The truth is that all electric heaters are 100% efficient. It doesn't matter if it is a light bulb filament, a fancy quartz heater, the elements in your electric furnace, the elements in your electric hot water heater or your toaster. The fact is that 100% of the electrical energy is converted into heat and there is nothing you can do to increase or decrease that energy conversion.
I get a big kick out of the expensive
heater that are sold in the home improvement stores and home
improvement magazines. The only major difference is that
some are much safer than other but NOT more efficient.
A recent scam that I have seen are companies touting products based on their low power consumption such as eheat.com that has a product chart where they rate in cost per hour instead of BTUs per hour or cost per energy. They also ignore the fact that on a fan forced heater the fan motor adds all of its energy to heating the room via "frictional loses" (anyone who tells you otherwise is lying and has flunked basic physics).
Response from me to an uninformed customer who thinks I don't understand this product:
ALL electric heat sources (anything that consumes electrical energy) turns 1000 watt hours of electricity into 3,400 BTUS. These products (Econoheat) work no better and no worse than anything else that consumes electric power. I have actually read about a heating device that uses light bulbs and a fan which is a fraud when you consider the price.
When you stop talking about watts (a rate) and start talking btus or watt hours (a quantity), this will make sense.
Scott
Efficiency
Efficiency is determined by how well a heater works for the amount of
electricity it uses. Econo-Heaters use less electricity than any other
heater on
the market for a given area. They draw in cold air from the floor of the
room
and then circulate the air for free. Using added electricity to force the
hot air
around a room would be inefficient. Added by Scott when
reference to the fan: "Bull Shit!!!"
Econo-Heaters are designed to be mounted six inches off the floor and flush
with the wall. There is a one-inch air gap behind the heater into which
cold air
is drawn. Because the gap is so small, the cold air is heated very quickly
and
rises out of the small gap at the top of the panel. More cold air then
rushes into
the gap behind the heater and the natural circulation of heated air continues.
This natural convection eliminates the needs for a fan, thus increasing
the
heaters efficiency. Bull Shit again!!!
Economical To Run
Each Econo-Heat panel heater costs approximately 3 cents per hour to
operate. This compares to up to 18 cents per hour for fan and radiator
heaters
and other forms of central heating systems (gas and electric). The attic
blower
fan on most central heating systems draws more power than just one 425-watt
panel heater. Btus are btus, no matter how fast
or slow you make them!
They are "lying with the truth".
To put this in perspective, you could say that the distance you drive from
point A to point B in your car would vary depending on how fast you drive
it and how efficient your car is. The distance is the same.
Scott
I contend that most winter house fires in major cities are caused by electric space heaters either overheating the wiring and outlets (aka receptacles) or setting the furnishings on fire if the tip switch fails. I am quite sure that the use of cheap 16 or 18 gauge extension cords is the cause of a lot of these fires. Even christmas lights get blamed for what is most likely space heaters or candles. Baseboard electric heaters that are wired into the house or building are much safer.
I have looked at some of the electric
space heaters on the market and it amazes me that in this sue
happy liability happy society that they make such crappy
stuff. What is more amazing is that UL will
actually put their label on this crap. I am talking about
plastic electric heaters that if the fan were to fail
and the high temperature cut out failed they would be
a blob of melted plastic if they didn't set the house
on fire. I would recommend only using heaters that are
made of metal and preferably with a 3 wire plug.
Actually I would prefer hard wired equipment rather that
anything that gets plugged in to a 15 amp outlet.
If you have an all electric house including electric baseboard heat you are doing the same thing if you run the light as if you run the heating system . In some cases you are better off running light bulbs because the heat from the light bulbs stays in your house. If you have an electric forced air system located in the attic or crawl space chances are you are loosing heat into the un heated area but the light bulbs keep the heat in the room.
The advantage of a radiant heater is
that it can heat just the objects in the room but not the air but all the
heat eventually ends up in the room which is less costly.
A radiant floor system works the same way and is much
safer although more expensive to install.
If you pay 10 Cents per Kilowatt-hour, then any electric heat costs you $2.90 per therm (100,000 Btus). If you have a heat pump then it will be about 1/3 to 1/4 of that.
Where electric heat can be of great benefit is if you live in a larger older home and you don't mind most of it being cold in the Winter, you can zone off all but the rooms you are using
This page will be updated soon.
Scott
This text written by: Scott Meenen * G & S MechanicalWritten By: Scott Meenen N3SJH of:
G&S MECHANICAL SERVICES.
Specializing in Mechanical, Controls and Electrical Modifications Of
Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration, Cold storage,
Ice Production and Food preservation.
Anything having to do with Heat and Energy.
Serving MD, DC, and Northern VA.
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