My cats are my micro-heaters. Zero extra power use in winter :-)
Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
81–90 of 276 posts
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In defense of Californians, most of us rarely, if ever, turn on a heater and most homes here don't have AC Then why on earth was I freezing my balls off in Menlo Park this November? The weeks before we realised our house even had heating were miserable. And even afterwards, as soon as the heaters weren't blowing hot air, or you were more than 3ft away, you were instantly cold and miserable.
Had you previously lived in more equatorial climes? Temperature preference really is about what you're used to. Some years ago when I visited India in January/February, my friends' relatives in Rajasthan were shivering in sweaters and coats while my friend and I were perfectly comfortable in short sleeves.
No, I previously lived in a climate that goes up to 100F in summer and down to 5F in winter. But I've always lived in a proper house with heating and insulation and whatnot.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#83People 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 whe…
Yup, if you're heating your house incandescents just lessen heating load. However, if you're cooling your house incandescents are a triple whammy as AC isn't nearly as efficient as heating.
Incandescents heat the room at the ceiling, which I would imagine significantly reduces their effective efficiency relative to a well placed electric heater. Also, of course, incandescents have the same poor system efficiency as other electric heaters, compared to burning the fuel for heat in your house.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#84OK, Paul Wheaton simply doesn't know what he's talking about: "I think that this does produce some savings, but not as much as you might think. If you set your thermostat to a constant 70, the heater works a little at a time throughout the day. If you drop it to 50 at night or in the middle of the day, the heater stops working, but then when the time comes to warm the house again, the heater has to work at full power…
Funny how these things have been well solved in places with real winters (or summers) for hundreds of years isn't it?
Central European buildings used to have walls so thick as to achieve a cave effect, which gave them nearly constant temperature through most of the year. With some minimal-ish heating during winter as a side-effect of cooking with wood to combat the effect of bad windows.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#85OK, Paul Wheaton simply doesn't know what he's talking about: "I think that this does produce some savings, but not as much as you might think. If you set your thermostat to a constant 70, the heater works a little at a time throughout the day. If you drop it to 50 at night or in the middle of the day, the heater stops working, but then when the time comes to warm the house again, the heater has to work at full power…
I agree with all your theory. I thought the same thing. Then I went out and bought a programable thermostat, set it quite low overnight and during the day, and warmer from 5-8 AM and 5-8 PM. My heating bill was higher than just maintaining 68-70 all the time. And that's not even counting the $100 I spent on the thermostat (now on a shelf in the garage, I put the old manual one back in its place).
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#86Spot-heating, especially within a leaky building envelope utilizing expensive heat sources (electric resistance) is one option. But it's hardly the only one, or the best. For northern climates, taking a whole-system approach to home/structure design gets you a tremendously greater payoff in terms of energy savings. Among the most powerful demonstrations of this I've seen are Thorsten Chlupp / Reina LLC's experiences…
Not to mention:
In a well-insulated, well-designed house, you won't have any worries about frozen pipes, even with a low thermostat temperature, since all pipes will be inside the insulated enclosure.
There's a whole community of people trying to build better buildings out there. The Passivhaus people, the PERSIST (Saskatchewan) and REMOTE (Alaska) approaches (http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/getti...), Building Science Corporation, the NRC in Canada (http://archive.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/ibp/irc/cbd/digest-index.h...).
Some of these people are ex-hippies or hippie-ish, and there is a bit of bullshit out there, but there's certainly plenty of better ways to build and renovate homes for energy efficiency.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#87OK, Paul Wheaton simply doesn't know what he's talking about: "I think that this does produce some savings, but not as much as you might think. If you set your thermostat to a constant 70, the heater works a little at a time throughout the day. If you drop it to 50 at night or in the middle of the day, the heater stops working, but then when the time comes to warm the house again, the heater has to work at full power…
How much of this is thrown out the window when you have "peak pricing" for energy?
Also, the "straightdope" link doesn't exactly dispute that setting the thermostat down is ultimately a much more modest ~6% energy savings on average. Nothing to scoff at, but ultimately you come out better by taking a holistic approach. If you can afford it, of course.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#88A 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.
Portable AC units are highly inefficient when compared to large fixed units. If you only want to cool a single room the best solution is probably a mini split. They're expensive but very efficient.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#89I live in Florida. This entire discussion is bizarro world for me. It costs nearly $400 a month to keep my house at 74deg in the summer.
Sounds like your house could use some work. It doesn't cost us that much to cool our sizable house here in Austin, even when it's 100+F every day.
Re: Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill
#90>In June of 2010 I moved to a place in Montana with only electric heat. Living that far north and depending on one heat source is crazy! Think about the power going out when its -30 out... or if you used gas, running out or having your furnace break down. (Not to mention electric is usually the most expensive way to heat). Most houses where I live have 2 or 3 heat sources. I have wood, LP and electric...
I live in the northernmost large city in Canada (where we get -40C pretty regularly for a while in the winter) and every apartment I've ever lived in has only one heat source, and usually it's either electric or water pipe. If your power goes out long enough for all the heat to leach out of your apartment or house you probably have some serious problems with either the electric company or your insulation.
Heh, last Christmas the power was out for about two weeks at my parents' house, which uses electricity to push the hot air generated by our gas furnace through the house. It was -25 C.
Granted, I might not have had to go to the hospital if we had gone to a warming shelter earlier than the sixth day. (My father is rather stubborn, and it damn near killed me. When I got out of the hospital, I left the house and paid for a hotel room in a part of town where power had been restored.)