If you're using only one room for a significant portion of the day, heating the whole house isn't necessary and wastes energy and money. Instead of cranking the heat to stay warm, save resources by using a space heater instead.
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.
- There are three types of space heaters:
- 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.
Use a convection heater in a room you can seal off. 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)