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Supplemental heating for independent zones
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? |
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