Is electric space heaters more cost effecient versus heat pumps powered by furnace in a smaller space?

Question

I live in a small 900 sq. ft. home. My heat pump quit working and now I am using small space heaters which seem to heat my home better than the heat pump. I am using a total of 3 1500 watt electric space heaters that cut on and off according to degree of temperature in my home. I don't want to make my electric bill sky rocket, so I am trying to decide whether to go ahead and get my heat pump serviced or to wait and keep using the small heaters. Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

Answer 1

No, space heaters are extremely unefficient.

Answer 2

Gabriel- Careful about calling other people crazy. I think what was meant by getting colder in the walls they were trying to say there is heat loss in the ducts. I definitely saved money with keeping the heat on all day but lowered it rather than on and off in very cold weather using baseboard heat. Coming home to a cold apartment I found that the temperatures at the ceiling would be 110 degrees after a couple hours while I was still cold at 65 degrees sitting in a chair. But baseboard had no fans so some table top fans cured that and a cheaper solution than leaving the heat on. And that was only a 9 foot ceiling. The 13 foot high vents are a problem for heat, likely a trade off for cooling, but if the return air vent is at floor level it is less of a problem since you would be getting some air mixture then, pulling the heat down to where you are. (which of course is more difficult to pull heat down). Yes, the space heaters will save heat but only if you are not heating other rooms or areas. A space heater that has a fan and sits on the floor would be mixing the warm air with the coldest air at floor level and could provide a bit of comfort reducing that effect of the heat rising. The real problem is the 18 foot ceilings, it is probably rather warm up there. A ceiling fan is best for helping with that. Nice to have high ceilings but now people are getting sensitive to how expensive they really are. Good Luck

Answer 3

Depending on the outside temperature, your heat pump stops working because it cannot condence anymore. There is an electric heating element in the air handler that takes over when the heat pump reaches the temp where it will not work anymore Usually 5 KW for 900 sq ft home.That is 22 amps, which is more electric than the 4500 you are using with the space heaters.

Answer 4

When your heat pump is working, at the very worse it will be as efficient as your electric heaters. When it's working well, that is...when the heat pump is working with higher outside temps...it will be more efficient than the electric heaters. Like twice as good.
Heat pump efficiency is better than electric heat because they "steal" heat from another source...the outside air. The warmer that air is, the easier it is to steal heat from it. When it gets real cold, electric heating elements, exactly as efficient as those space heaters, takes over.

Get the heat pump fixed. To get an idea of what those space heaters will cost, take 4.5 times your Kwh rate, times the number of hours they run. If your Kwh rate is .10, for example...they will cost .45 per hour. Take that over a month, and figure they run half the time...and it's over $160.

Answer 5

Your best bet is to get you heat pump serviced. I have a friend who refuses to get hers fixed and is using heaters in the house. Now around here the average electric bill is 180.00-200.00 dollars when she got her first winter electric bill this year it was over 400.00. So you see electric heaters use a lot of electricity. I'm not saying you cant use one but any more than that and your electric bill is going to soar.

Answer 6

Man.. there going to cost a small fortune if your living in a cold area.. ie winter time. Each one will push $30 a month at least on top of your other power sucking appliances..