Electric space heaters provide heat quickly, and because they run on household electricity, you never have to buy fuel for them. You don't get this kind of convenience for free, however, and you'll notice a hefty hike in your monthly electricity bill if you use one regularly.
Even though they are typically small in size, and often touted as 100% efficient, electric space heaters use a lot of electricity. Most space heaters use on average 1,500 Watts of electricity and cost about 15¢ an hour to operate.
If you set up a space heater in an always-cold room to take the chill off, your power bill is going to increase unless you make other changes at home to reduce your energy use.
Running your heater per day (8 hours): 8 hours X 13.9 c per kWh = $1.11/day. Using your heater for 8 hours a day per month: $1.11 X 30 = $33.3/month.
Space heaters cost about $0.20, or 20 cents, per hour to run. That's for the most common size – 1,500 watts. The range is 10 cents to 42 cents, or $0.10 to $0.42 per hour for space heaters from 750 watts to 3,000 watts. The cost of electricity from your energy company affects the cost to run a space heater.
Space heaters do use less energy as compared to using central heat. However, they are not as efficient as space heaters. As such, having a space heater in every room in the home and turning them all on at the same will only cost you more, not less. When you purchased your heater is also a factor.
If your heater is equipped with a good thermostat and you do not heat the room to a warmer-than-normal temperature, you can save money by using an electric space heater in a room you're in and keeping the rest of the house chillier.
The electric space heaters tested at Consumer Reports use 1,500 watts to fully power. Since you should never use a space heater while sleeping, it would cost $2.82 a day to use a space heater 16 hours a day, based on the national average electricity rate.
The Energy Department estimates that the cost to heat an entire home with electric space heaters cost 43% more than a gas furnace. Using a space heater in your bedroom only while you sleep is a practical way to use a space heater and won't make much of a dent in your electricity bill.
For example, if you are running a space heater in your basement home office for 8-hours a day, then you can expect to pay $1.60 per day. If there are an average of 21-work days in a month, then you can expect to add around $33.60 per month to your electric bill to run your space heater.
Most space heaters use 1500 watts of electricity per hour. However, there are smaller heaters too, starting at 200W per hour.
So I did the research, and even made a free calculator. On average, a 1,500W heater costs around $0.20 per hour to run on high. This adds up to a cost of $1.60 for 8 hours a day, and $48 per month. The running costs depend on your electric heater's power, running time, heat settings, and your electricity price.
The short answer is you should use a space heater and keep the house at a lower temperature, since it's more efficient than heating the entire area of the house. However, if you're concerned about your emissions, you can replace an oil or gas furnace with a heat pump which runs on electricity.
Infrared Heaters – the lowest wattage per heat provided makes these the cheapest to run. Oil-Filled Heaters – their long-lasting heat makes the most out of the electricity. Storage Heaters – saves in running costs by using off-peak electricity tariffs.
According to research from Energy Helpline, keeping your radiators on all night will cost you an extra £10.80 a day. Over the course of a week, that would cost you £75.60, and if you did it all month you could be paying out a whopping £335.
Also, the maximum heat most small space heaters can safely produce is about 5,100 Btuh (Btu per hour). Homes typically have central heating systems with a capacity of 50,000 to 100,000 Btuh, so obviously a single space heater can't heat an entire house.
Regardless of the motivation, space heaters simply aren't a long-term solution for home heating needs. Space heaters are extremely dangerous. The National Fire Protection Association estimates that between 2009 and 2013, heating equipment caused more than 56,000 home fires in the United States.
For every degree that you lower the thermostat can help you save up to 1% on your heating costs. So, if you turn down the heating eight degrees for about eight hours a night, you can enjoy a saving of approximately $180 annually on your heating.
Infrared Heaters. Infrared heaters will always be the cheapest to run – providing the most efficient heat. Due to the way they work, they naturally need less electricity to heat a room than a space heater. (By heating objects, instead of the air).
AC Unit. Because an electric furnace needs to generate heat, it uses far more electricity than an air conditioning unit as it works to keep your home warm.
Are electric radiators cheap to run? It's stated that electric radiators are 100 per cent efficient. This is because they use 100 per cent of the electricity provided to heat a room and so they are an energy-efficient way to heat your home.