That massive spike of 50c/kWh at the left looks tiny compared to today even though that’s already insanely expensive

  • june@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’ve got a small 1200w heater that kicks on in the morning to bring the living room space up to 69. I live in a 40 year old house that’s insulated fairly well (I just had the attic redone last year to r-49) and it’s 45f outside right now. That little heater has used 6kWh since kicking on this morning getting the house up from 63f to the near 69 it is now.

    On a day below freezing that heater will got for a lot longer through the day to keep temps up.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Space heaters are the way to go.

      It’s the difference between paying $70 and $5 more per month.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        What are you smoking? Space heaters gulp down electricity with the smallest ones running at hundreds of watts and standard ones around 1-2 kilowatts. The only ways a space heater is more efficient is if either you’re spending a shitton of energy heating rooms you aren’t in or if your homes heating system is in bad need of repair/replacement

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Well, my electric bill went up a negligible amount and I keep the space heater running pretty much all the time.

          Maybe you bought a shitty one or you’re getting a shitty deal for your electricity.

          • Jazsta@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            All space heaters operate at the same efficiency since they convert electricity to heat via resistance. You may have a small one and low electricity rates in your area to see a negligible change. Or maybe other uses went down and masked the increase from the space heater usage.

            • psud@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Almost. Some are better at heating people, others are better at heating air

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            11 months ago

            Bruh I don’t think you understand how electricity consumption works.

            A space heater will pull a given wattage, say 1000 watts for a pretty common one. Electric heaters are 100% efficient meaning 100% of the energy going in is converted to heat, so running that 1000 watt space heater for 1 hour will consume 1000 watt-hours (or 1 kilowatt hour) and heat the space by exactly 1000 watts or 1 kilowatt (kilo meaning thousand)

            Plugging this into a electric bill calculator, at a common $0.15/kWh running that 1000 watt space heater 24/7 will cost about $100 per month

            If your space heater is so insanely awesome, please do tell me, what’s your electric rate and the wattage of the heater?

            • chitak166@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Bruh, I don’t think you understand that heating a room is cheaper than heating your whole house. If I ran my space heater 24/7, I’d be sweating all day. If I run my central heater 24/7, my house barely reaches the temperature my room does before I turn my space heater off.

              My electric bill is ~$160 when running the central heater. It’s ~$80 when I run my space heater.

              As always, I encourage people to see for themselves rather than trusting strangers on the internet.

              Experience is better than theory, every time. I feel sorry for the people who will avoid saving money because of comments like yours.

              • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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                11 months ago

                To quote my earlier comment with emphasis this time:

                The only ways a space heater is more efficient is if either you’re spending a shitton of energy heating rooms you aren’t in or if your homes heating system is in bad need of repair/replacement

                So you’ve already agreed with my original point, because you reduced power consumption by turning your HVAC down and using a space heater to heat just the room you’re in. Running a 4 kilowatt central heater will use more electricity as it runs than a 1 kilowatt space heater. But a 1 kilowatt space heater is still pulling down a kilowatt to run (which is a lot!)

                Experience is better than theory, every time. I feel sorry for the people who will avoid saving money because of comments like yours.

                YOU CAN LITERALLY CALCULATE THIS! Watts consumed by the heating source multiplied by number of hours per month it runs gives you the watt hours for power consumption, bigger number means bigger bill. In fact it’s important to calculate it first because electric bills will naturally fluctuate and be difficult to identify the changes in consumption due to being an aggregate of everything in your home combined with outside temperature fluctuations.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          My electric bill says otherwise.

          As always, I encourage people to see for themselves rather than trusting strangers on the internet.

      • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        You don’t exactly understand heat pumps, do you?

        A space heater has an efficiency of close to 100%, heat pumps have at worst 100% and at best somewhere between 300 and 500%. Granted, in -35C environments, it’s probably very close to 100%, but that’s the absolute worst case, and an anomaly even in Finland.

      • psud@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The only time space heaters work well is when you avoid heating the whole house, and instead heat only a room