What You Should Know
- A space heater costs less to run than your furnace: 20¢ an hour compared to $1.85 to run your furnace for the same amount of time, plus using a space heater saves on energy wasted to heat up the entire house.
- All 1500-watt electric space heaters put out exactly the same amount of heat, regardless of how they look or how big they are.
- A quartz heater will heat an object without heating the air, and loses effectiveness at 10-15 feet.
- A convection heater has glowing coils that are exposed to the air, or uses electricity to heat a liquid. Many also have fans in them. The heater warms air in a room; if it has a fan, the fan circulates it.
- Kerosene heaters are less common and for safety reasons, are prohibited by law from use in houses. Unvented gas appliances dump a variety of unpleasant combustible and toxic products into the air.
Easy Things You Can Do
- Turn your furnace down (or off, if possible) when confined to a single room for a majority of the day and use a space heater to keep warm.
- If you've got a room you can seal off, consider using a convection heater. If you have open architecture, a "people heating" quartz heater will likely work better for you.
- Caution: Don't leave your heater on if you don't need it.
Source: 30 Simple Energy Things You Can Do To Save The Earth (PG&E)