On average, you can expect to pay about 20 cents per hour to run an average space heater that is 1,500 watts and can heat a standard room. If you run it for eight hours per day, you'll pay about $1.60 per day.
Remember that space heaters are inefficient heating sources. (The Department of Energy's EnergyStar program doesn't certify space heaters in the EnergyStar program for this reason.) They should be used temporarily for spot heating and not as a main heating source.
You can't use space heaters to warm your entire home; you can only use them to warm small spaces. One of the downsides to using space heaters is that you will still have plenty of cool spots or even entire rooms within your home that are cold.
It's much cheaper to run a furnace that burns gas, oil, or propane than a space heater that utilizes electricity.
Natural gas is likely to prove the cheapest way to heat a home if you have this heating option available to you where you live. Although prices have risen, natural gas is the least costly form of space heating. This is followed by electricity, propane, and heating oil, from the next cheapest to the most expensive.
If you have a larger home
In larger homes, a small room may be worth heating individually if it's less than a quarter of the size of the whole house, although there's less benefit if your house is well-insulated.
The best way to prevent a fire is to never leave a space heater running in a room unattended—that way, if anything does go wrong, you can take action quickly.
Most space heaters use approximately 1,500 Watts of electricity per hour making them one of the most inefficient heating options for your home.
However, if you're using space heaters in several areas of your home, you could be wasting money, instead of saving it. It's a common misconception that space heaters will always save you money. If you're using several of them, central heating could be the much better option.
Keep it at least 3 feet from anything flammable
The leading cause of space heaters igniting fires is placing them too close to flammable objects, Moore-Merrell said. It is a heat source so placing a unit near something that will burn – like a couch, curtains, papers – risks fire, she added.
Con: Danger
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 25,000 house fires are started by space heaters every year. Space heaters are in-part responsible for 300 deaths and more than 6,000 burn-related emergency room visits every year.
Use Space Heaters
If parts of your home have pipes and are unheated, electric space heaters can be used to keep the water in the pipes from freezing. You don't need to keep the area 70 degrees. Anything above freezing will do.
If you use a space heater in your home, please be aware that using a space heater can cause a significant increase in your monthly bill. A 1,000-watt space heater operating 12 hours a day will add about $40 to your monthly bill. If the cost does not deter you, remember how important it is to use space heaters safely.
Sealed combustion heaters are much safer to operate than other types of space heaters, and operate more efficiently because they do not draw in the heated air from the room and exhaust it to the outdoors. They are also less likely to backdraft and adversely affect indoor air quality.
Typically, most household space heaters reach a maximum heat range of 95F to 120F degrees. You might be able to get a room up to temperature with a large propane space heater.
Space heaters use less energy than central heating systems because they only have to heat a single space instead of the whole house. This is especially true of newer models, which are designed to be more energy efficient than older ones.
An electric space heater is small but uses a lot of energy! A 1,500-watt heater running for eight hours each night for a month can add about $43 to your electric bill.
So, is electric or gas heat cheaper? Using off-peak electricity, conventional electric heating may cost about twice as much as gas heating to run. And here's why: electric heaters are essentially 100% efficient.
A modern space heater can be very safe to keep on for long unsupervised periods of time, including while sleeping. Be sure your heater is certified by one of the three major testing organizations and has features like automatic shutoff, tip over protection, a shut off timer, and adjustable thermostat.
Convection heaters, such as oil column or panel heaters, are your best choice for a heater you're going to leave on all night – their gentle convection heating is conducive to an easy night's sleep, and they don't get as hot as other types of heaters so they're safer to touch (they compensate for this with the larger ...
While most modern space heaters can safely run for 10+ hours, you'll still want to check the documentation that came with your space heater. Space heaters feature a variety of safety mechanisms that cause the unit to shut down when it gets too hot or if it tips over.
Electric Heating And Oil Heating Are The Most Expensive Ways To Heat A Home In The US. What these heating costs show is that in the US both fuel oil furnaces and electricity furnaces are an expensive way to heat a home.
Combustion heaters are a great option for heating your home without power. Combustion heaters are indoor heaters that don't require electricity, utilizing propane instead of electricity. If you need heat without electricity or gas, kerosene radiant heaters should have everything you need.
The Energy Saving Trust says if you're keeping the heating on all day you're losing energy all day, so it's better to heat your home only when you need it. You can also apply for a Cold Weather Payment to help when temperatures fall to freezing, a Warm Home Discount or a Winter Fuel Payment to minimise your bills.