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I live in a one bedroom place and winter is on its way soon. I have central air and heating, but afraid to use it a whole lot because I don't want to be faced with an outrageous gas bill. For those who have used a space heater to heat your bedroom for instance, did it save you money on your gas bill? Did it make a significant difference in your electric bill? Or did you guys find out you're better off using your central air and heating after all? I'm trying to weigh my pros and cons before spending money on something I probably won't even need. Thanks.
Good point ...to find out first. My ceramic 'towers' with remotes are always $50
at Walmart by Lasko.
They are great!
I keep my night time temp low...roll over and click on a tower at 5 am before I get up...and I'm very happy...however, I never know how to fig out the bill.
I just THINK it must be wiser to use 'zone heating'.
So I will see what others have found out.
Elec blankets are SO nice...just need a few minutes to get things warmed up.
I recommend Sears and oddly I will never buy a Sunbeam
again after maybe 4 of them. Oddly, because it is a major brand, you would
think they would last more than a year! But that was all I could ever find...now Sears
offers another maker. So far so good!
It depends on where you live. Up north it would be more to heat the whole house than to just heat the zoned areas. Down here in Houston, my natural gas bill for a 3,000 sqft house runs about $150-180 during the coldest month and we keep the house around 69-70 or so. The rest of the cold months are in the $80-120 range or so. Now if it were me, I would have it set lower and just use the space heater and more clothes to keep warm, but I have 4 or 5 others in the house that disagree.
The mattress pad heats your bedding and you, and uses minimal electricity.
Heat rises so we prefer that over a heated blanket, plus we don't like the feel of electric blankets in general.
The pad is under your regular bedding and you cannot feel the wires.
We turn ours on an hour before bedtime, and the bed is toasty warm!
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We have a dual setback thermostat and the heat goes off from 10pm-4am when I get up during the week, then off again at 8am when my wife leaves for work, back on when she gets home in the afternoon. We don't need heat at night, the blankets do the trick. Generally it will still remain in the 50s at the coldest point of the morning even when below freezing outside, that's within reason for a quick bathroom visit. With 3,000 sf, we keep it at 68 or less, but on a cold evening use the gas fireplace for more heat in the family room where we sit by the TV. Gas just went don 16% here, and it was already lower than electricity which is also fairly reasonable here at about 9 cents/kWh. Space heaters suck up the power, but the oil filled radiator type are both efficient and safe, they just take a while to warm up.
I never heard of a mattress pad heater either, but will investigate because my bedroom is always cold, although, I am buying another space heater. I say another because a few years ago I'd visit my daughter's home where the gas heat was kept way down to save as much money as possible. Always freezing in their house, I finally bought myself an electric space heater at Home Depot. As I recall, it did not cost much. It worked great.
That heater was a little hard to set correctly since it had a thermostat. You do need a that control and a feature that turns off the heater if it is overturned.
If, you have a thermostat for the apartment that can be set to go on and off, as described by another respondent, that is also a great help. If it works correctly, you will have a cooler bedroom for sleeping and then have it warm up when you have to get out of the nice comfy bed.
By the way, I'm reminded of my parents old home in the Northeast, built in the 1920's with no insulation and modernized from coal to oil heat. Even with a thermostat, it was always cold in the morning before the heat "came up" and the radiators started steaming. Eventually, after the oil heat, they did have a gas heater installed. Still no insulation.
Good luck
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Good Ideas
