Am I stupid for trying this.....

[Jfk4th]

Ok it my quest to save more money since I have a nice wood supply right now I am going to try this.

First thing, my house is 1900 sq ft. Two wood stoves. One in my Florida room, Avalon, far side of the house. Heat will get across to the other side of the house but not in the other far rooms....tried many times...not going to happen I guess. Have small animals, very important to wife and son, in one bedroom downstairs (far side of room of course). Must have that temp around 65 for animals to be comfy...pain in the asses

Second stove is in living room, which will easily heat upstairs, my bedroom and sons, plus kitchen and breezway. PE Summit will burn nicely most of the night where it is so keeping the furnace not coming on until around 6 am.

So overall, downstairs. 2 bedrooms (can't get heat too that OK I guess...tried smaller fans), 1 kitchen, 1 breezeway, 1 living room, 2 bathrooms, and Florida Room. Upstairs 2 bedrooms and bathroom.

So this is what I am going to try. Heat the downstairs, where needed, in daytime with Avalon Stove in Florida room, heat upstairs with Summit at night. No furnace needed, maybe a little in the morning. Close door in bedroom downstairs and use small electric heater for animals (woodstove electric heater actually) with thermostat to get 65 temp the whole day/night.

Does anybody know of a nice program so I can make a diagram of the house for you guys...I have seen them on this site but couldn't figure out how to do it

Will I be saving money by doing this? Or is the electric heater for a small room, 12 x 10ft, door closed going to "burn" me. Usually I pay about 60 bucks a month for electric

 

[savageactor7]

Hey if you have the wood to power 2 stoves go for it...I'd forget about the electrical heaters since animals will migrate were they're most comfortable anyways.

 

[Jags]

Is moving the critters an option??

 

[karri0n]

What's the wattage on electric heater? We had a small 1500 watt one that we ran 24/7, and we did indeed get burned by that electric bill. Previous bill was ~$100, went to 200+

 

[mikeathens]

I had bought an electric resistance heater a couple years back to keep my bedroom a bit more "comfy". I just gave it to my neighbor. Those things usually operate at 700-1500 watts. You're paying $60/month. Figure out how many kWh $60 pays for.

The electric heater I'm guessing will operate at 1000 watts for, let's say 10 hours/day (could be more, could be less, but I'm just guessing)...that would be 300 hours/month, that's an extra 300 kWh. I'll bet that you are currently using about 300kWh/month ($60 sounds about right for that), so you'll likely be doubling your electric bill.

Do the math for a better estimate, but my advice is to avoid the electric resistence heater. VERY expensive to run.

 

[shredd_guy]

I would recomend one of those oil filled radiator heaters..safe, silent and efficient.

 

[mikeathens]

I would recomend one of those oil filled radiator heaters..safe, silent and efficient.

The oil filled radiator type are no more efficient than one with an electric glowing element. Both use electrical resistance to produce heat, both are located in the space they are heating, both are 100% efficient. I know, this is contrary to those fancy ads claiming that they will reduce heating costs, blah blah blah. The fact of the matter is a "quartz" heater, oil-filled radiator, electric baseboard, whatever all cost the same to operate. A lot. One may be safer than the other, or more silent, but no cost savings.

 

[karri0n]

Small kerosene heaters are less expensive to run that electric space heaters, plus you control the amount of money you are filling it with, rather than running it for a month and finding out at the end(on your bill) how much it cost you to run. They can be a pricey initial investment, however.

 

[BillT]

I would recomend one of those oil filled radiator heaters..safe, silent and efficient.

The oil filled radiator type are no more efficient than one with an electric glowing element. Both use electrical resistance to produce heat, both are located in the space they are heating, both are 100% efficient. I know, this is contrary to those fancy ads claiming that they will reduce heating costs, blah blah blah. The fact of the matter is a "quartz" heater, oil-filled radiator, electric baseboard, whatever all cost the same to operate. A lot. One may be safer than the other, or more silent, but no cost savings.

I run an Oil Filled Electric Heater in a far off bedroom to balance off the house. Of all of the electric heaters out there, this one is my favorite. It does seem to be pretty efficient. My electric bill has never knocked me over since I started using it, altho I only run it when necessary. Mine also has dual settings, which I mostly run on one. I also like the safety of it, altho I have smoke detectors nearby just to make sure.

Just to add a little extra, I never run it while I'm gone and always unplug it when not in use.

Bill

 

[WoodMann]

Small kerosene heaters are less expensive to run.............

Just don't kick it over........................

 

[karri0n]

True, kicking=not good. However, most you will find now are spill proof and have shutoffs in case of knock-over.

 

[Jimbob]

.......And to add more fuel to the fire, Hamsters, Gerbils, Guinea Pigs, and Ferrets can easily live in cooler surroundings.
Hamsters and Gerbils will go into hibernation in steady temps cooler than about 50F.

 

[Highbeam]

Small kerosene heaters are less expensive to run that electric space heaters, plus you control the amount of money you are filling it with, rather than running it for a month and finding out at the end(on your bill) how much it cost you to run. They can be a pricey initial investment, however.

Sorry Karrion, I don't buy that one. I made the mistake of buying a 23k btu kerosene convection heater. Electricity costs 10 cents per KwH here and kerosene is available in 5 gallon pails for 40$. I'll let you pull out the cost of heat calculator buut rest assured that kerosene is a loser. Buying the kero heater was one of my dumbest moves.

On edit: I ran the calculator and the break even point is 8$ kerosene and 20 cent electric. Now you need to add to this the convenience, safety, and smell factor of using kerosene instead of plugging in a heater and setting the stat.

 

[savageactor7]

I would recomend one of those oil filled radiator heaters..safe, silent and efficient.

Whoops...I forgot about that, my wife has one of those and they are very nice. Ours is called a 'delong' heater has 2 controls, silent, looks like a small radiator too.

 

[BillT]

Small kerosene heaters are less expensive to run that electric space heaters, plus you control the amount of money you are filling it with, rather than running it for a month and finding out at the end(on your bill) how much it cost you to run. They can be a pricey initial investment, however.

Sorry Karrion, I don't buy that one. I made the mistake of buying a 23k btu kerosene convection heater. Electricity costs 10 cents per KwH here and kerosene is available in 5 gallon pails for 40$. I'll let you pull out the cost of heat calculator buut rest assured that kerosene is a loser. Buying the kero heater was one of my dumbest moves.

On edit: I ran the calculator and the break even point is 8$ kerosene and 20 cent electric. Now you need to add to this the convenience, safety, and smell factor of using kerosene instead of plugging in a heater and setting the stat.

I run a small kerosene heater. It is 6800 BTU's (68 hundred). It is large enough to keep the heat in the house once the temperature is up in most cases. It's a Sears model that I paid $99 for back in '83. I used it in an apartment that had an oil furnace that drank like a fish and use it now where I have electric back up with kind of expensive rates. Being small it is more efficient and has very little smell. But anyway, every once in a while I'll break out my calculator and figure out what that little $99 stove has saved me. Up till now it has saved somewhere around $15,000 to $18,000 in heating cost thru the last 25 years, compared to the heating systems that the houses had. It actually works out so well, that I hesitated to buy a wood stove that I had in mind for the last 18 years. I finally bought a 13NC Englander recently that is not yet installed.

BTW, if anyone is thinking about a kerosene stove, there is a lot to know and a lot to learn before operating one correctly and safely.

Bill

 

[Danno77]

I'm not on top of the terminology here. What's a Florida Room? Is that an incredibly hot and humid room that retired people and Cubans live in?