In the midst of winter, heating your home is essential. You won’t freeze to death, and neither will your pipes. But what options are there to heat your house? There are quite a few. Central heating is the most obvious option: a gas heater placed strategically inside a home, usually in the basement, controlled by the manual thermostat and then left alone.
For those of you who don’t use central heating for financial reasons (such as myself) there are alternatives. I spoke with Bob Schultheis, a natural resources engineering specialist with the University of Missouri Extension office in Webster County. Bob says the very first step when heating your home is to insulate it. The cracks in the windows and doors will allow heat to escape while letting cold air in. Insulation helps save electricity and gas costs. He did note, however, that leaky homes can be beneficial when using ventless heaters, such as infrared heaters or convection heaters. He says they might not be the best choice for health reasons.
“There are typically some particulates and gases that are given off that are not particularly healthy to people. So if your house is well insulated, and you are using one of these things, it can accumulate in the room to where it can be a potential health risk to people,” Schultheis said.
Schultheis acknowledged that certain risks come with all types of space heaters, many of which can lead to house fires. He recommends following safety instructions and understanding what exactly the heater is made of and what it burns. This may seem obvious, but many folks, including myself, never took the time to read up on the literature provided with my space heating device. I just assembled the sucker and cranked it up to high. I was cold, and didn’t care if I started a fire. That at least would warm my feet up. But no one wants that attention from your neighbors when the fire department shows up at your house with their hoses and Dalmatians to put your fire out. Plus, the costs of repair would negate the money you are saving by using space heaters.
Speaking of savings: Schultheis says there are no space heaters more efficient than the other.
“If you put in the same amount of electricity in those heaters, it’s going to put the same amount of heat out into the room,” Schultheis said.
Schultheis explained that oil filled radiators, as opposed to electric coil heaters, do not heat up as quickly, but do retain the heat better because it takes a while for the oil to cool down.
So what it comes down to this winter is personal preference. We live in a country where one is free to heat their home however they’d like. But the best way to go about it, in my personal opinion, is to buy some plastic insulation film, tape it over your windows, turn on the oil radiator, throw on an alpaca sweater, fill up a mug of coffee, and relax. Then take that sweater off because it will be toasty!
For more unbiased opinions on home heating possibilities, Schultheis recommends the following website. Click on it, then type in space heaters in the search bar. Thanks for reading!
www.search.extension.org
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