Anyone use a portable heater?

Question

I am considering purchasing an Eden pure heater to compensate for high oil bills. Anyone that has had any experience with them..please answer. Also how much do they affect the electricity bills?

Answer 1

Even the best, most efficient portable electric heaters will make your electric meter spin like a top! They are best used to warm only a very small (personal) area. Anything other than that and you will be on hands and knees to the oil guy.

Answer 2

I agree that the Eden Pure may not be better than other space heaters - compare your costs and benefits carefully.

Read my personal story about using space heaters last winter on this page on how to save energy....

http://www.building-your-green-home.com/...

These top ten tips may save you a bundle!

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

If you have fuel oil this will save you some money.

Not that the Eden Pure is so efficient but that fuel oil costs more to heat with than electric if your costs are similar to my area.

#2 fuel is $4.40 per gal and if your furnace is 80% efficient the cost would be $39.00 per million BTU's

For electricity here is $ .10 per KWH so for an electric resistance heater that equates to $30.00 per million BTU's

The savings will be more than 30% when you factor in that you will be heating one area and not the entire home.

Be aware that your existing system may normally keep areas from freezing that you may not think about.

I always seem to run into a couple freezups in the winter because of people trying to save money by just heating certain rooms and not realize the original heater kept critical areas from freezing prior to using the space heaters.

I had one customer who ran out of propane for there hot water boiler and decided to use their kerosine heater for a few days and there piping for the boiler ran in crawl space areas and froze. The repair cost them $2000.00.

Eden Pure has a nice safe portable heater in its design but are not significantly more efficient than any other space heater.

Answer 4

it doesn't matter where the heat comes from it's going to cost you. i doubt you will realize any savings ...........tom

Answer 5

The key is to just use space heaters where you are.  Last winter I noticed only a small $10 increase in my electricity.  That is from using a small space heater for my 10x10 office all day, and running a radiator type space heater on low in the bedroom at night.  Considering we have a propane tank and that gets filled at $2.50 a gallon, it costs way more to heat the whole house.  We also just invested in a wood pellet stove for the living room.  That has been a huge money saver.  We are now using half the propane by doing these things than we did the previous year.  Which is about $1,500 worth.  A whole pallet of wood pellets just cost $300, and the extra electricity for the season probably was maybe $100-200.  So, definately a savings by mixing it up and using alternatives.  For your whole house, adjust the vents so that when the house heat is on, it's going to only where it's needed.

Answer 6

I use space heaters so that I don't have to run the entire whole house heater and it actually saves me money.  Mine is a natural gas heater with a motor and fan run with electricity, so when I run the whole house heater I am paying for both the natural gas therms and kw per hour for electricity to heat the whole house.  With the electric space heaters, I only heat the rooms I am in when I am in them.  Our electric utility has a cost estimator and it is by far cheaper to operate the space heaters than it is the whole house heater.  Check whether your utility has a cost estimator on its website and you can determine what the exact cost to run the space heater will be.