Lucky you. 175 square meters, 25cm styrofoam on walls and 30cm rock wool on ceiling and I pay 200€ per month in winter for gas heating in Poland. Solar panels are not economical in current regulations and billing rules have changed so those with heat pumps pay at least twice us much in coldest months.
Bruh, a space heater is the least efficient way to heat a space, unless electricity somehow costs less per MWh than gas (that is insanely cheap and only true in a few key places in the world).
Also dehumidifiers… don’t do what you think they do? They are basically an A/C unit, that dump the hot air in the room they sit in. Literally worse than nothing.
*Re-*humidifiers have marginal benefits in (very) dry weather as evaporation is endothermic. As soon as the air is even somewhat humid though, they’re literally worse than nothing again.
It’s not inefficient if it makes you feel warm. Often you don’t really need to warm everything in a house to be comfortable. It might make sense to do so in a situation when electricity goes out/grid is unreliable and you don’t have a thermal battery to ride on for a few hours, or you want to keep your water pipes warm enough so they don’t freeze.
But I know a lot of people who choose to forego so much heating, keeping their space to like <15/59, and have a heated blanket or space heater/fireplace entertainment center.
Feel like this works best in a shared living situation though, like an apartment or town home. For detached situations, maybe it does make sense to keep things relatively warm in case of emergencies.
They were talking about consistently heating a whole room though. I guess there’s a case to be made if the thermostat for the central gas heating is in another room and can’t be moved… But you should probably organize your heating so that this is a corner case (which is why the thermostat is typically in the living room in detached living. Other rooms don’t usually need to be kept particularly warm).
Of course if you have a badly insulated house and no way to properly distribute the central heating or to pay to heat the whole space to 18 °C, use resistive if you must. But that goes against everything that central heating is supposed to be for.
Also you really should not let a building go under 15 °C. It depends on the specifics (insulation, ventilation), but you’re liable to get mold or other kinds of water damage due to condensation.
Good points. There are a variety of houses/buildings built during various periods of time according to various codes and standards, but if you’re within city limits (US/Canada) then your house was probably built after the 70s/80s and has decent insulation. If there is an issue with the central heating in that kind of home, I 100% agree that there’s an issue that you might want a GC to fix. If your house/building is old, or if landlords don’t want to fix shit (and complaints are too much of a hassle), then I can also see that space heating can be a reasonable bandaid: at least until you get out of that situation.
Condensation is something I also forgot. That’s important for you electrical system too. In my experience in electric distribution/collection, usually we’d want to keep termination points around 20/68, but thermostats could drop to as low as 10/50 before kicking in. Certainly keeping a house colder than 10/50 is a bad idea, but between that and normal 20/68 I’d think would be fine. You also have the risk though that your thermostat is a single point of measurement for the system. Other parts of a house might be cooler/warmer, so I’d agree with the advice to keeping your house warmer than 15/59, unless it supports multi-unit dwellings.
Invoice from yesterday for December 2023. I used 201 m3 of gas, calculated by provider as being equal to 2224kWh of power for which I paid 682.81 PLN (157 € to be exact) in total including taxes and surcharges. So 3.397 PLN or around 0.78 EUR per m3.
December was one of the coldest months this season. Last year I used maximum of 250 m3 per month which happened to be January/February. This then exceeded 200€
This includes both warm water and heating using low-temperature floor heating. Current thermostat settings give me 22C on the base floor and 20C on the first floor (where most heat escapes, obviously). I also have mechanical ventilation with recuperation.
Shit’s expensive.
With current prices of electricity, the same heating power with perfect constant COP of 3 (not possible with December temps for air heat pump) would cost me 666 PLN. (Nice). How can I offset the cost of installing it in the first place LOL.
Yeah I lived in flats before, it’s a totally different story, unless your flat is on the last floor or on the corner there is not much heat loss assuming your neighbors also use the heating.
not really… my flat is in corner. Gave 3 sides, nirth, east, and south. No other flatsconnected with mine. And to this, flat under mine is empty, nobody is living there.
Lucky you. 175 square meters, 25cm styrofoam on walls and 30cm rock wool on ceiling and I pay 200€ per month in winter for gas heating in Poland. Solar panels are not economical in current regulations and billing rules have changed so those with heat pumps pay at least twice us much in coldest months.
