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safety issue

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add Member Posts: 94
the other day i was asked ,if those little electrical heaters thath bob villa is also advertising ,can cause any type of health issue.are they really low on electrical consumption ? i think is another gimmick!

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  • Jean-David Beyer
    Jean-David Beyer Member Posts: 2,666
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    are they really low on electrical consumption ?

    You can design an electric heater to have any electrical consumption you want. According to the Internet, there are 1 BTU/Hr = 0.29307107 watts, so decide how many BTU/hr you need from the heater and you will see how many watts it would need. I would need a little over 10,000 watts to heat my house on the coldest day, not counting the hot water. Around here, electricity is around $0.20 per KWH, so about $2/hour to heat it unless I misplaced the decimal point.
  • Rod
    Rod Posts: 2,067
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    Electric Heater

    Though rates vary a lot depending on the area you are located, generally electric heating isn't very cost efficient. The heater you are talking about is about 1 1/2 KW /hour consumption and you can look on your electric bill and figure out what it would cost to run the heater for one hour. From a health standpoint I don't see any problem with them. They do put a pretty good load on your wiring so you need to keep that it mind or you'll be blowing a lot of fuses/popping circuit breakers. They're okay if you just need just a little "boost" once in a while to a cold room. The model you mention seems rather expensive and I think you could find another electric heater that would accomplish practically the same thing at much less cost.

    - Rod
  • add
    add Member Posts: 94
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    thank you

    thank you to the both of you( JDB and ROD) i'll pass the info on to my friend as far is my house goes i'll stick to my oil#2 thanks.
  • Ironman
    Ironman Member Posts: 7,376
    edited November 2010
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    Low electrical Consumption

    JBD listed the formula for converting btu's into watts. Let's take it conversely: 1watt = 3.413 btu's. This is a scientific fact no matter what box you put the heat element into. Those who claim that their electric heater can produce more btu's using less electricity are scamming people.
    Bob Boan
    You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.
  • Gordy
    Gordy Member Posts: 9,546
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    The Gimmick

    Is they cut down on energy used by the OTHER heat source in your home.  They just do not tell you that part of it.



    Gordy
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