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#1
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62
degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? |
#2
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
What part of Uzbekistan do you live? 66 degrees is not an unreasonable
temperature to keep your house. It's probably better for the interior surfaces and structure as well. That few degrees probably won't make that much monetary difference and everyone will feel better. "Joe" wrote in message ... I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? |
#3
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
"Joe" wrote in message
... I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? 55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are not. We use 68 here and are comfy. You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house cooler. Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil savings. Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture, but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm up. -- Ed http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/ |
#4
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture, but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm up. You know what gets meare the people that have weekend homes around here and the can't understand why they go through so much oil during the winter. "I keep the thermostat all the way down at 60 degrees!" They can't understand that when it's in the lower 20s at night, it's going to burn some oil to keep it at 60. |
#5
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
On Jan 15, 10:17 pm, "Dr. Hardcrab"
wrote: You know what gets meare the people that have weekend homes around here and the can't understand why they go through so much oil during the winter. "I keep the thermostat all the way down at 60 degrees!" They can't understand that when it's in the lower 20s at night, it's going to burn some oil to keep it at 60. I dunno, it's pretty routinely around that temp where I live at night, and I keep the thermostat on 64 after 11PM and the heat rarely comes on overnight. (I'm kind of a night owl on weekends, so I know.) Thing is, if you've got a house that's good at holding heat, it's going to take it a while to really drop down into the lower 60's assuming it's kept close to 70 during the day. (We keep ours at 70.) In fact, my heat usually only comes on twice a day unless it's really down at around zero degrees outside - then it starts to have a hard time keeping up. We do have plaster walls that are good at holding heat, and we've done our best to weatherstrip the hell out of this place and replace any leaking doors and windows. This house was not this efficient when we bought it, that's for sure. But I'm sure plenty of houses are more efficient than ours, even now. Those old stone castles are actually also really good at holding in heat. The problem is there's no good way to heat an entire castle, so of course they're cold today if you go and stay in one now in a room that was never used during winter when the castle was built. That's not what they used to do back in the day; the family would live in a couple of interior rooms during winter and they'd heat that with a couple of massive fireplaces that were constantly running. I guarantee you those castles were plenty warm - stone walls radiate warmth and seal out any cold air pretty darn effectively. |
#6
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
That was exactly the reason I didn't buy a castle
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message ... "Joe" wrote in message ... I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? 55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are not. We use 68 here and are comfy. You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house cooler. Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil savings. Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture, but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm up. -- Ed http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/ |
#7
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Joe" wrote in message ... I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? 55 to 62 is reasonable if you are active. A bit chilly for most that are not. We use 68 here and are comfy. You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate. I tried doing that by keeping our family room warm and the rest of the house cooler. Oil bill went down, but the electric bill went up twice the oil savings. Many people think keeping a house in the mid 60's is some sort of torture, but that is really considered warm compared to typical homes before cheap central heat. Can you imagine what it was like in some of the big stone castles? Last March we stayed in a stone house built in the 1100's. (Yes, 1100's, in Italy) The owner kept the heat at 57, but I had to boost it to 62. The walls were about 2 feet thick so it took some time for it to warm up. -- Ed http://pages.cthome.net/edhome/ I've done some experimenting and found that 65 seems to be my hard limit. At 65 I am comfortable, at 64 my fingers start to develop permafrost. |
#8
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
Truth About the cost of using a typical Electric Oil Filled space
heater. I keep a vigilant watch over my eating/cooling expenses. Last Year I paid $351.40 for 4306 kWh. This works out to $0.08 per kWh making a 1500 w (1.5 kW) oil heater cost $0.12 per hour to operate. I have a Fuel Oil Furnace that has a 0.65 gallon/hour nozzle. That is, I use .65 gallons of fuel oil every hour the furnace runs. At say ~$3.35 a gallon for fuel oil that makes my furnace cost $2.18 per hour to operate and and my Oil Filled Electric Heaters are only $0.12 (each) per hour to operate. Now you can think about what you should do and not listen to people who can't do or don't understand simple math. |
#9
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
You might not understand that simple math yourself.
Your furnace may cost $2.18 per hour but that is actual burner run time. Most furnaces dont run for an hour each hour. Way less actually. Your single electric heater however probably will run a solid hour and more. Your oil furnace is heating your entire home. Your electric heater is heating a single spot in that home. Add up the amount of electric heaters you need to put out the same amount of heat as your oil furnace. Now add all of those $0.12 per hour electric heaters. It all depends on how many heaters but the numbers will be a bit closer now than in your example of "simple math". Bubba I used 228.10 gallons of fuel oil for last years heating season of ~5 months. This is on average 1.5 gallons of fuel oil per day. Understand some days I don't run the furnace, but lets just say on average to keep the math simple, thats approximately $5.00/day at today fuel oil price. As a comment to a previous post "You'll probably find the space heater very expensive to operate." All I was trying to prove is that Oil Filled Electric Heaters cost $0.12/hr to operate and this might prove more cost effective to the original poster's problem. And yes it is rooted in simple math. I use one in the family room and keep the rest of the house closed up and much cooler. Mine does cycle and I don't leave it on 24/7. So in my humble opinion, for some applications, oil filled electric heaters offer a cost effective efficient alternative. |
#10
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
Joe wrote:
I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? Small space heater is a good idea. Ones with fan are cheaper than oil filled. Know what you are going through because my wife is like that. |
#11
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
Joe,
Buy her some thermal underwear, not sexy but hot in it's own way. Dave M. |
#12
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
In article ,
"David L. Martel" wrote: Joe, Buy her some thermal underwear, not sexy but hot in it's own way. Dave M. You want a wife to be practical ? Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/ |
#13
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:36:31 -0800 (PST), Joe
wrote: I work in an unheated basement all day and the temp ranges from 55-62 degrees. I've grown accustomed to the temp with an array of fleece pants, jackets and socks. My children don't seem to be bothered by cold temps. The problem is my wife, she cannot handle any temperature lower than 66 degrees. I feel it's a little wasteful to turn up the heat for the whole house (we have one-zone heat) when she is the only one uncomfortable so I was considering an oil-filled heater to follow her around. I'm just wondering if it's worth it or will it be a wash cost-wise. Has anyone else tried this? Just a suggestion. It actually works. If appropriate re-locate the thermostat. Choose a location like the drywall directly in front of the furnace flue pipe. The thermostat will show a higher reading than the actual temperature of the house because of the radiant heat behind the wall. You can set it at 72 and no one will be the wiser. Who would ever turn a thermostat above 72? They'll just thinks that there is something wrong with them. |
#14
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cheaper to use oil-filled heater and keep thermostat at 62?
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