On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:24:26 -0700 (PDT), terry
wrote:

Seems to be a lot of misreading of information here!!!!!
1) If vented into the house instead of outside, an 'electric' clothes
dryer not full of damp/wet clothes will not put humidity into the
house. With no damp clothes there is no humidity.
2) In fact a device was/is sold that allows one to divert warm/hot air
from the outlet duct (when not drying clothes) into the room where the
dryer is located.
3) There was/is also a heat/exchanger device incorporating a separate
fan that while it did not divert the damp warm air from the dryer
going outside claimed to recover some of that heat and blow it into
the house.
3) The cost of oil (or gas) heating versus electric is a function of
how much each fuel costs and the efficiency, under your weather
conditions of the heating devices.
In this part of Canada, for example, where most of the electrcity is
generated by existing hydro power, electric heating is definitely
proving much cheaper than say oil. We do not have gas (except bottled/
delivered propane which is very expensive).
4) BTW There are two rooms in our house that are mainly heated by by
the other electrical equipment in therm.
a) One is the approx 100 sq foot bedroom that contains two computers
and some other miscellaneous gear. Several hundred watts from those.
b) A row of six conventional bulbs in our smallish bathroom that keep
it more than warm so that the provided 500 watt baseboard rarely cuts
in.
5) One sort of doubts the benefit of chucking warm dry dryer air into
the house without ducting it where it would best suit?
Have not done a 'recent' study of the comparative costs (here) of oil
versus electric heat. But with heating oil somewhere around one dollar
per litre (that's $3.25 to $4.00 per US gallon, versus about 10.5
cents per kilowatt hour it is presently 'no contest' or a win for
electric. Also individual room thermostats enable one to turn off
rooms that get little use.
We are hearing horrifying stories of older persons spending over $300
per month for oil and then have an electric bill as well. And this is
a LONG winter here.
And then there is my basement workshop wood stove only lit when am
working down there! The stove also reduces the amount of garbage/trash
put out to maybe one bag every three/four weeks!


Hi Terry,

The following table might help folks calculate the potential savings
of electric heat versus oil. The left column is the operating
efficiency of the oil-fired boiler (AFUE rating) and the second column
is the number of kWh of heat obtained from each gallon based on this
rating (net). The columns to the right are the breakeven points based
on the cost of a gallon of fuel oil.

For example, if a homeowner has a new high-efficiency boiler (85%
AFUE) and pays $4.50 a gallon, electric heat is more economical when
electricity rates are 13 cents per kWh or less. In the case of an
older, less efficient boiler (65% AFUE) and at $4.75 per gallon,
electricity is less costly at up to 17.9 cents per kWh.

AFUE kWh $4.00 $4.25 $4.50 $4.75 $5.00
85% 34.6 0.1155 0.1227 0.1300 0.1372 0.1444
80% 32.6 0.1227 0.1304 0.1381 0.1457 0.1534
75% 30.6 0.1309 0.1391 0.1473 0.1555 0.1636
70% 28.5 0.1403 0.1490 0.1578 0.1666 0.1753
65% 26.5 0.1511 0.1605 0.1699 0.1794 0.1888

Additional savings by way of zone or spot heating would further
enhance electricity's competitiveness vis-a-vis oil.

Cheers,
Paul