What do you consider your most efficient electric heater?
I have 5. Two large oil filled electric radiator heaters, one Infrared fan driven heater, two fan driven electric element heaters. Local hardware store has two small electric units on sale. 700w mini oil filled electric unit for $34, or a closeout infrared unit for $54. Which would you choose? I am leaning towards the oil filled unit.
I juggle all five, in conjuntion with my Wood stove and my Trane Central Heat Pump unit. I consider my Heat pump very inefficient. On regular heat it pushes more cool air/warm air. On E- Heat it will put out warm air but pulling major watts. I do not like to rely on it.
Curious what you all think.
Thanks in advance.
-
My Heat Pump. 3 -
Stick with the heat pump all others get all their energy from electricity.Now if your below 20*F all the time run the oil filled ones first at least you have a small reservoir of heat in them if the power goes out and go light the wood stove instead.
serf
0 -
When the temps drop below 20°, the Heat pump is a joke. I do not live on the Coast. Single digit temps are normal in the Winter here. Unless you have a crapload of ready wood, and are okay with getting up to re-load the woodstove a couple times overnight, you will spend a fortune on a Heat Pump.
0 -
My does just fine at 17 degrees and that is as cold as it gets here. 0 -
Maybe you need to add some insulation. My house is tight and well insulated. For that matter so am I. 0 -
Yeah, if I had built my house, I would have been much more attentive to insulation. I have heard that it was a Summer home for people who lived on the Coast, and only used it as a summer getaway. It is a three story super steep pitched A-frame. The roof is 3/4 of the house. The heat wants to rise to the top of the open beamed, (3 stories up) living room. When/if I have it re-roofed, I will have about 3 inches of foam board installed, re-seathed in plywood and then metal roofed. (As I did my 1947 Chestnut log cabin up in NY state.) Made a World of difference. Much Mo Betta.
0 -
Can you hang a fan up high?? Would that help?? 0 -
I don’t use them much, but I like the oil filled ones. They are the safest. 0 -
Ricci.Wright said:My Heat Pump.
Yes0 -
jimdeere: 31535720130587/comments/31535738667419
I don’t use them much, but I like the oil filled ones. They are the safest.I agree with that. As well as the fact that once they heat the internal oil up to the desired tempurature they cut off. I am leaning towards buying the $34 700w. Mini oil filled unit.
For that price, seems like a no brainer.
0 -
I don't understand some of the above comments. My heat pump doesn't turn on when ambient is below 40 degrees. What handles the heating then is the back-up furnace. Mine is propane but some units use an electric or oil back-up. I have a wood burning insert and can keep my ranch house comfortable down to 10-20 degrees ambient. Then I start using some propane. Fortunately, I live on heavily wooded acreage and have walnut, ash, and others die to provide the firewood every year. A heat pump, per say, won't be enough in the winter and would need help. Though I don't have any, some friends do prefer the oil filled electric space heaters. 0 -
Oil filled. I rarely turn on the forced air. 0 -
Propane fired heat pumps, are a different animal than electric units.
Unless my unit is switched to E- heat, (pulling major watts) below 20 ° it does not put out much heat.
0 -
Heat pump has a Co efficient of performance of 3 to 1, electric heat 1 to 1 I go heat pump and deal with paying for elctric heat when temps dip too low to extract heat efficiently with the heat pump. IF you had a water source heat pump you could run it year round for mucho savings! 0 -
KenK/84Bravo said:
I agree with that. As well as the fact that once they heat the internal oil up to the desired tempurature they cut off. I am leaning towards buying the $34 700w. Mini oil filled unit.
For that price, seems like a no brainer.
I use those for emergency situations if a tenant has no heat. However they have dual switches and can run 1500 watts .0 -
I thought a heat pump was just an air conditioner that has the ability to either heat or cool. The problem is that when it get too cold outside it can't extract heat from cold air (in heat mode). Then the heat pump just shuts off and any back-up you have takes over. Are there propane powered heat pumps (disregarding any back-up system). 0 -
cbxjeff: 31535720130587/comments/31535708641051
I thought a heat pump was just an air conditioner that has the ability to either heat or cool. The problem is that when it get too cold outside it can't extract heat from cold air (in heat mode). Then the heat pump just shuts off and any back-up you have takes over. Are there propane powered heat pumps (disregarding any back-up system).
