Electric Heat vs. Gas Heat: Round One
I have previously mentioned I am going to use electric heat this winter instead of keeping my vintage 1940s gas furnace operating full time. 
One of the heating cost calculationsOnly one of my planned ensemble of heaters has yet to arrive on my patio, so I am starting to get a good idea of what the electricity and time requirements for the heaters will be this winter.
I created a spreadsheet to calculate what it will cost to run my electric heaters, and the most liberal analysis yields a grand total of about $85 per month, with my nominal estimate somewhere between $70 and $75 per month. Which is peanuts compared to the $400 I would have been expecting if I had stuck with just the furnace.
As it is, I will still use the furnace to keep the house around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but the electric heaters will supplement that and provide localized heating in certain rooms, which will hopefully end up having mean temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit when they are in use.
Because the furnace is so old ("Mawn-creef, good gawd," said the yinzer furnace repairman), I don't have any way of calculating, with any appreciable precision, how much money I will be saving by using electric heat, but I'm sure it will be quite a lot. I hope to develop a method for testing the efficiency of my furnace as the winter wears on, and I'll post my findings here as they occur!
Comments
How about a blog on the things you want to accomplish before turning 30? I'd be curious.
Posted by: arc | October 15, 2006 09:10 PM
lol...I'm curious too!!!
Posted by: mum | October 16, 2006 03:04 AM
Blankets and heavy clothes will also help in this endeavor. I am sure Dorian and Pixel: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (Had to be a multiple word name, didn't it? :P) will grow their own coats. Besides your electronics already provide most of the heating, don't they?
Great place. Thanks for letting me visit.
Posted by: tlt | October 17, 2006 07:31 PM