On Jan 8, 9:09*am, wrote:
On Jan 7, 11:23*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:



?
"DerbyDad03" wrote

"Electric heat is 100% efficient, so dragging a portable unit to
the basement or wherever, is not a bad solution. "

I've heard that hundreds of times but there is still a part that
confuses me.

Like many other houses, my basement is cooler than the rest of the
house and I occasionally will use an oil-filled radiator to warm the
space up if I need to spend time down there. I also use a small space
heater with a fan to warm up my basement shop.

I know that the heaters are "100% efficient" but all that tells me is
that all of the electricity is being used to create heat. What is
doesn't tell me is how much it's actually costing me to heat the space
with an electric heater as compared to adding more forced air ducts.

Sometimes when I read that line, it almost appears to be saying
"Electric heat is 100% efficient so go ahead and use as many electric
heaters as you want, wherever you want, for as long as you want."

That can't be the case, right? If it was, we'd all just turn off our
forced air furnaces and go all electric. Since in most areas
electricity is more expensive than NG, why *isn't* it a bad idea to
use an electric heater as supplemental heat?

The key here is "supplemental". * Even though electric heat is the
most expensive,
if you just use one electric heater to warm one room that you are
going to be in
for a long time, while turning down the heat in the rest of the house,
you can save
money.

Also, there are different types of electric heaters. *If you're going
to be sitting at a
desk for 8 hours, you could use a radiant electric heater. *Instead of
heating the whole
room, it heats mostly you and the immediate area arround you, via
radiant energy.
That saves by not heating the whole room, further reducing the energy
used. *If you use
a radiant heater like that, turn down the heat in the rest of the
house to 60, I'd bet you
would come out ahead, especially in a large house that is poorly
insulated.

It's the above factors that lead to the misleading marketing from
shysters selling
way over priced "miracle" heaters, that drastically reduce your energy
consumption.
What they are claiming is true to a point, but the real savings come
from the above,
not some new technology miracle from China....

OK, so let's toss this in:

Let's say I run an electric oil filled heater to keep my basement a
bit more comfortable, but don't turn the main thermostat down. At
first blush, we'd assume it's costing me more, right?

How do we factor in the heat that rises and both warms the sub-floor
(there'd be *some* radiant heat into the first floor, wouldn't there?)
and also enters the first floor through the kitchen door?

How do we factor in the fact that the basement air is now warmer and
when it gets sucked into the furnace around the filter slot, it won't
reduce the temperature of the air in the return as much?

While I'm sure it wouldn't completely offset the cost of running the
heater, it has to bring it down some, right?

Finally, my furnace uses the basement air for the combustion air. Does
the warmer air help or hinder the combustion process?