Quick House Heating Question

Hey Ashtray

Hey, we're using electric baseboard heaters. Is it cheaper to leave the heat on all day rather than just turn it on when we're actually home? This is more a question for our bedrooms which are pretty small and take little time to heat up.

Thanks in advance, and anecdotes are great, but if you could provide some evidence, or if you're an electrician or homebuilder or something that's cool too.

Daenris

If the rooms are small and don't take much time to heat up, you're better off leaving them off until you need the room heated.

Alternatively, if it's possible in your situation, get a timed thermostat that will turn the heat on a little before the time you typically get home so it's already warmed up for you.

Midshipman

For an electric heater, the only thing you gain from maintaining temperature throughout the day is that you don't have a surge of power consumption. For a consumer this doesn't really matter, although the people running the power grid do care.

For something a bit more complex like an A/C unit, you can sometimes end up using less power by maintaining temp all day instead of trying to dump a ton of heat at once, but that is mostly because of variable effeciency at different loads on the A/C compressor. Of course, there are many other factors such as insulation, external temp, space size, etc.

But yeah, no personal gain from running a heater while you aren't home.

<Mechanical Engineering student who has taken HVAC and heat transfer courses.

bowen

Yeah I'd say not keeping it at 75 all day while you're not there is worth it, but don't let it drop below 60 as heating up from that can take a while and probably make the benefit negligible or nonexistent.

DasUberEdward

Related question. We're trying to heat our apartment with our fireplace which does do a pretty good job at keeping the downstairs warm but our rooms are getting pretty damn cold.

Would we be better off each using a tiny space heater at night or just turning on the heat?

ASimPerson

DasUberEdward wrote: »

Related question. We're trying to heat our apartment with our fireplace which does do a pretty good job at keeping the downstairs warm but our rooms are getting pretty damn cold.

Would we be better off each using a tiny space heater at night or just turning on the heat?

Depends on what energy source you use for your heat.

VisionOfClarity

You might be better off keeping the heat set to something like 50 and getting a good down comforter.