First cold snap is coming — space heater in one room, or just turn up the whole-house heat?
Heating season is about to start and I am doing the math again. I work from home in one room most of the day, and heating the entire apartment to 70 degrees just so one room is comfortable feels like burning money. A decent space heater costs $40-60 and sips electricity compared to running the furnace or baseboards all day. But then there is the other side: space heaters are a fire risk if you buy a cheap one with no tip-over shutoff, they dry the air out, and if you end up running two or three of them you may not be saving anything at all. For people who actually tracked it: did a space heater in your main room beat turning up the thermostat on your winter bill, or is it one of those things that sounds cheaper but is not?
1 answer
- One good heater, one room, thermostat down
One room, one heater, thermostat turned down. That is the whole trick. I keep the house at 62 and run a ceramic heater with a thermostat in the room I am actually sitting in. My winter electric bill went up maybe $30 a month, but the gas bill dropped more than that, so I came out ahead. Where people lose money is running three heaters and keeping the thermostat at 70 anyway. Pick the room you live in, heat that room, let the rest of the house be cool. And buy one with tip-over shutoff. The $25 no-name ones are not worth the risk.