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Micro heaters cut 87% off my electric heat bill

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

#131

Post by jtheory »

XorNot wrote: post #93
dredmorbius wrote: post #46

Spot-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…

On hot water bottles: the energy spent boiling that water is likely comparable to the energy an electric blanket on low power would use.

Don't use boiling water with hot water bottles; the ones you can buy have warnings about this (it can damage them). Just use hot water from the tap (which hopefully should be more efficiently heated than however you boil water as well).

Don't worry about energy consumption; it's negligible for the hot water bottle, and for the electric blanket as well, especially compared to keeping your house heat up high at night. Not really worth debating, though do note: the hot water bottle has a fail-proof, gradual, automatic shutoff, it fits any size bed, requires no electric outlet, requires minimal storage space during warmer months (so you can have an extra for guests), and has an initial investment of, like, $4. :)

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

#133

Post by davepage »

Swizec wrote: post #82
jessaustin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New Zealand's North Island has a similar problem. A typical house has cheap construction with thin exterior walls, unfinished crawl space with exposed soil, no insulation and no heat pump. Coupled with a damp climate 5-25C, in the winter one gets heavy condensation, black mold, chills, and the fingers don't work.

I bumped into a guy here from Northern Germany who said he's never been so cold as in a kiwi house in the winter.

The NZ government is trying to change minds, but I still see houses going up with empty wall cavities and no air barrier. But then, the natives wear shorts and tees outside in 5 degree weather all winter. So, maybe its just me.

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

#134

Post by mamoswined »

nostromo wrote: post #36

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 whe…

This cold winter in Chicago I tried an experiment where during the day I just heated one room with an electric space heater (a Vornado) and let the rest of the house get to 50 F. It ended up saving me exactly $1 because turns out electricity is $$$ and I discontinued the effort.

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

#135

Post by mamoswined »

_delirium wrote: post #50
nkozyra wrote: post #45

I 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.

I live in Copenhagen, and it's also bizarro world for me. :) But mainly because electricity is very expensive here, whereas district heating (hot water produced by municipal plants, which you can draw through your radiator if you'd like) is quite cheap. It would be hard to beat the costs of district heating using a space-heater approach, even given better spatial concentration of the heat.

At the University of Illinois there is centrally-heated steam that's used to heat many buildings http://www.dailyillini.com/features/greeks_and_campus/articl... Every building was always super warm in the winter

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

#137

Post by jebblue »

jtheory wrote: post #125
jebblue wrote: post #117

I was really caught up in this story and the effort involved until ... "I wonder if these techniques caught on, could this reduce or eliminate US war for oil?" and then "If I wrote this article 20 years ago might we have never gone to war with Iraq?". Iraq was _not_, repeat, NOT, N O T, about oil. Iraq was about stability, about a nut case leader who terrorized and killed his own people, who let his sons terrorize pe…

Voted down, then responding in case you don't know why: this is a discussion about micro-heaters. Yes, it's a bit disagreeable to run across even minor, aside comments that disagree with something you believe strongly, but please just deal with that on your own time. Because of course your comment will be unpleasant for people to read who feel just as passionately that you're wrong, and some of them may be compelled…

The article was about saving energy using a specific approach _until_ the article's author took the side trip into world politics.

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

#138

Post by FootballMuse »

sliverstorm wrote: post #108
XorNot wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On hot water bottles: the energy spent boiling that water is likely comparable to the energy an electric blanket on low power would use.

Boiling water produces a lot of waste heat. I'm inclined to believe an electric blanket is pretty good comparatively. Of course my house is all electric, so there are no electric vs. natural gas conversions to make.

Wasted heat? All the wasted heat goes into the air, warming up the room.

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

#139

Post by jebblue »

[deleted] wrote: post #127
jebblue wrote: post #117

I was really caught up in this story and the effort involved until ... "I wonder if these techniques caught on, could this reduce or eliminate US war for oil?" and then "If I wrote this article 20 years ago might we have never gone to war with Iraq?". Iraq was _not_, repeat, NOT, N O T, about oil. Iraq was about stability, about a nut case leader who terrorized and killed his own people, who let his sons terrorize pe…

[deleted]

You mean, the ones that _did_ exist according to Clinton:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcript...

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

#140

Post by jebblue »

jtheory wrote: post #125
jebblue wrote: post #117

I was really caught up in this story and the effort involved until ... "I wonder if these techniques caught on, could this reduce or eliminate US war for oil?" and then "If I wrote this article 20 years ago might we have never gone to war with Iraq?". Iraq was _not_, repeat, NOT, N O T, about oil. Iraq was about stability, about a nut case leader who terrorized and killed his own people, who let his sons terrorize pe…

Voted down, then responding in case you don't know why: this is a discussion about micro-heaters. Yes, it's a bit disagreeable to run across even minor, aside comments that disagree with something you believe strongly, but please just deal with that on your own time. Because of course your comment will be unpleasant for people to read who feel just as passionately that you're wrong, and some of them may be compelled…

PS, this, "Voted down, then responding in case you don't know why" is passive aggressive.
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