6 Simple Tips to Help You Save on Home Heating
Whether you prefer convection, radiant, or fan-forced heat for your home, electric heating can be an efficient choice. But there are ways to enjoy it even more efficiently, helping you save on energy costs all winter long. Here’s how:
1) Electric Heat’s Low Profile Means Higher Savings
The unique placement of electric heaters for rooms helps you measure – and therefore control – the temperature more efficiently. Unlike heaters controlled by one wall thermostat for a whole home, electric heaters like baseboard electric heaters and electric wall heaters measure the temperature of the room just above the floor, right where colder, denser air accumulates. Measuring the air here not only gives you the most accurate reading of a room’s temperature, but it also allows your electric heater to adjust to the smallest changes in temperature, without being overworked and costing extra money.
2) Program Your Electric Heaters to Max-Out on Efficiency
Programming your electric heaters to warm your space when needed can help you limit unnecessary use and heating costs. The best space heaters have different ways to program them. Some units have a programming feature built-in, like the Opera radiant heat series from Convectair, and some are controlled through an external module, like Convectair’s Allegro convection series. To know which option your heater offers, check your user manual.
Programming your electric heater to maximize energy savings means ensuring your room is heated to the right temperature while you’re most likely using it and set to a lower temperature while you’re not. Every lifestyle is different, but some examples would be programming your heaters to run at a lower setting while you’re at work or setting a lower temperature overnight while you’re snug in bed.
3) Have an Average of 19°C in Mind
Granted, 19°C is not room temperature for everyone. But the important thing to remember is that you want to average 19°C throughout your whole home on a daily basis, and the best electric space heaters – installed in individual rooms – actually make it easy to do. For example, if you’re home often, setting your heater in your kitchen at 21°C, and setting another heater in an underused spare bedroom at 17°C, will give you an average of 19°C between the two rooms. If you’re home less often, by setting your electric heaters to 17°C for 6 hours when you’re at work and for 6 hours while you’re in bed, you can run your heat at up to a cozy 22°C for the 12 hours you’re active at home and still average 19°C that day.
4) Use Eco-Mode – it’s Really Economical!
Most Convectair electric heaters, whether they provide convection heat, radiant heat, or fan-forced heat, offer an Eco-Mode as an energy-saving feature. Unlike Comfort Mode, which tells your heater to hold the room at a temperature you prefer, Eco-Mode will hold the room’s temperature at 3.5°C lower than your comfort setting. It’s an ideally efficient setting for underused rooms, if you happen to leave your home on an overnight trip, or during the night when higher heat isn’t needed.
5) Use Advanced Features for Even Bigger Energy Savings
Along with Eco-Mode, the best electric heaters also come with more advanced energy-saving features. The Opera series of radiant heaters, for example, come with both Absence Detection and Open Window Detection. When using Absence Detection, your heater in-wall will sense when a room isn’t being used. With no one to feel the heater’s warmth, the unit gradually reduces the temperature to a lower setting. When it notices someone in the room again, it reacts and returns the room to its comfort setting.
When using the Open Window Detection feature, your electric heater will notice a sharp fall in room temperature – like a cool breeze from an open window – and automatically lower the temperature setting. Having your heater running at full strength with an open window could make it work extra hard – not the best strategy when you want efficient, cost-saving heat.
6) Track Your Electric Heater’s Efficiency
Seeing how much energy your electric heaters are using can help you see the savings on your heating bill, and the Opera series has a cool way to do that. Using the Consumption Scale built into your heater’s control panel, you can see your energy efficiency firsthand. If your Consumption Scale is running in the green zone, your heater is operating economically. If it’s in the red, it’s running less economically. If that’s the case, a simple adjustment to your heater’s programming is all you need to bring it, and your heating costs, back into the green