What do you think of running this forced hot air furnace in your home?

Question

There would be a small heater and blower motor installed in your plenum. The heater,a 150 watt light bulb, would draw 150 watts. The blower motor would draw 176 watts.

I am thinking of experimenting with this heater in my 1000 square foot home. The proposed system would utilize the ducting installed in my home for the oil fired hot air furnace. Inside the hot air plenum would be placed two incandescent flood lamps, each maybe 150 watt bulbs. The heater wattages could be increased to two 150 watt bulbs as necessary to keep up with demand for heat. Also there would be a small 176 watt blower motor, the kind you use in an air purifier unit. The idea is to produce just enough air flow and heat so that this furnace runs continuously to keep up with demand for heat, so as to avoid start up currents and start stop wear and tear on parts.

My calculations, and I would like for you to check them if possible, show that I would be consuming 326 watts per hour or .326kwh. If the system was running continuously for 24 hours a day(7.824KWH per day), 30 days a month(234.72KWH per month), @.09 per KWH it would cost .09 x 234.72KWH or $21.12 per month. How is that for a heating bill?

I am unsure as to whether running continuously it will keep up with the heat demand for a 68 degree temperature in my home? Any experts out there? Anything like this on the market now for furnaces?

Answer 1

This is a lot of 'hot air'. Actually it is may be the case of not enough real hot air to heat the house. How much wattage you need is determined by the difference in temperature between your interior and the outside.

Power required
P=[Qa + Ql ]/t
Q1 - Energy to bring the air tempreture inside the house from T1 to T2
Ql - Energy needed to compensate for heat loss
t - time required to bring the temperature to a desired level

Theoretically if you have a lifetime and a perfectly insulated house you can get away with tiny lightbulb to keep one toasty.