Re: Room heater advice - does it help in lowering bill

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (vandanagoel) writes:

> We are just two poeple leaving in a big house of 3000 sq ft. Somebody
> told me that if lower the thermostat setting to 65 during the night
> and buy a room heater we might save some money in bills?
> 
> Is it true? Because we have gas heating and normally putting room
> heater for whole night will put up the electricity bill?

Electric heat is generally more expensive than gas, but you are
heating a smaller area with it -- just one room instead of the whole
house.  If you want to go this route, it makes sense to turn the
thermostat down even lower at night (60 instead of 65), and install a
timer thermostat if you want the rest of the house a little warmer
when you get up in the morning.  Get one of the radiator-type heaters
and not a fan-type one, BTW, because the latter are pretty noisy to have
in the room where you are trying to sleep.

FWIW, another thing you might consider as a localized heat source at
night is an electric blanket or mattress pad.  I got one of the
electric mattress pads recently and it's really great to be able to
turn it on an hour or so before I go to bed so it's already nice and
warm when I crawl under the blankets, instead of shivering in a cold
bed in a cold room.

-Sandra