What do you do for cheap heating ?

Joined
Oct 28, 2008
Messages
14,539
Location
Manhattan Beach, CA, USA
Electric blanket.

Lay one under the bedsheet, and one on top of the bedsheet. Lay one if your favorite chair or spot on the couch or where ever you spend time at home. It's generally about 2 orders of magnitude (x100) cheaper to locally heat the air between an insulator and your skin than to try to heat the entire home to a matching temp point.
 
rent with all utilities included.
 
I have a cheap 1000w heater that i move from room to room during the day.

I close the doors for the other rooms that don't need to be heated.
Works pretty good!
 
More sex...Did I think that was cheap? :shock: Better think through that again, I guess! :roll:
 
Extension cord buried in the snow to the neighbors house :D Just kidding.

If you can do it I suggest a straw bale retrofit http://strawbaleconstruction.ca/


MattMyhrman_Retrofit.jpg
 
ha! electric blanket, good 1.
none more localized heating than a piece of hot ass

Lay one under the bedsheet, and one on top of the bedsheet. Lay one in your favorite chair or spot on the couch or where ever you spend time at home. It's generally about 2 orders of magnitude (x100) cheaper to locally heat the air between an insulator and your 4skin than to try to heat the entire home to a matching temp point.

View attachment hot_ass_girl-31e.jpg
 
Extra building insulation.
Storm windows
55F air temperature
Knit cap 24/7 (except in the shower)
Layered apparel
Flannel Sheets
Polyfleece blankets

Radiant heater if friends visit. (don't heat the air, heat the people)

(U.S. climate zone 5)
 
Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:
ha! electric blanket, good 1.
none more localized heating than a piece of hot ass

Lay one under the bedsheet, and one on top of the bedsheet. Lay one in your favorite chair or spot on the couch or where ever you spend time at home. It's generally about 2 orders of magnitude (x100) cheaper to locally heat the air between an insulator and your 4skin than to try to heat the entire home to a matching temp point.


Ok I had to repost this cause it raised my temp :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Seriously a friend of mine has a 6x6 shed with a woodburner and a water to water exchanger, home built. 300 gallon I think. He heats it to 160 degrees or so and uses a low pressure pump to run it to a coil in his existing furnace. He says it cost a couple bucks a month to run the fan and pump. I want one. :mrgreen:

Damn I thought it would repost :oops:
 
Retrofit polyurethane foam on all exterior walls. R-25 now. New Energy Star (energy rating program) windows and doors. Tankless water heater.

Beauty of the foam is that glues to the wall, filling every little spot and hole, resulting in zero air movement.

And a beautiful wife that insists on 22C on the thermostat, except at night when I get to drop it to 19c. Sigh...

My gas bills for heating are now less than half from before. So at that rate, the savings will pay for the renovation in....2035.

Katou
 
I am very happy with an oil-filled electric room heater. I bought the cheapest one because I already have a couple power-timers. I dress warm in the house, but I really like the bedroom to be half-way warm to sleep comfortably. It automatically comes on a hour before my normal bedtime, and then I spin the dial to go off an hour after I go to sleep.

If you have single-paned windows in the room you want to keep warm, get some clear bubble-wrap, and tape it over the glass (flat side towards the room). Then cover the entire window with thin clear plastic sheet. I recommend using common thumbtacks to connect the sheet to the wall, they leave very tiny holes that are easy to paint over later. The sheet doesnt have to seal well, just slow air circulation between the room and window.

Set a rolled up towel on the inside of the base of the door, again not a perfect seal, just slowing air circulation from the warm room from the cold house.

LFP, I used to use an electric blanket, set on 'low' under a thick comforter. It was awesome, but it was too warm for the wife!

Oil_Filled_Radiator_Oil_Filled_Heater.jpg
 
I left Minnesota. 8)

Cameron
 
For a while, living aboard or in a shed... invite friends over. Their bodies are pretty energy-inefficient and they waste a lot of food energy as heat
:lol:
l0Ck
 
What LFP said, plus 5 dogs. Well, they're not cheap, but they work pretty good as heaters when I lay down in bed and they all plop down around me. :lol: Doesn't usually get all that cold here, down to maybe freezing but usually no less than 35-40F at coldest before dawn. Right now (1230am) it's 42F outside, and about 62F in the bedroom with the dogs, myself, and the computer. Rest of the house tends to drop down to maybe 10F above whatever outside is, but that's because I tend to leave windows open to air out the doggie odors. :lol: (unless it's raining or it's REALLY windy) Daytime is usually 55-65F in winter, sometimes more, and with the front door and windows open and unblocked (facing south) I can get the front room to 75-80F if it's sunny and not windy.

During winter I open up the house when it is warmer outside than inside, and once it gets colder outside than inside I'll close it back up. I do it the other way around in summer. Sometimes when the wind is too still for this to move air thru the house, I will use a fan in a window at one end of the house and open the other end up, to suck air thru the house from whatever part of the outside is the temperature I'm after (front yard in winter, back yard in summer).

