C & E wrote:
Would one of you electron benders please tell me how I go about computing
cost of operation of an appliance if I know that it operates on 220vac at
2,000 w and 'y' is the cost of electricity/ Kwh. Is there a time factor tied
to the 2,000 (- too many years)? I'm thinking of supplementing the shop's
LPG heat with electric thinking that it would be cheaper than just using the
gas alone. I only heat on an as-needed basis but the last fill up nearly
cost me a good internal organ!



Watts is an instantaneous figure; no time factor.
So w/1000 x y = cost per kWh.
E.G. 2000 W heater, cost is $0.10 per kWh.
So 2000/1000 x $0.10/kWh =
2kW x $.10/kWh = $0.20/h

That probably doesn't tell you much because you
won't know how many hours the 2Kw heater will run
in a month. Nontheless, heating with electricity
is likely to be less costly than heating with LPG.
Somebody could tell you the BTU per gallon of LPG
and the BTU for a kilowatt of electricity and then
you could apply your local cost per gallon of LPG
and per kWh of electricity to see which would be
cheaper.