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Proper-Cheesecake602 OP t1_j5x8ojk wrote

Reply to comment by AreWeCowabunga in is anyone else’s BGE bill crazy high??? by Proper-Cheesecake602

see i want to buy a space heater but i already know my apartment has faulty wiring which i told them about. i will be moving out of here bc the upkeep of this complex is awful

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carbon56f t1_j5yovvw wrote

a space heater will not be cheaper at all.

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Hour-Onion3606 t1_j5ysv3i wrote

Might be if you use it to heat one room vs an entire home.

But yeah they draw a ton of electricity so be aware of that.

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carbon56f t1_j5ytnpu wrote

yes if you heat one room and turn down the central heat. I doubt anybody actually does that, and I doubt OP plans to do that, since he's stated he has to keep the heat on higher for their dog.

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Trailmagic t1_j6hwehz wrote

I do that because running my central heat costs $25 a day to maybe maintain 60F…

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umbligado t1_j5yyxgc wrote

I’m assuming you’re talking about using a space heater to preferentially heat one room and leave the rest of the unit cooler. If this is the case, consider getting an oil-filled electric heater, and if needed, circulating the air around it with a small fan (to blow heat to the rest of the room). These heaters work quite well, generally use less energy, and are usually less of a power draw when they start up (less likely to blow a breaker).

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j606cu7 wrote

Oil-filled electric heaters are still electric heaters. They will use the same amount of energy to generate a BTU of heat.

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umbligado t1_j60b55h wrote

I totally understand where you’re coming from (after all, to a certain extent, heat transfer is heat transfer, right?). Oil-filled heaters find their cost savings through the use of the oil as a heat sink and generally having better thermostat performance in part because of that heat sink. Overall, it’s a more controlled and consistent power draw, and they do apparently seem to use less electricity overall. they also turn on and off less, so the wear on breakers (especially the old fashioned ones) is less.

As anecdote, I’ve run about 30 oil heaters at once in a very large building successfully for months on pretty old wiring. Every coil-based heater I tried to introduce into the mix blew out a breaker within a day. I don’t have direct personal data on the relative long-term power consumption during that period.

I’m not really sure what to say otherwise. Could I be wrong? Absolutely.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j60h6rh wrote

Yeah, the turn off more quickly because the thermostat is basing it's cycles based on the oil temperature...but the oil temperature isn't what keeps humans warm. The warmer air is what warms people. The oil heaters warm the surrounding air more slowly...making comparisons by measuring consumption over a set period of time flawed. If you measure the actual input into the air by measuring consumption from a temperature to another temperature (68 to 70, for example)...the consumption will be basically the same. They're both ~100% efficient. That's what the physics dictate.

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DirtyPolecat t1_j60o5l6 wrote

>The more heat the oil can store, the longer the heating element can stay off.

That was an excerpt from that "article" the other person posted. Even if it stays off longer, it will still need to stay on longer for the oil to reabsorb the heat it lost. Energy in = energy out still. The ONLY case where that doesn't apply is with a heat pump.

Personally, I use infrared quartz heaters and just point them at me.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j60rell wrote

Yep, heat pumps are amazing technology. It's a shame that so many people don't understand their benefits and overemphasize their weaknesses. That's part of the reason why people end up over-relying on space heaters and actually do more harm than good.

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Ok-Beautiful-8403 t1_j61v8k8 wrote

i have gas heat. a family member has a heat pump. During the cold snap it really struggled, and in one bedroom the bed sheets froze. I've never heard of this happening before, but it made me feel happy to pay a bit more for gas heat.

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PM-Ur-DadJokes t1_j627oz1 wrote

Heat pumps aren't designed or intended to provide sufficient heat alone on the coldest days. They will have an auxiliary backup...be it electric resistance heat strips, natural gas, oil, propane, etc, that provides assistance during the periods of coldest temperatures. It sounds like your family member's aux heat is not properly configured.

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carbon56f t1_j6ibgbi wrote

if OP had been running a heat pump his bill would have been even crazier since he's trying to run his T stat at 72F. I agree heat pumps are a great thing and the disadvantages are overblown, however; one thing that I don't think we talk about enough when it comes to heat pumps is lowering expectations. You can have your heat pump set to 72F, when its in the teens outside and expect it to keep up. OP would have ended up using mainly strip heat, resulting in an enormous bill.

Part of adopting heat pumps is going to be to communicate to people that you need to keep your heat set low, and wear warm clothes inside in the winter. Far too people have this expectation to wear shorts and T shirts inside, while their heat is cranked up in the winter.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j6ilmtv wrote

It depends on what you consider an "enormous bill". A heatpump doesn't need to "keep up" to lower your bill. Every BTU that a heatpump produces is going to be cheaper than a BTU produced by resistance strips. Modern heat pumps have a COP >1 at temperatures well below what is seen here in MD...so they should be left running even after they no longer provide all of your needed heat.

With my thermostat set to 70, I only used 2 hours and 17 minutes of strip heat during last month's cold snap. I used less than 4 hours of heat strip all of last winter. That's not going to blow up my bill.

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carbon56f t1_j6inic2 wrote

your heat pump experience does not seem to be anything close to the norm from what I've seen. In fact it seems downright unbelievable.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j6ip83d wrote

It's perfectly normal for those who understand the technology and have it installed/configured appropriately. For some additional background, this is not a state-of-the-art unit. It's a 3 ton, 2 stage Trane XL16i that was installed in 2006. This is a mid-tier system by today's standards. 2500 sq/ft home.

My Ecobee thermostat keeps track of the usage in each state. In December 2022, stage 1 usage was 292 hours. Stage 2 saw 66 hours. Aux usage was 2 hours and 17 minutes.

I also have an electric car...and my usage on my last bill was 1850kwh.

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carbon56f t1_j6iprxj wrote

okay given the extra details I absolutely do not believe your claims. Heat pumps are the future, but there is no way you're running a heat pump at 70F in teens weather and only using strips for 2 hours over the course of several days. And definitely not from a unit from 2006.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j6iter7 wrote

I mean...believe what you want, but all your doing is demonstrating that you don't understand how to most efficiently utilize the technology. I track all of this pretty closely.

https://imgur.com/a/9o5vjNi

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carbon56f t1_j6j87ts wrote

its frustrating cause these kind of unrealistic claims probably do more damage in the long run. This kind of similar to Tesla not being honest with winter range.

Also way to leave out that you have a second source of heat before you have to rely on strips. A VERY atypical heat pump installation.

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TaquitoConnoisseur23 t1_j6jhxi5 wrote

They're not unrealistic claims...it's simply my experience with a very run-of-the-mill heat pump that I have optimized. This isn't some corporation being dishonest or using best-case scenario laboratory results. My heatpump results are real-world results.

Come on, man...as I already said, it's a two-stage heatpump. Heat 1 is the first stage of the heatpump. Heat 2 is the second stage of the heatpump. It's not an atypical heat pump installation in any way, shape, or form.

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umbligado t1_j619li8 wrote

Yeah you know what, the oil-filled heater efficiency arguments don’t seem to hold water. I relent ;-)

From the perspective of breakers tripping, I suspect the biggest difference is that many oil-filled heaters have variable wattage, while most coil electric heaters more often than not just run 1500W only.

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