heating with diathermic/silicone fluid difference/

Sally_3

In an attempt to cut heating cost, I saw an ad for hydrosil heater with silicone fluid filled. The ad suggests savings of 50% or more on gas, oil, and electric heat. I'm wondering the difference between the oil filled heaters you buy and this one . I have used the oil filled , doesn't work that well $50 more a mth on electric and still chilly. I heat with gas hot water heat. I've been told it's too old to determine the actual age. This hydrosil I am referring to has a website out of South Carolina. www.hydrosil.com Thank you for any help.

Brad White_9

Sally, it depends...

Hydrosil is electric resistance heat, plain and simple. A kW in is 3,413 BTU's out, simple as that. The fluid only stores the heat so the emission is more steady than a start-stop of creaking baseboard. It costs exactly the same. The "glow" after it shuts off is depleting the initial warm-up time you already paid for..

If your electric rate is less than your equivalent cost for gas, propane or oil, fine. I rather doubt that electrical energy is less costly for most of it originates as oil, gas, coal and some hydro and nuclear thrown in the mix. You get 33% at the user end (your meter) but you pay 100% including the salary of the folks who nag you if your payment is late...

Read between the lines of the ad. "Some families" have saved 50%...", but no mention of the basis of what they were paying before.

How you use them is another. If you work at home and have an isolated office for example, great. Set the house back and heat one room, you can see that.

The silicone fluid is just a medium of delivery to afford mass and time. They are quiter. But as a means to heat your house? Know you local electric rates. You may be surprised.

Mike T., Swampeast MO

All electric baseboard is 100% efficient--no fan to run, no ductwork to leak. However, electricity is generally the most expensive way to heat a home.

Nearly all homes I've seen heated with electric baseboard have thermostats in each room, so they're all zoned. Certainly some energy savings to be had from keep unused spaces significantly cooler, but nothing to save if you typically heat all spaces to nearly the same level. Zoning does allow individual tailoring of heat, but don't expect extraordinary energy savings.

The "proportional" claim is a bit dubious--it's actually four-stage in this case. When they say 25% to 50%, for instance, what they really should be saying is 25% or 50%. From the descriptions, the heating element is in two full-length pieces. With the appropriate devices (not standard as they imply), you get 25% with 1 element at 110v, 50% with both at 110v, 75% with one element at 110v and the other at 220v, 100% with both at 220v. This could certainly affect both comfort and economy, but I'd expect it to increase comfort significantly more than it reduces energy use.

The "oil-filled" electric baseboards I've seen and felt seem to be quieter than others, but otherwise little difference. There's likely very little difference between the silicon-based oils used to fill them and I seriously doubt such has any effect on energy use.

Don't forget that it can take a LOT of amperage to heat a house with electricity. VERY good chance that you'd need significant and very expensive electrical upgrades. If electricity is very inexpensive in your area and fully expected to stay that way, I'd take advantage of your existing system and use an electric boiler. Otherwise, I'd get the present system in top-notch shape. Those old boilers may seem to last forever, but they're usually very inefficient. In many cases, a condensing/modulating boiler will be a good choice and will give very high efficiency. Even a modern, traditional boiler would likely be significantly better than what you have.