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OfflineXUL
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Winter Proofing an Apartment
    #20733337 - 10/21/14 12:41 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

How did you winter proof your apartment/house?

I am a poor fellow right now, and so it is wise for me to cut down on bills if I can.

To winter proof my apartment. I hung a blanket over the living room door, covered the window with cellophane made for winter proofing windows, hung a blanket over the second living room door, and employed a small oil radiator that can be bought at Walmart.

In the upstairs there are two bedrooms. I use another oil radiator for heat. I blow a fan so it pushes the warm air around the two rooms.

I haven't looked into it, but it seems to me that oil radiators (can be bought at Walmart for $45) are more efficient than gas. I hate gas bills. My electricity bills never seem to get too high.




So far so good. The place is toasty and comfortable!

:stoned:

But the cold has only just begun.

How will you be preparing this winter?


--------------------
TRUMP 2020

Edited by XUL (10/21/14 12:42 PM)

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OfflineMightyWhite
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20733614 - 10/21/14 01:52 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

I put plastic on all my windows and keep my heat at 61-62 degrees all winter. I heat with propane and that is pretty expensive.
Those oil radiator heaters are going to make your electric bill go up as they aren't very efficient.

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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: MightyWhite]
    #20734586 - 10/21/14 05:29 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Those oil radiator heaters are going to make your electric bill go up as they aren't very efficient.




But I think that depends on how high you have to run the heater and the resulting electricity bill, as compared to what the gas bill for heat might be.

If one can manage to winter proof his house well enough, then heat may be stay contained. If one has gaping holes in their window, then the heat will leave - obviously. Which is why I think electricity could be cheaper, depend how you use it. And hell, I guess on how well the housing unit was built.

:shrug: I don't know.

Why do you use propane if it is so expensive? Is there any other choice for you?

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OfflineMightyWhite
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20736813 - 10/22/14 04:45 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

I have propane because I'm in a rural area and there isn't natural gas line on my road. It sucks.
I mean don't get me wrong on that oil heater, they work great and put some heat out for sure, but they aren't efficient.  A few years ago when I had some outdoor dogs, we had a really cold snap for a couple weeks in the winter, I decided to bring my dogs inside on my porch for about 2 weeks and used one of those oil heaters to keep it a little warmer for the dogs, and it made my electric bill go up around $100 more than what it normally was. And my porch is well insulated and I had plastic on the window. I don't know what the exact temperature was on my porch, but the oil heater had 3 power settings 600w, 900w and 1100w, I only kept it on the lowest setting.

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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: MightyWhite]
    #20736891 - 10/22/14 05:48 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

I see.

I'll check out what voltage it is.

Maybe that will clue me in.

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Invisiblekoraks
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20746052 - 10/24/14 04:33 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

XUL said:
I haven't looked into it, but it seems to me that oil radiators (can be bought at Walmart for $45) are more efficient than gas. I hate gas bills. My electricity bills never seem to get too high.




On the contrary. Electric heating is vastly more expensive and less efficient than gas heating. While the cost varies with the costs of electricity and gas where you buy them, the difference in efficiency is easy to see: electricity generated from fossil fuels (i.e. the vast amount of electricity that is currently generated) involves a generation efficiency of about 40% at best (so about 43% tops of the energy from the fossil fuels ends up as electricity) and you lose another 7% in distribution, so only about 40% of the energy that is extracted from the earth makes it to your apartment. With gas, the losses in the grid are up to 10% (leakage), which means 90% of the extracted energy makes it to your home. On top of that (and obviously also as a result of the efficiency difference), gas is generally cheaper than electricity per kJ.

The major drawback of gas heating is that you (obviously) need a gas supply and that you need to properly vent the exhaust fumes, which may involve breaking a new hole in the outside wall when installing the heater.

If you're looking for a permanent solution, then gas heating is currently the more economical and in reality also the more environmentally friendly option of the two. From an environmental viewpoint, it may be a better option to go for electric heating as the percentage of electricity generated from nuclear and renewable sources increases, but currently, about 67% of the electricity generated in the US still comes from fossil fuels.

TL;DR: gas would have been a better idea in the longer term, but it would have required more work.

Quote:

XUL said:
I see.

I'll check out what voltage it is.

Maybe that will clue me in.



It's 115V obviously :wink: The maximum power rating will be in the range of 1kW-2kW. It doesn't matter; while the cost obviously drops as the power rating is lower (or you use it at a lower power setting), the heating capacity will obviously drop proportionally with it, meaning you'll have to keep it on longer and end up consuming the same amount of power as you'd otherwise. The drawback of having a lower rated heater is that it takes longer to heat up your apartment and you may have insufficient power to keep it warm as it gets really cold. Depending on the size of the room and insulation, you generally need 1kW at the very least to keep it comfortable, and upwards to 6kW if it's getting really cold, you have a large amount of space, you still want to ventilate the space well and/or insulation is crappy.

