Electric heat questions
The topic here is close to my questions so I'm hoping this old thread is the right one...
We have a studio outbuilding (20' x 14' footprint) where we need to be 8 hours a day. It's insulated (but not that well - the walls are 2x4'') and heated via 15 year-old electric baseboards.
Last winter I estimate we spent over $250/month from Dec-April on heat
We have talked about bringing in a gas line (or install propane) & fireplace as we found the capital cost would be minimum $3K - which we don't have.
(......Any comments on this? I've read the material from
http://www.iwilltry.org/b/projects/comparing-natural-gas-vs-electric-heating/
in some detail and can see that it's hard to tell the payback in our case although I suspect the Ontario vs. B.C. situation would give us a bias towards natural gas...)
So now my questions revolve towards the use of electricity to heat this studio! After some web searching on the subject the best course to take is "clear as mud"
[1] I read about Infrared Heating - EdenPure and others - and I'm wondering about replacing the old baseboard heaters by one of these units. Is it likely to make a difference in comfort for the same electrical consumption?
[2] How about cycling the thermostat settings? It's not clear what the best policy is either. Say for 8 hours needed at 20degC we can do:
- overnight at 5deg, 12 hours set at 20deg - it takes AT LEAST 4 hours to warm up
- leave it on at 20deg all the time
- take a middle course of say 12deg overnight and 20 for the daytime.
Thanks in advance for your comments