Do space heaters save money?

[Buck]

We use to oil filled electric space heaters to heat the rooms
where we spend our time the most. We feel like is saves
us money by not heating the house 27/7 to a higher setting.

Have you also used space heaters to save money?

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/05/05dec05d.cfm

[Shamrock1121]

We use a Sun Cloud Infrared Heater (www.suncloud.com) - heats via 4 infrared lamps. We use it to heat our living/dining/kitchen area (our home total sq. ft. is 1,372 - 3 bd. 2 bath) and close off the other rooms. It costs about a dollar a day to run.

If the temperature goes into the teens (or lower), we'll also run the furnace, but it doesn't run very much, and I turn it off during the day. We keep our home temperature between 62°-66°F. What's neat about the Sun Cloud, it doesn't remove the humidity from the air, so it actually helps to maintain humidity levels.

Some things to remember about "space heaters", your homeowners insurance may not cover the use. The Sun Cloud has an A1 Insurance Rating. This is the highest safety rating. The Sun Cloud is approved for zero clearance - it can safely be placed next to flammable materials with no safety clearance needed. You could toss a blanket on the Sun Cloud and you wouldn't have to be fearful of it catching on fire.

Safe to use around pets and children. It looks like a small oak side table. Since it's on wheels, we can move it around for maximum use.

The first year we used the Sun Cloud, we only used our forced-air furnace 9 days that winter (5 of those days were gone on vacation and left the furnace on so the pipes wouldn't freeze). We paid for the Sun Cloud with savings on utilities the first year we used it.

It's completely different from the usual, and may be worth looking in to.

-Karen

[ryanmercer]

Awesome Karen, I have been getting direct mailings about that thing and keep throwing them out because I thought it was junk... but now that someone on here has said they are using one... I'm more inclined to pay attention to their product :) :) :)

[Shamrock1121]

Awesome Karen, I have been getting direct mailings about that thing and keep throwing them out because I thought it was junk... but now that someone on here has said they are using one... I'm more inclined to pay attention to their product :) :) :)

Ryan,

I can't be sure if they are all alike since I've only owned one brand. I think you'll find some have 3 lamps, while the Sun Cloud has 4. The local shop I got mine from (selling sewing machines, vacuums, air cleaners, etc.) has been in business for 53 years around here. They get them from the distributor in Mission, Kansas (I'm in Kansas). It's the only brand the business sells and provides service for. The fly-by-night, out of the back of a moving van, in some K-Mart parking lot models, he won't service. I don't know about the one Paul Harvey pitches, but it sounds similar.

We have a friend who raises grayhounds and he uses them in the kennels because they are safe to use around his dog$.

In the townhouse we used the first Sun Cloud in, I also had window quilts on all the windows and a Pease Shutter covering the the doors going out to the deck. So we did a lot of things to conserve heat. In our present home we've covered all but a few windows with bubble wrap + insulated Levelor blinds.

We're on our second one. We gave our first one to our son to use in his studio apartment at college and purchased a new one for us this fall. His first heating bill using the apt. unit (like you find in hotel rooms, air conditioner/heater combo.) was inneficient and high-priced heating. The Sun Cloud heats his entire place for a fraction of the price the other heater.

We've owned about every type of "space heater" that has been put out on the market. All the rest are dangerous and don't do half as good a job as the Sun Cloud. The oil-filled radiator type was the worst... It smelled every time you turned it on, and if you touched it, you'd get burned.

-Karen

[WileyCoyote]

Wow. Thanks for that. I've never heard of it but it sounds very intelligently designed... I really HATE an overheated, dry house!

[annabella1]

Space heaters will save money if they are used in the manner in which they were designed. If you are just heating a small area that is contained (shut off from larger areas) they can save you money. But if you put them in a larger area than they have been designed for, and they run continuously you will find you are losing a lot of money.

[ryanmercer]

I knew the science behind them was sound, as I have used FIR saunas before and know how they heat compared to traditional saunas... so I figured a space heater would work equally as well, but didn't want to shell out hundreds and hundreds of dollars if it didn't work well. I'll have to start a few-dollar-a-week-fund up to get one for next winter.

