Bill said:

I just typed in "Convection electric heat" (google search), and this product
came up:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...il=&lpage=none

Looks appealing--even has a thermostat and auto-shutoff. I had been under
the impression that using electricity was a costly way to create heat. I
guess I can try the math: this thing is 1500W = 1.5kW, and it looks like I
pay less than 10 cents per kWh, and that would come out to 15 cents per
hour. Better than I would have expected; quiet too I assume. Please correct
my calculations if I overlooked something (my home-owners insurance is paid
up! )!

I live in the "deep south" (zone7) and have a 420 sq ft insulated and
finished garage with insulated doors (x2). A 1500 watt heater will
keep it at a given temperature, but would take days to bring it from
mid 30s to 68. (Lots of thermal mass in the form of cast iron,
concrete, and such.) And the cost would be prohibitive. I use a
kerosene heater (condensation but 26,000 BTU's) and then electric to
maintain. A fan to move the naturally rising heat to lower levels is
recommended.

Kerosene used to be about the cheapest per BTU with natural gas
running a close second, but subsequent mergers of various "energy
companies" into monopolies has resulted in almost all forms of energy
being priced with a cent or two per BTU. Funny how that worked out...
*******s.

I want this solar heated building:
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

Here, however, baking in the summer is also a problem. There is no way
it's going to get air conditioned, yet open the doors and the
mosquitoes will carry you away. Same with a swamp cooler - with the
addition caveat that the humidity is so high they barely work.

Next place I'm going to bury a 1/2 mile of pipe underground and use it
for geoheating/cooling combined with solar.
*******s.



Greg G.