Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkxingu
As I understand it, electrical resistance heaters are actually the most efficient as 100% of the energy becomes heat. The issue is cost of energy vs. other sources, right, making it a question of economical vs. efficient?
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Correct, electric heat of any kind (eg: radiant, infrared, convection, whatever) is the most efficient use of the energy/fuel to heat conversion. But that ignores the unit cost of the energy itself.
To make an analogy, you can burn a $1 bill, and a $100 bill. Both with have the same *efficiency* in terms of turned the paper into heat via flame, but the $100 bill will be 100x as costly as the $1 bill to produce the same amount of heat.
Oil or natural gas heaters are generally less efficient than electric, but the reduced cost per BTU is so much lower that you make up the efficiency difference with reduced fuel/energy cost.
There are many products they try to claim they can reduce your heating costs, particularly if you are doing electric heat, but in the end they all rely on heating a smaller volume of area.
Anything that plugs into the wall and creates heat is going to be equally expensive to run in terms of adding heat to an area. Doesn't really matter what kind of heat it claims to create.
A mini split is going to be the most cost effective way to heat with electricity because it is *moving* heat from the outside to the inside, instead of creating it with resistance. However the upfront cost of an installed mini split can make it take a season or two to recoup the investment.
Even when it seems cold outside there is still heat in the air, just not very much. Mini split heat pumps move this heat from outside to inside, but they all have a minimum viable outdoor temperature before they can no longer move heat. In some cases that means you need a backup or alternative heat option for when it is very cold out, or when you want to heat the indoor areas more quickly.