[Blacksmithswyf]

Hi All; :)
New to the forum. I actually just registered in order to ask this question: We have a small (850 sqft) two story house with forced air gas. We try to save as much energy/money as possible and keep the thermostat at 65. So far the gas bill hasn't killed us, but I want to keep my money! So here is the real question, would I need to truck this thing upstairs at night to heat the bedrooms? Also, I spend the majority of the day downstairs while the hubby stays in the upstairs office- would he freeze his keaster off?
Thanks!

[Shamrock1121]

Hi All; * :)
New to the forum. *I actually just registered in order to ask this question: *We have a small (850 sqft) two story house with forced air gas. *We try to save as much energy/money as possible and keep the thermostat at 65. *So far the gas bill hasn't killed us, but I want to keep my money! *So here is the real question, would I need to truck this thing upstairs at night to heat the bedrooms? *Also, I spend the majority of the day downstairs while the hubby stays in the upstairs office- would he freeze his keaster off?
Thanks!

Hi, and welcome.... :D

By "truck this thing...", I assume you mean some sort of space heater (the original topic). Only if you require heat upstairs and have only one unit to share between the two floors. That would be the Mr. Spock logical answer.

We keep the Sun Cloud heater on the main floor. It's a little too bulky to move up and down stairs - but it moves easily on it's rollers to different areas of our open-concept living area. When we're watching TV in the evenings, we move it towards the sofa. When I'm in the kitchen or at my desk (also close to the kitchen), I move it towards that area.

At our previous abode, a townhouse, we also kept the Sun Cloud in the main living area. I had my office in a finished basement that was fairly chilly. What I used for additional "heat" was the task light. I had a reticulating lamp over the computer desk and I'd draw the light down close to the keyboard and mouse on the computer so that it would keep my fingers nice and warm while working on the computer. In the warm months I'd replace the incandescent bulb with a compact florescent for use as a task light and to keep things cool. The basement office was also where I had the oil-filled electric radiator - which emited some nasty smelly toxin, and I couldn't stand to have it on in the confined space.

Our neighbors had the exact same oil-filled heater and they kept theirs tucked between the wall and sofa (probably a nice fire hazard) to help keep them warm when they watched TV. When I walked into their townhouse I could always smell that oil-filled heater. Perhaps it was just that model that was smelly.....

I assume you have vents in your upstairs and receive heat from the forced-air gas furnace, so it's not totally without a heat source.

When I was a kid, we lived in a drafty old 2-story farm house. No heat at all upstairs. There was a large louvered floor vent in my parents bedroom which took advantage of the heat rising up from the 1st floor. Their bedroom was more comfortable (you couldn't say it was warm) than the other 2 bedrooms. But then, we didn't heat the downstairs at night either.

What else are you doing to conserve heat? Every little bit helps.

This is the first year we've put sheets of plastic bubble wrap on the windows. We covered every window except the bay window in the dining room - which is where we look out to the back yard and is the only window I can see out of from the kitchen.

http://www.greendaily.com/2007/11/16/bubble-wrap-your-windows/

The bubble wrap has kept our unheated bedroom (which is on the north and has two large windows on the west) between 3-7 degrees warmer. When we've had temperatures in the teens, it stayed in the mid to upper 50's (°F), and now with the addition of the bubble wrap on the windows, it's staying in the low-mid 60's. We also have insulated black out curtains on the windows in the bedroom and insulated Levolor blinds. All the windows in our home are covered with insulated Levolor blinds, so we've built layers of R-value.

I made window quilts for all the windows in our townhome to help increase the R-value on the windows.

http://www.commonwealthsolar.com/cwquilt.htm

Hope there are some things there that might serve as good ideas for you.

-Karen

[mike82934]

We have a furnace in our house, but haven't used it at all in the two years that we've been here (it works fine, but no one would hook the gas up for us without an inspection, and we were poor at that time). Instead, I run two electric radiators on about the medium setting, one at either end of the house, and then I have a radiant quartz heater running on medium-low to medium for our most-used rooms (living room and kitchen). We generally have an indoor temperature of about 64 to 68 in the winter, unless it gets below 10 degrees outside, when we'll run about 60.
I know it may sound like I'm full of it, but our total electric bill is often lower and almost never higher than my grandparents' gas bill alone. Granted, our house is only about 600 square feet, plus I've insulated the heck out of it with plastic sheeting over several drafty windows, caulking gaps in walls, insulating underneath the house, etc. It works for us.