Edited by koraks (10/24/14 04:38 AM)

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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: koraks]
    #20747271 - 10/24/14 12:22 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Electric heating is vastly more expensive and less efficient than gas heating. While the cost varies with the costs of electricity and gas where you buy them, the difference in efficiency is easy to see




I read your reply. It was not too long.



Perhaps having a two radiators would cost too much, as compared to fuel. Last year we only used 1 radiator and got by with a low electric bill. It was cold, but it was okay.

I mean, at this point my roommate and I are poor enough to live in one room at a time during the winter. You seem knowledgeable about this kind of thing. Maybe we could move the radiator down to the living room during the day, and then move it upstairs to the bedroom area during the night. Moreover, we turn the radiator off when we are not home and keep the thermostat at 48-50 so that the pipes don't freeze up. Turning the radiator off helps us save.

Gas in this kind of housing doesn't seem to work very well. If you set the thermostat at 73 the furnace will attempt to keep all the large rooms at 73. The problem is that we don't lounge in the kitchen and don't mind if it's cold. Another factor is that if the thermostat is set at 73 then it will heat the larger rooms until they are that temperature. Of course this makes all the smaller bedrooms turn into ovens!

I suppose a big factor is how we live. Huddled up in one room during the winter.


I am not sure what to think.:shrug:


--------------------
TRUMP 2020

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20747957 - 10/24/14 03:03 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Hm, I guess I winter proof by closing the windows at night. It can drop down into the low 50s at night in winter... BRRR
I may also wear a hoodie. Or even put pants on


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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: Shroomism]
    #20748323 - 10/24/14 04:41 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

I suppose when winter comes you can see how well a housing unit has been built.

I'll end up spooning with my roommate.

Hah.

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InvisibleShroomismM
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20749576 - 10/24/14 10:07 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Indeed


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Invisibleidiotek
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: Shroomism]
    #20750790 - 10/25/14 08:52 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

It never fails.  Mention winter and some feminine product shows up to remind us all about how nice the weather is where he lives, which is always in California.  :crankey:

Honestly though, it just started getting cold enough to leave frost in the early morning here and the leaves are still peaking in a few places.

Quote:

Electric heating is vastly more expensive and less efficient than gas heating. While the cost varies with the costs of electricity and gas where you buy them, the difference in efficiency is easy to see





You have to convert everything to its BTU value before a comparison can be made with any degree of accuracy.


XUL:  Do you have high ceilings or something closer to 8-9 ft?  If you have ceiling fans, make sure they're rotating in the correct direction to push the warm air back down toward the floor.  Zone heating can be effective in those situations, too.

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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: idiotek]
    #20753172 - 10/25/14 08:56 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Do you have high ceilings or something closer to 8-9 ft?




Yes I do.

I think you make a good point. We have this radiator, but the heat just rises. If I stand up I can feel a layer of warmth. If I sit down it's ice cold. 

Quote:

Zone heating can be effective in those situations, too.




We have a box fan. I think that could move the heat around pretty well.

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Invisiblekoraks
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: XUL]
    #20753927 - 10/26/14 03:35 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

idiotek said:
You have to convert everything to its BTU value before a comparison can be made with any degree of accuracy.




No, you don't, but it's a possibility. It's pretty easy reasoning, really. You either burn a fossil fuel with X calories in a power plant, yielding (X-Y%) of electric power which you can then use to heat your home, or you can burn the fuel in your home, yielding very close to X calories where you need it. No conversions of any kind needed.

Quote:

XUL said:
Maybe we could move the radiator down to the living room during the day, and then move it upstairs to the bedroom area during the night. Moreover, we turn the radiator off when we are not home and keep the thermostat at 48-50 so that the pipes don't freeze up. Turning the radiator off helps us save.



Absolutely. Of course, for convenience, you could have two radiators but just use one at a time, that way, the setup will obviously consume as much power as a single radiator.

Quote:

If you set the thermostat at 73 the furnace will attempt to keep all the large rooms at 73.



Actually, it's even worse. The thermostat is typically in one room (unless you have radiators with thermostatic valves- which I would highly recommend). If you turn on all the radiators, the heater will keep on heating until the room in which the thermostat is, reaches the temperature that's been set. If the room with the thermostat exceeds its set temperature, the furnace will cease to burn and no heat will be distributed to any of the radiators. Conversely, if the room with the thermostat never reaches its set temperature (e.g. because you don't have any radiators turned on in that room because you're in a different room), the furnace will just keep burning fuel regardless of the temperature in other rooms, which seems to be the scenario that you have faced.

