Sunday, February 03, 2008

Save Up To 50% On Heating???


I received an advertisement in the mail a couple days ago regarding this EdenPURE Heater. Anyone heard of these before? They claim you can save up to 50% on your heating costs by using one. I think they're being a bit loose in their use of words.

What these seem to be is just an additional heater that keeps a room at a given temperature using less power than it would take your home's heater to do the same. Since the room doesn't get as cold, your heater doesn't go on as much, thus you're supposed to save money. Hmmm???

But how much does it cost to run one of these heaters? They say the small one covers 300 square feet. That's enough to take care of this room, where I spend most my time in. That one would use 6.3amps/ 750watts. Anyone a little familiar with such things know if that would use less energy than my forced air heater fan plus the natural gas it burns?
I'd just like to know how much power this thing would use compared to some other appliances. How does it compare to a conventional space heater?

Taking a look at a couple space heaters at Rite- Aid, their dinky little conventional space heater seems to use a lot less power. Their large ceramic heater looks like it uses a lot more, electricity- wise. I'll have to go back and compare the heat output between this and the Rite- Aid ones when I get the chance.

At a little over $200 for the small one (with their mail discount) I'm almost tempted to take a chance on it, but it looks like this might be a lot of fluff since I'll basically just be buying an expensive space heater.


13 Comments:

At 7:39 AM, Blogger Greg said...

Fred, Costco used to carry some pretty good space heaters for less than $200. I don't know how the energy efficiency compares, but it's worth a look.

 
At 8:34 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

It's all about energy efficiency. I'd only want something that's cheaper to run than my current home heating system.

Actually, if the advantage of the EdenPURE heater is that it's not only cheaper to run than your home heating system, but cheaper to run than other space heaters, why bother with your current home heating system? Just run the EdenPURE all the time in place of you home heating system, rather than in combination with it.

 
At 8:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have the large one but my downstairs space is probably too large for it as it never turns off - large open areas that can't be closed off. I saw an ad for a "fireplace" type heater that was cheaper than the EdenPure but don't know if that one works either.

 
At 11:07 AM, Blogger samoasoftball said...

I have an EdenPure Sun Twin for our two story house. Runs all the time if we do not have a fire. I reported earler about that $340 electrical bill. But I ran a 220 heater at times also.

Fred, go check them out at the Vac place next to Carls Jr. See them in action. Maybe you want to buy local.

 
At 12:05 PM, Blogger Ernie Branscomb said...

Fred

There is no such thing as a “High Efficiency” electric heater!

1 kilowatt hour = 3412.14163513 B.T.U. of heat, exactly, no more, no less. You would get the same amount of heat out of ten 100 watt light bulbs. or, in the 750 watt heater that you are talking about, you would get the same heat from 7.5 one-hundred watt light bulbs.

If you are heating LESS area you can save money.

I don’t now what you pay per therm in Eureka. But usually natural gas is cheaper than electricity. So, you might end up living in one room to stay warm, and paying the same amount.

 
At 12:15 PM, Blogger Carol said...

Wear wool socks and sweaters?

 
At 2:03 PM, Blogger ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

Always beware of the "up to" clause in a sales pitch. Check to determine if there is a discussion thread of users of the product.

 
At 4:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Better learn some thermodynamic principles if you want to figure it out. All electric heaters have the same efficiency. 100% of the electricity is converted to heat.

The way to save money immediately is to heat a smaller area, like only one room. Using a radiant electric heater is less expensive as it only heats you, not the air. But, like a fireplace, it won't warm your back.

Reduce losses of heat and drafts by insulating/weatherstripping/double pane windows/keeping doors closed. If you can finance the costs of those things over 5 years, you'll save money now.

New gas furnances can be more than 90% efficient, which means they would use about half of the gas your furnance is now using. That will save money right now if you finance the purchase cost over 10 years.

 
At 6:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Certain things tip me off to the possibility that someone is trying to scam me.

One is when a product is named "Edenpure."

Did you ever see "Paper Moon?" A con man and his daughter drive around the countryside selling Bibles. They get the money, but they don't deliver the Bibles.

That movie reminds me of the Edenpure pitch.

 
At 6:33 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Thanks for the comments. I suspect this heater won't do exactly what I was hoping for.

Leonidas wrote, "Check to determine if there is a discussion thread of users of the product.".

I didn't look too hard, but I was hoping to find just that or, if not that, some hit page on these heaters like I found when I was looking into Amway. An expose', if you will, that exposed all the bad things about them and any false claims. I expected to find something along that line but came up blank, to EdenPURE's credit. There's a lot of people selling those heaters. I'm guessing they're a fine heater, but the savings they claim are way overblown.

Carol wrote, "Wear wool socks and sweaters?".

Always, except in summer. In this house you go outside in the winter to warm up and in the summer to cool off.

I'll often wear two or three sweatshirts in the early morning while playing on the computer.

 
At 6:40 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

6:25 wrote, "That movie reminds me of the Edenpure pitch.".

Indeed. I was skeptical, as well. As I just said, though, I would of thought there'd be some hit page up about them to expose them as phoneys. I haven't found one yet, which doesn't mean there isn't one (or more) around.

Still, a couple people have commented they owned one and while they didn't have a lot of praise for them, if any, they didn't have any real strong criticisms, at least as I read it.

 
At 10:50 AM, Blogger gb05 said...

Ernie is correct. Basically all electric heaters work the same and none is better than another at heating. Since I dislike fans I use a quartz heater (makes no noise & is easy to move around). I use the heater in the morning to warm up the coldest room in the house (the computer/office room).

From my last PG&E bill, I paid 13 cents per kilowatt-hour (KWH) of electricity. I also paid $1.39 per therm of natural gas, which is equivalent to about 29 KWH - this translates to about 5 cents per KWH. Since my furnace is about 50% efficient, the real cost is at least 10 cents per KWH.

 
At 12:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I Googled Edenpure and then searched within results for complaints. I didn't find safety complaints, but I did find some complaints about paying too much money for too little heat.

 

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