# A question for our HVAC / Electrical members



## gold4mike (Jan 14, 2011)

I've been thinking about getting one of those EdenPure heaters to heat my work area in my basement computer shop. The local Ace Hardware sells them and their sales person told me that they are supposed to run on about $0.09 per day of electricity. The box says it's rated at 1500 Watts. I'm not an expert but I don't see how something that draws 1500 Watts can possibly run for $0.09 per day.

Does anyone here have some real world experience with this type of heater? If it's really that cheap it would pay to buy eight of them and heat my whole house with 'em. :shock:


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 14, 2011)

If it is the type of unit I think it is it will not be very efficent trying to heat your house with them. You could cause problems with your electrical service by overloading it if you put enough of them in your house as well.


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## gold4mike (Jan 14, 2011)

That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm familiar with the older space heaters that use a coil somewhat like you'll find in a toaster. Also with the somewhat newer ceramic heaters that did increase efficiency a bit. These EdenPure heaters use 2 or 3 Quartz Infrared modules to produce heat, and the efficiency claims just seem to good to be true to me.

I guess I'm convinced they can't live up to the claims being made about them, and thought someone here could give me a solid answer.

Yours is one opinion I was hoping for since I know you are an HVAC guy.

I'll stick with the ceramic heater I currently use and save the $400.00.


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## semi-lucid (Jan 14, 2011)

If it draws 1500 watts, that would cost you 1.5 kilowatt hours for each hour you operate it. If your electricity supplier charges you 9 cents per kwh, then it will cost you 13.5 cents per hour to operate.

This is off topic, but if your working in a basement be careful about radon gas. it can be very bad in some situations.


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 14, 2011)

1500 watts puts out the same amount of heat whether the heater costs $40 or $400. Most of the cheap heaters are 1500 watts. Some are quartz.


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## FrugalEE (Jan 14, 2011)

I'm a retired electrical engineer. You've gotten good answers. The amount of heat that any resistance heater puts out is simply a matter of how many watts it draws. You get 3415 BTUs for every KWH. I don't see how anyone can claim one is more efficient than another. Where they differ is in how they direct the heat, how hot the air is, whether it's an air stream or radiated heat, etc. All those factors affect comfort. Besides that they differ on how safe they are, or the amount of noise they make. The real savings comes from turning your main thermostat down and staying near a space heater. A lot of people are getting suckered with those things and I get pretty annoyed when I see their sales pitches.

Right now I've using a 1500 watt oil filled radiator type that I dug out of a dumpster when the house across the street got reposessed. The only thing wrong with it was the thermostat which I've just eliminated.
FrugalEE


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 14, 2011)

FrugalEE said:


> I'm a retired electrical engineer. You've gotten good answers. The amount of heat that any resistance heater puts out is simply a matter of how many watts it draws. You get 3415 BTUs for every KWH. I don't see how anyone can claim one is more efficient than another. Where they differ is in how they direct the heat, how hot the air is, whether it's an air stream or radiated heat, etc. All those factors affect comfort. Besides that they differ on how safe they are, or the amount of noise they make. The real savings comes from turning your main thermostat down and staying near a space heater. A lot of people are getting suckered with those things and I get pretty annoyed when I see their sales pitches.
> 
> Right now I've using a 1500 watt oil filled radiator type that I dug out of a dumpster when the house across the street got reposessed. The only thing wrong with it was the thermostat which I've just eliminated.
> FrugalEE



Be carefull with the oil filled one. About 8-10 years ago I did a fire investigation call for the local fire department. During the investigation I determined that the fire was caused by one of the oil filled heaters. 2 young children lost thier life in that fire.


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## FrugalEE (Jan 14, 2011)

Thanks Barren. I was under the impression that the oil filled were about as safe a kind of electrical heater that you could have. In my case I had a burned up thermostat. Did you find evidence that the heating element itself failed and got the oil ignited? I would think a breaker would blow before that happened.


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## dtectr (Jan 14, 2011)

I saw something recently about "arcing" as a danger, more so than a "short". If an old outlet with poor direct contact with plug terminals "arcs" - supposedly the arc can ignite a flammable even if it throws a breaker. Overloaded, old circuits, cold, drafty houses & cheap heaters (or conditions so cold that the thermostat never disconnects), as well as use of too light extension cords & flammables (curtains, clothes, etc.) kills at least one family here a year.