Exactly.
I have two large electric oil filled radiator heaters. Low 500w, med, 750w. High 1500w. This small one I am talking about purchasing is 700w (only.) $34. I consider that $$ well spent.
0 -
We have a geothermal heat pump using an "open circuit" system. Open circuit means it draws water from our well for cooling (dumping into a lake), and uses the 60 gallon water heater for backup heat. Our monthly electric bill is almost equal throughout the year. We are in South Arkansas, so hardly ever gets too cold for long periods at a time. We keep the temp set at 68-70* year round.
As was mentioned before, Insulation is the key to regulating temps.0 -
What about a wall mount space heater? One ad is saying 33% better heating.Where is the magic happening on this device?serfThis heater works most similar to ceramic heaters, which provides a constant source of heat but doesn't feel hot on the exterior surface. no fan? Is it hype?
0 -
We have a water based (well water) heat pump. It is in use year round. It only saves a little in the winter but saves a lot during the months when air conditioning is needed. During power outages we use the basement fireplace that has heat ducts up to the main floor. I suppose I should break down and get a whole house generator one of these days. That is the drawback with the system we have. It can draw a lot of juice and you need a big generator when the fridge, freezer, heat pump, well, hot water heater, etc come on all at once. With a 5000 watt portable I can run the fridge, freezer and a 1500 watt infrared heater to get by. As far as economics all heaters give about the same amount of heat per watt used. Bobmogley98 said:Heat pump has a Co efficient of performance of 3 to 1, electric heat 1 to 1 I go heat pump and deal with paying for elctric heat when temps dip too low to extract heat efficiently with the heat pump. IF you had a water source heat pump you could run it year round for mucho savings!
0 -
Ken, I have a two pipe hydronic system with radiators fired by 1966 vintage Weil McLain furnace. 5 Jackets with cast iron burners. In all this time i have replaced 8 years ago gas control valve, B&G 100 circulator (don't like the cartridge throw aways) and thermo couples twice. i am religous about draining exp tank, cleaning ribbon assembly, brushing jackets and cleaning flue collector, lubing circulator,bleeding radiators and giving it all the TLC it needs. Yes, the radiators take up space but when the fire dies they stay warm. i love being able to throw a wet jacket on them and warming up my stocking hat and gloves on them. I admit not the most efficient system out there but it works for me. Most of my friends and neighbors have replaced their furnaces 3 times in this time frame $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. When this furnace goes I am going to give it a 21 gun salute as it is going out the door.
I keep the thermostat in the LR at 66 degrees and leave it alone. i have a oil filled Pelonis radiator in sitting/tv room and use it when temp drops to below 30 degrees outside. It keeps this room and good sized kitchen and very small one half bath off it toasty warm when needed. I know people say they are junk but it works for me. On the Pelonis, I stripped out the on/off control about four years ago and run it full bore. I know, I know, you are not suppose to do things like that! You can't buy those switches and people should see what they look like after five or six years ( cooked and scary) First thing my little Willie does when coming in from the cold is jump in his bed right next to the Pelonis.0 -
If you put the right hot sauce on all those wings you're eating you won't be worried about heating your house............. 0 -
Heat Pumps, Aye yes Heat Pumps, I was the network mgr. and bldg mgr for the Alumni Bldg. at West Point right down the hill from the Football Stadium. 34 Heat Pumps. They belong south of the Mason Dixon line. I know some of you fellas will beat me up for this but it's OK, I don't mind. Will save for a later time. 0 -
Every electric heater is 100% efficient. 0 -
We use natural gas in our 2 story 2,500 sq. ft. house here in Georgia. Highest gas bill we've ever had for one month during the winter on one occasion was $170 which is not bad. We don't get a lot of cold weather here. I do have 4 of those little ceramic 1500 watt heaters just in case the furnace goes out.
I could fire up the fire place but my wife hates fireplaces now. At our Last house we lived in before we moved here it was a new house and the Mexican plumbers that installed the gas lines cross threaded a gas line going into an elbow in the wall leading to the fireplace. I put my gas logs in and the first time I lit them up in about 10 to 15 seconds there was an explosion in the wall and fireplace that knocked me back across the room on my rear end and flames shot up and out behind the mantle and out the sides of it.