With thermostatic valves on each of the radiators, you can set each radiator individually and total power consumption can be limited, while providing a base level of comfort. If all radiators reach their set value, the valves will automatically close and the loss of heat in the heater water circuit will be reduced to a minimum, causing the furnace to cease burning or revert to a low setting.

With a little bit of knowledge of how the system works, it's usually much more cost-effective and comfortable to use a central heating system instead of electric radiators. But the approach is only 90% idiot-proof, so you need to have a basic level of awareness to make up for that remaining 10% :wink:

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OfflineXUL
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: koraks]
    #20754161 - 10/26/14 07:34 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

With a little bit of knowledge of how the system works, it's usually much more cost-effective and comfortable to use a central heating system instead of electric radiators. But the approach is only 90% idiot-proof, so you need to have a basic level of awareness to make up for that remaining 10% :wink:





Cool.

How do you know so much about gas and percentages?



Since we are talking heat... Back home we have a coal furnace. One load of coal gets us through the winter. The coal warms water and along the baseboards of our house we have little pipes that flow with water, warm up, and radiate heat.

The maintenance is not terrible. The furnace must be filled up around twice a day.

The only thing about these coal furnaces is that you have to be up early in the morning to fill it back up.

We also put the ashes on our driveway in the winter to prevent our vehicles from bogging out into the ditch.

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Invisibleidiotek
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: koraks]
    #20754291 - 10/26/14 08:37 AM (9 years, 5 months ago)

So how can you cost compare two different heat source fuels without simplifying them to a universal unit of measurement?  You gave me an example of why what I said was accurate immediately after telling me I'm wrong, and then you used a unit that's essentially the same thing as a BTU except a fraction of the size and therefore silly and impractical to use in this application in the first place.  I don't really see how you can make the comparison when you're using gallons, tons, watts, and all that, it's apples and oranges.

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OfflineHallucinogenism
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: idiotek]
    #20756018 - 10/26/14 04:36 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

Don't forget about humidity. If your just blowing hot air in a room with low humidity that wont be doing any good.

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InvisibleCorporal Kielbasa


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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: Shroomism]
    #20765724 - 10/28/14 08:59 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

:flipthebird:

I wear a couple thick wool socks, morino wool thermals, sweaters, and then the hoody with a jacket over that if I go out.

Edited by Corporal Kielbasa (10/28/14 09:11 PM)

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OfflineArctic W. Fox
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: Corporal Kielbasa]
    #20770576 - 10/29/14 11:10 PM (9 years, 4 months ago)

Google: candle heater

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InvisibleCorporal Kielbasa


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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: Arctic W. Fox]
    #20771701 - 10/30/14 09:58 AM (9 years, 4 months ago)

Thats a sweet idea!!  But I don't think I will be using one unless in a pinch.

Edited by Corporal Kielbasa (10/30/14 10:04 AM)

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Invisiblekoraks
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Re: Winter Proofing an Apartment [Re: idiotek]
    #20775745 - 10/31/14 03:06 AM (9 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

idiotek said:
So how can you cost compare two different heat source fuels without simplifying them to a universal unit of measurement?



Because the difference in efficiency lies in the fact that with electric heating, there are more conversion steps from a fossil fuel to heat in your apartment than if you heat it directly with a fossil fuel. It's a structural difference (i.e. the difference comes from the structure of the energy system), not a parametric one (i.e. the values of parameters such as energy content or price for a certain fuel). Add to this the fact that the majority of electricity in the US is generated using fossil fuels, and you know that it's less efficient and therefore more expensive (since we're talking about commodities here) without having to convert anything. But I threw in the calories since that way you seem to understand it more easily.

If you want to express it in figures, using BTU as a starting point and an approximation of price levels for domestic use, which is also a way to get there (it just involves more work):
1000ft3 = 1000BTU; natural gas delivered to your home is ca. $ 16 / 1000 ft3, which translates to $ 0.016 / BTU
1kWh of electricity = ca. 3.4BTU; electricity delivered to your home is ca. $ 0.12, which translates to ca. $ 0.035 / BTU
So electric heating will be roughly twice as expensive as gas heating. What a surprise, given my earlier efficiency (not cost!) estimate of electricity being only about 40% the overall efficiency of heating directly using fossil fuels...
Obviously, coal is much cheaper still, but as pointed out by OP generally a bit more work and a lot dirtier than burning natural gas.

I assume you still don't completely understand it (if you don't the first time round, I have little hope if I offer more explanation), but as you see above, it works out nicely if we apply your more roundabout way of using BTU as a conversion unit (or, in fact, using a conversion unit at all, which my initial post showed was unnecessary to understand the basic difference).

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