When I need to heat a different room to work in, mostly I just get all the dogs in there, plus me and whatever tools and whatnot I'll need, and any electronics I think I'll use, set it up and turn stuff on. Close the room off, including foam blocks in the vents, and blankets in the windows and along the door edges, to keep all the heat in there. Setup the laptop to browse ES, web, videos, or reference notes/etc. while warming the room with our body heat and stuff, and in an hour or two it's at least 65-70F, even if it had been 50F before. Also I'll use incandescent lights when trying to keep a room warm, instead of CFLs/etc., because it's not waste heat at that point. ;)

I also hang blankets between rooms anyway, summer and winter, to keep heat where i want it (out or in), as well as along walls and windows and any doorways. Trapped air between the blankets and the walls seems to help a fair bit in keeping heat in it's place. Multiple layers can be necessary sometimes.

But it can certainly help keep the electric bills down--last month it was only $44.84. Even in the worst of summer when I have to use a window AC unit or the main house swamp cooler I can usually keep it under $150, sometimes under $100, when my crazy sister isn't around to waste power and leave doors and windows open at the wrong times.
 
Hot ass is very effective heater. More than once I've greatly enjoyed a hot flash my wife was having when she was doing the menopause thing. Before that, it used to take tequlia to get the stove woman warmed up. 4-5 dogs really warm up a room, but I'm not so sure it's always worth it with the smell. :lol:

But seriously this time, If you own your house, insulate! $200 of cheap do it yourself blown in cellulose insulation in my attic did miracles for my house. Paid for itself in 2 months, and made it possible for me to get by on 80% solar heating in my climate. Next was adding to the solar heat from windows, by fastening discarded sliding glass doors to my south wall. Inside the glass is black metal, and then vents to bring the heat into the house. I have 5 of these panels.

Then there are the oil filled radiators, obviously heating 1 room is cheaper than the whole house. Once we do get a once a year snow, and a week of clouds, I break out the firewood and keep a fireplace going. Turning on the main furnace is a last resort, but the house never gets below 65F either.

I really need to foam the walls of the house, but haven't done it yet. If you can't buy new windows and have single glass, the plastic shrink window covers actually work quite well.
 
Insulation is the main factor of the cost. On the chart is energetic bilance of my house in last 10 years. Look at the green line, it is use of natural gass per year.
First drop is new roof with 300mm if insulation with double airing system and second drop is instalation of tripple glass windows with LowE coating but only on half of the house. I plan to do another 2 drops and then replace gas with solar heating. I am now at 13L and I am started at 20L. The EU standard for low energetic house is 3L (energetic equivalent of 3 litres of heating oil per square meter). this is acivable only with new house and my goal is 6-7L on my 40 years old house.

kolkolitaraimamojakua.jpg
 
I simply moved to where heat and A/C aren't needed. Last week we had the coldest day in 15 years, 58°F during day at my house, plus a stiff breeze. It took me 30 minutes to dig up the one light jacket I have only to take it off 5 minutes later because I felt too warm. Instead I put on socks to dial in that perfect comfort. :mrgreen:
 
+1.
I had to put on socks and long jeans, for the past week. Up top, where I live, in the clouds, it gets right chilly, at 58°F.
Wish I had my Wind genny and battery bank ready for those winds. Blew steady for 6-7 days, 24 hours straight per day. No good for the Solar Stuff, though ??
Next 4 months should be good for the Solar panels, once I get that Silicone down here. 8) 8)
 
Wood stove baby! Stoke it up! I cut up old pallets and dead tree limbs and grapevines for firewood, but it doesn't get that cold here either. :p
 
I have a heat pump for the house and one of these for the shop:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/RSwoh1.html
 
Years ago I had the insides of outside walls foamed, 1 foot + of fiber glass in attic space, added double pane glass windows on inside walls, leaves a space for the window blinds between the orignal outside glass (good sound buffer also). A foot warmer strip on a chair (for a bed) had to add a dimmer, gets too hot sitting on it. Sauna ceramic 163 watt heater on a stand for direct heating. When I realy get cold I break out the sheep skin/wool slippers, down filled jacket, and vest, along with a watch cap, haven't needed gloves as yet.

Don't forget the air to air heat exchanger if your building is well sealed.

This is the 3rd year we have not used the old furnace, but if I ever get around to it I have a 90+ efficiency furnace under the house as yet not installed.
 
Looks like my fuzzy heaters are gonna get a workout tonight; it's already down to 53F in my bedroom and just above freezing in the rest of the house. Somewhere between 15 and 20F outside. :lol:

Stuff about earlier today, and bike performance in it:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=348286#p348286
 
i duct down hot attic air. this is ultra-cheap heating.
$25 for the fan and cardboard for a duct.
only works on mild sunny days, like today.
since the fan draws only 40 watts, it is nearly free.
have to open a window as the fan pumps in outside air.
whatever window is open, is the room where the heat goes.
Go into your attic at 2pm on a sunny day. is it warm? that's FREE solar heat!
 
Gotta give a shout-out to www.builditsolar.com, there is a months worth of reading there, plus its much more than just DIY solar projects. That being said, here is one of those projects that can be easily made from 90% free junk, and will work better than you might imagine.

Google "solar hot air collector", The hot attic air post above reminded me about this. There are a dozen good DIY posts on the web with pics on these. They are well-proven to work. Start saving/collecting aluminum cans, and keep an eye out for a trash-day glass door, or large window...

solarhotairfinished.JPG
 
wood stove - outside air intake - thermoelectric (no electricity) fan - plus

mini split heat pump

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for the latest in solar heat ...
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SolarHeat/
 
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