When the fire department got there they thought the fire was out. I told the chief to hold his hand against the drywall on the left side of the fireplace. He said yep we've got a problem it was really hot. So you know it's not going to be a pretty story when you mention chainsaw in the same sentence with Fire Department. They cut in through the siding and wall from the outside of the house and actually did a pretty good job of not flooding the house with water to put out the smoldering wooden studs behind the wall. I was surprised. Plus the hole they cut was square and was easy to repair.
Of course the builder/owner came out and tried to blame the fire log installation on me that caused the problem. The country fire inspector and the builders insurance man came out the next morning along with the builder and one of their plumbers and they took off more siding and wall to inspect the gas line in the wall. The gas line at an elbow where the pipe went through the wall was cross threaded badly and only 2 or 3 threads was holding it together but they were cross threaded plumb sideways and the pipe looked like it could fall out of the joint if it were shaken the least bit. Looked like somebody would have to try to do that bad of a job. The inspector told the owner of the company and their insurance man that connection was in the wall and it was your plumbing crew that made the mistake not the homeowner. He said the homeowner couldn't get to that connection nor did he need to in order to install the fire logs.
I asked the owner while the inspector was standing there what kind of pressure test did you run on the gas lines after they were installed. Both he and the inspector had that blank look on their face. He and the county inspector said it was not required in Henry County, Georgia. I asked how can that be it's safety item. I was a superintendent in construction for about 15 years and I never hear of such a thing. We always had to test our lines. Not just gas but all water and sewage and storm drain lines. And they had to be witnessed by the county and signed off on. You couldn't get a certificate of occupancy without all the testing being performed.
I said I just put in a fireplace with gas fire logs at our other houses in Jasper, TN and one in our house in Millbrook, AL the past 2 years and I had to put a test gauge on the line and fill It to 9 psi of pressure and valve it off from the main line for 24 hours. I then had to call the county inspector for them to come inspect it and write down the time and pressure and then come back in 24 hours to see if it held the pressure. They came back the next morning in both instances to check the gauges for leaks and signed off on the test and gave me a copy of the paperwork.
After that the builder said they would be back in the morning to start repairs. I told him no thanks. I told him I've turned it over to our insurance co. and we're having a company of our choice do the repairs. I told him I don't want your people back on my property because that was no mistake it was done on purpose because nobody can cross thread a pipe that bad without trying. I told him my insurance company will be getting in touch with you to settle up the cost. The company that made the repairs should have been the ones that built the house. The fireplace mantle and hearth they installed was a work of art compared to what the contractor had installed and they tested the gas lines. The wall they repaired inside you couldn't see any lines where it had been repaired and the siding on the outside they replaced it all on that side so it would match.
Sorry to have hijacked your thread Ken but when I get on that crappie contractor work that could kill someone it's hard for me to stop.0 -
No worries Smitty, no hijack involved.
Jim/GG - the mini oil filled unit would be purchased to put in my bedroom. There is a small wall mounted gas unit on the wall in there I have never fired up. Would need to get a propane tank placed on the property. The previous owner was burning open fireplaces (one in the unfinished basement) with gas logs. He lied to me (one of several I later confronted him with) telling me he "owned the 3-400 gal. Propane tank on the property." (It was painted a generic silver, no Co. logos on it.) I came home from work one day and it was gone. I called the Sheriff and made a report. A couple days later they told me the Co. that owned the tank came and took it back. 🤔
I had a fabricator/friend cut a steel plate sized to seal the fireplace opening with a hole for the exit pipe of my large Fisher woodstove out in the room to vent through and out. My house is a three story Very steep pitched ski chalet type A-frame. It goes an open three stories up to the peak in the living room. Nice and open but difficult to heat. House was built in 1972. I had heard rumors it was a mountain get-away for a family that lived on the shore. They probably just drained the water from the system and were never in it in the wintertime. It makes sense based on some of the things that were done that did not seem to consider the very cold temps around here, up in the mountains.
The HVAC guy I had here last week said he thought the Trane heat pump unit I had was from the 90's.
0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
26 comments