Many old rental properties have 20-, 30- or more-years-old outlets with worn-out contacts that can also allow the terminals to heat & even char/melt cheap plug materials (I live in one now).

There is a new type of breaker that is supposed to protect from arcing, as well as GFCI. Any input on how they perform?


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 14, 2011)

FrugalEE said:


> Thanks Barren. I was under the impression that the oil filled were about as safe a kind of electrical heater that you could have. In my case I had a burned up thermostat. Did you find evidence that the heating element itself failed and got the oil ignited? I would think a breaker would blow before that happened.



I didn't investigate any farther once I determined what the cause of the fire was and that it had originated with the heater. It was too far gone to make that determination. The breaker would only blow or trip if there were a short or an over load in the circuit, and even sometimes there can be a short and a breaker not trip instantly.


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## FrugalEE (Jan 14, 2011)

dtectr,

I'm aware of those breakers, but hope I never have to use them. Sure they probably will prevent a few fires, but they certainly won't be smart enough to trip for a lot of cases and I'll bet they have a lot of nuisance trips. Adding complication to the breaker also makes itself more of a fire hazard. I think someone with an older house and worn wiring would be far better off spending money to upgrade their house wiring, chords, and appliances than putting in expensive breakers. Also more protection could be had at a much cheaper price by putting in breakers that trip at a lower current.

FrugalEE


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 14, 2011)

dtectr said:


> I saw something recently about "arcing" as a danger, more so than a "short". If an old outlet with poor direct contact with plug terminals "arcs" - supposedly the arc can ignite a flammable even if it throws a breaker. Overloaded, old circuits, cold, drafty houses & cheap heaters (or conditions so cold that the thermostat never disconnects), as well as use of too light extension cords & flammables (curtains, clothes, etc.) kills at least one family here a year.
> 
> Many old rental properties have 20-, 30- or more-years-old outlets with worn-out contacts that can also allow the terminals to heat & even char/melt cheap plug materials (I live in one now).
> 
> There is a new type of breaker that is supposed to protect from arcing, as well as GFCI. Any input on how they perform?



You are referring to an Arc guard breaker, this is a different kind of breaker than a GFCI breaker. A GFCI breaker is desighned to trip if it senses a grounded situation they are mainly put in areas like bathroom, kitchen & ouside where there is most like a possability of a short during use such as using a hair dryer and dropping it in a sink of water it trips the breaker or receptical before you can reach in and grab the appliance and cause yourself to be shocked. An Arc guard breaker senses if there is an arc possability and trips these are more sesative then a GFCI and also more prone to failure. Both types should be use in a 3 wire system to operate properly but can be fooled to work in a 2 wire system but not as effectivly or safely.


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## Harold_V (Jan 14, 2011)

gold4mike said:


> I've been thinking about getting one of those EdenPure heaters to heat my work area in my basement computer shop. The local Ace Hardware sells them and their sales person told me that they are supposed to run on about $0.09 per day of electricity. The box says it's rated at 1500 Watts. I'm not an expert but I don't see how something that draws 1500 Watts can possibly run for $0.09 per day.
> 
> Does anyone here have some real world experience with this type of heater? If it's really that cheap it would pay to buy eight of them and heat my whole house with 'em. :shock:


As GSP said, the type of heater shouldn't make any difference. What you're talking about is current consumption, or, in this case, wattage. Same thing, if you understand Ohm's law even remotely. 

The salesperson that talked to you is nothing short of a liar or a very misinformed person. I can't speak for his/her motive, but I certainly can speak about power consumption. Here's the cold, hard facts. We enjoy some of the lowest rates for power in the nation (speaking of the US). We pay 4.555¢ per kwh. Assuming you paid the same rate, and you ran that heater 24 hours daily, you would consume 36 kwh, which, @ 4.555¢/kwh would cost you $1.64/day. That's assuming the heater ran continually. 

Harold


Edit: Note that I corrected the fee we pay for power. I had originally stated it was 4.333¢/kwh. but I was wrong. We pay 4.555¢. I corrected the cost for running the heater. Increase was only 5¢.


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## adam_mizer (Jan 15, 2011)

Barren Realms 007 said:


> dtectr said:
> 
> 
> > I saw something recently about "arcing" as a danger, more so than a "short". If an old outlet with poor direct contact with plug terminals "arcs" - supposedly the arc can ignite a flammable even if it throws a breaker. Overloaded, old circuits, cold, drafty houses & cheap heaters (or conditions so cold that the thermostat never disconnects), as well as use of too light extension cords & flammables (curtains, clothes, etc.) kills at least one family here a year.
> ...



