Reptile heaters were mentioned towards the end and he uses them when having guests over.

Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

#39

Post by cma »

lutorm wrote: post #17

This is why changing out incandescents for CFL's in a heated house does almost nothing for saving energy... and if the heat comes from electricity, nothing for saving money, either.

Depends on if you can use a heat pump or not. Heat pumps are more efficient than resistive heating.
Post reply on HN