We are fucked from every angle.
Get a space heater.
Mine was $15 at Walmart, heats my room like it’s Spring, and only adds $5 per month to my electricity bill.
Come Summer, I’m going to get a dehumidifier and see if I can use it in place of my A/C.
Bruh, a space heater is the least efficient way to heat a space, unless electricity somehow costs less per MWh than gas (that is insanely cheap and only true in a few key places in the world).
Also dehumidifiers… don’t do what you think they do? They are basically an A/C unit, that dump the hot air in the room they sit in. Literally worse than nothing.
*Re-*humidifiers have marginal benefits in (very) dry weather as evaporation is endothermic. As soon as the air is even somewhat humid though, they’re literally worse than nothing again.
It’s not inefficient if it makes you feel warm. Often you don’t really need to warm everything in a house to be comfortable. It might make sense to do so in a situation when electricity goes out/grid is unreliable and you don’t have a thermal battery to ride on for a few hours, or you want to keep your water pipes warm enough so they don’t freeze.
But I know a lot of people who choose to forego so much heating, keeping their space to like <15/59, and have a heated blanket or space heater/fireplace entertainment center.
Feel like this works best in a shared living situation though, like an apartment or town home. For detached situations, maybe it does make sense to keep things relatively warm in case of emergencies.
They were talking about consistently heating a whole room though. I guess there’s a case to be made if the thermostat for the central gas heating is in another room and can’t be moved… But you should probably organize your heating so that this is a corner case (which is why the thermostat is typically in the living room in detached living. Other rooms don’t usually need to be kept particularly warm).
Of course if you have a badly insulated house and no way to properly distribute the central heating or to pay to heat the whole space to 18 °C, use resistive if you must. But that goes against everything that central heating is supposed to be for.
Also you really should not let a building go under 15 °C. It depends on the specifics (insulation, ventilation), but you’re liable to get mold or other kinds of water damage due to condensation.
Good points. There are a variety of houses/buildings built during various periods of time according to various codes and standards, but if you’re within city limits (US/Canada) then your house was probably built after the 70s/80s and has decent insulation. If there is an issue with the central heating in that kind of home, I 100% agree that there’s an issue that you might want a GC to fix. If your house/building is old, or if landlords don’t want to fix shit (and complaints are too much of a hassle), then I can also see that space heating can be a reasonable bandaid: at least until you get out of that situation.
Condensation is something I also forgot. That’s important for you electrical system too. In my experience in electric distribution/collection, usually we’d want to keep termination points around 20/68, but thermostats could drop to as low as 10/50 before kicking in. Certainly keeping a house colder than 10/50 is a bad idea, but between that and normal 20/68 I’d think would be fine. You also have the risk though that your thermostat is a single point of measurement for the system. Other parts of a house might be cooler/warmer, so I’d agree with the advice to keeping your house warmer than 15/59, unless it supports multi-unit dwellings.
Good convo, cheers
hey, whats the price for gas per cubic meter in Poland?
Invoice from yesterday for December 2023. I used 201 m3 of gas, calculated by provider as being equal to 2224kWh of power for which I paid 682.81 PLN (157 € to be exact) in total including taxes and surcharges. So 3.397 PLN or around 0.78 EUR per m3.
December was one of the coldest months this season. Last year I used maximum of 250 m3 per month which happened to be January/February. This then exceeded 200€
This includes both warm water and heating using low-temperature floor heating. Current thermostat settings give me 22C on the base floor and 20C on the first floor (where most heat escapes, obviously). I also have mechanical ventilation with recuperation.
Shit’s expensive.
With current prices of electricity, the same heating power with perfect constant COP of 3 (not possible with December temps for air heat pump) would cost me 666 PLN. (Nice). How can I offset the cost of installing it in the first place LOL.
i hear you, current rate in Lithuania is 0.87 eur :(
wow! i paid 220euros for gas heating and warm water in 78m2 flat in poland for all last year.
Yeah I lived in flats before, it’s a totally different story, unless your flat is on the last floor or on the corner there is not much heat loss assuming your neighbors also use the heating.
not really… my flat is in corner. Gave 3 sides, nirth, east, and south. No other flatsconnected with mine. And to this, flat under mine is empty, nobody is living there.
Then I don’t know why, but I am sure over 30% of heat in my house escapes through the roof.