Pretty much right!
To add to the performance of the GFCI the breaker is supposed to trip when it senses up to 600ma leak to ground with a certain time constraint. In case of failure of device being used shorted through user to ground, a person would still feel the intense shock of electricity very quickly but now would not have 15/20 ampere sizzling through your body for unlimited time to trip the breaker.
The AFCI arc-fault is much more sensitive with a sense of 200ma to ground and some more circuitry in them faster performance. One of the area's code updates were installing this breaker in bedroom's. A problem I noticed with this breaker and an AKAI flat screen TV I think it was, would trip the breaker every time the power switch turned on. Talk about sensitive.

The cheap GFI's Home Depot or Lowes used to sell a few years back were very crappy and had a high failure rate as I went back to replace them many times, just testing test/reset button and they used to fail. 
They eventually got better and more reliable. Don't always shop for the cheapest plug 15a gfi. 
I found more reliability in the 20a gfi plug, be prepared to pay some dollars for a decent plug.

It seems more Northern area's of the United States are able to create electrical power cheaper and offer to the customer at a lower rate and offer up higher baselines for useage than states with weak hydro systems and transmission has to run 100's of miles.
In Southern California it may have been 3 times more costly than Washington and the baseline was maybe 250kwh or less for a family then it would start jumping way higher for using more KW's. That baseline is a joke for a family.

If you have any weakness in your wiring system at home have a professional check it out. You would be asking for only worse problems later if you know there's a problem right now.
The worst I saw and troubleshooted was only fires that burn't the electrical box and wiring and device before they were out. Except for the 1/2 a garage that burn't down.
Thank you GOD I would not want to troubleshoot something more devastating than this much. Electrical small fire like these are very stinky and you have time to sniff, the stink lasts for hours. I have a hard time believing it but many of these people were unaware of that smell/stink.
I can see from these small fires how easy it would be for this fire to catch and spread.


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## semi-lucid (Jan 15, 2011)

Harold_V said:


> We enjoy some of the lowest rates for power in the nation (speaking of the US). We pay 4.333¢ per kwh. Harold



Wow, I'm amazed your rates are that low. According to the page below the industrial rate in your state has dropped to 3.94 in 2010.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html

According to the page below, the USA average is 9.28 cents and the rates in many European country's are outrageous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity


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## Harold_V (Jan 16, 2011)

semi-lucid said:


> Harold_V said:
> 
> 
> > We enjoy some of the lowest rates for power in the nation (speaking of the US). We pay 4.333¢ per kwh. Harold
> ...


Heh! When we moved here in '96, we paid only 3.333¢/kwh
Not everyone in Washington enjoys the same rates. We are served by a PUD (public utility district) which operates non-profit. I expect our rates will rise in the near future, thanks to energy rates going up everywhere. 

We moved here from Utah, where our rate was almost 9¢/kwh.

Harold


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## shadybear (Jan 17, 2011)

I have an EdenPure heater I use alot to heat my downstairs tv room. They use
about 1.50 to 2.50 dollars of electric depending on your electrical costs per day.
depending on how much you run it and at what level or setting. they do have an excellent
thermostat though and can be adjusted to certain levels.
But like others have mentioned it doe draw as much electric as others you cant run it
and the microwave on the same circuit I know this for a fact. I have to turn off the heater
to pop popcorn.


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## Barren Realms 007 (Jan 17, 2011)

Food for thought.

A 1500 watt heater on a 120V circuit will pull an AMP draw of 12.5 AMP's roughly.

A breaker is desighned to carry 80% of it's rated load for 100% of the use of full time duty.

A 20 AMP breaker is therfore desighned to carry 16 AMP's continuous duty.

A 15 AMP breaker is therfore desighned to carry 12 AMP's continuous duty.

#12 romex is desighned for a load of 20 AMP's.

#14 romex is desighned for a load of 15 AMP's.

There are many times when service work is done that it is discovered that someone has worked on the elecrical and has installed a 30 AMP breaker on a circuit.

If you are running 2 of these heater's in the same room and on the same circuit and the breaker does not trip there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

There are also many times that a breaker will not trip from a direct short in the wireing.


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## patnor1011 (Jan 17, 2011)

13,76 to 16,00 and that is in eurocents 
That is 18,27 to 21,24 US ¢/kwh
Anyone want to move to Ireland? :twisted:


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