Heating miracle?

[thomasortega]

Folks, finally the summer is gone here in South America. It's fall, days are very comfortable with temperatures between 32C and 28C and the nights are much colder, with temperatures between 10 and 20C.

As I'm used to keep the temperature in my apartment at exact 23C, it's time to turn on the heat. Well, here I have a window type air conditioner on each bedroom and the living room plus a hi wall split type A/C in the kitchen. turning them on on heat would cost me a fortune so i decided to try something different.

I got a Delonghi Verticale Young fan type heater. I'm impressed! It's supposed to be one of those tiny bathroom heaters with a 2 blade fan and two coils. 1500W, I wouldn't expect too much from it. It's not even ceramic. Probably the cheapest crappy heater one could buy (and yes, it was the cheapest).

 I don't know how to explain but, that tiny thing is enough to heat the whole apartment. Right now it's on the living room. The temperature outside is 16C and it's keeping the whole apartment at 24C.

In theory, it's almost like using a mini Bic lighter to heat an olimpic swimming pool but, somehow it's happening!  

Can someone please explain? 

 

[arbilab]

Here's another of those little 1500/1250W coil/fan heaters. It's as small as it looks, pretty much a paperback book. I bought this one for a winter in San Jose CA where the bathroom had no heater. That was in 1988, still works like new. I only use the low setting where the coils are in series (high is parallel like a GE calrod stove). Unlike ceramic or oil/fin heaters, these project heat instantly. Ceramic/oil, by the time it gets hot bathtime is over. Maybe that's why the fan/coil design feels so much more effective with the exact same wattage than ceramic/oil.

 

[davetranter]

'Explain'

You are doing much the same as I do each winter. The heater isn't 'heating' the apartment so much as just 'not letting it cool down'. By not letting the fabric of the building cool down initially, the temperature can be (fairly) cheaply maintained.

Think of the gas required to simmer a pan, as opposed to bringing cold water to the boil. The 'Bic lighter' analogy isn't so far wrong....

Enjoy

Dave T

 

[tomturbomatic]

I expect that as the sun sinks closer to the horizon resulting in less solar heat gain and the building cools from the outside in, you will need more heat. Having said that, when I had a total electric townhouse, I found that if I kept it at a steady temperature, it was easier to maintain comfort in all of the rooms with the through the wall heat pump downstairs. In the morings, I used the kick space heater under the vanity to warm the bathroom during showering, but most of the time, the place did not need extra heat from the baseboard units in the bedrooms.

One thing you have to consider with heating and cooling is keeping the furnishings and interior walls at the temperature you want. If you maintain that temperature in the tons of furnishings and structural materials, they serve as a heat sink and help maintain the air temperature so don't let things cool down or heat up out of the range of the temperature you wish to maintain. [this post was last edited: 5/2/2014-07:35]

 

[thomasortega]

That's interesting Tomturbomatic... I never paid atention to that very important detail.

Luckily our "winter" lasts only a few days. But one thing I've been doing my whole live is turn on the A/C units to heat only when I'm home. It takes about 10 minutes to reach a comfortable temperature then I tend to start turning them off sequentially until all the units are off except the living room unit. Thats enough to keep the whole apartment a little hotter than the usual comfort zone. Sometimes I even use a desktop fan only to mix the air evenly among the other rooms.

This will be the first year that I'll use this tiny bathroom heater and I'm almost sure it will be enough to hold the temperature after I preheat the whole apartment using the A/Cs.

 

Now I just need to wait for the winter to test it.

 

 

[jerrod6]

Tom. Do you think your post about maintaining a constant temperature flies in the face of the DOE with their Energy Star program recommending lowering the temperature at night to save energy?

I have a thought, but want to hear what you think first.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Sorry to keep you waiting

Jerrod, just between you, me and the gate post, I have not seen much out of the DOE that really makes sense. I don't honestly know if DOE has considered the thermal inertia of a dwelling or its contents. I was just saying what I did with a heat pump and they do advise heat pump owners not to practice the setbacks that could lead to causing the heat pump to use strip heat to raise the temperature more than two degrees above the temperature in the dwelling. By keeping the townhouse at a steady 70 degrees much of the winter, it could be done with the reverse cycle heating of the heat pump. If I turned it off or set the temperature cooler while I was at work, I would not have been able to take advantage of the warmer outside temperatures during the day when it was easier to pull heat out of the warmer outside air and into my house. At night, when the temperatures outside fell, the house and its contents were thoroughly warm and helped keep the temperature inside close to 70F without resorting to strip heat as early in the night as it might have if the house was allowed to cool down while I was not there. The alternative to the heat pump was the not so efficient resistance electric baseboard heat and, even when the heat pump was using resistance heat, there was a fan to move the heated air into the room, unlike the baseboard which relied on convection and did a good job of warming the walls where the heat could leak outside before warming the house. I do not lower the heat at night because if I sleep in a chilly room under heavy covers, I sweat.

In my current house, I have gas heat and I do lower the thermostat setting in the main structure by 4 degrees before leaving the house in the morning for work. The hydronic system in the glass room is separately controlled.

 

[volsboy1]

Tom is right my Brother works for the D.O.E like half my family for some reason,setting it back don't help cause.For folks that have Heat Pumps it causes your AUX heat to come on.Which is always $$$$$..

 

Thomas I have no idea how you afford to live in Brazil at all.

 

[thomasortega]

Wes

I also have no idea how I afford to live in Brazil. (It could sound funny but...)

I simply work... work, work, and work a little bit more. 
When it's time to rest, I work.

Luckily, i had a very good education, a wonderful professional carreer and I always knew how to manage money really well.

Here in Brazil, considering the economics, I'm considered rich because i can have several comfort items and make things that lots of people couldn't afford. Being sarcastic to explain the situation, in my kitchen i have a luxurious machine that washes the dishes and there's another machine on the sink that allows me to flush the organic waste like magic and look, i even have an impressive machine that dries the clothes exactly like those seen on hollywood movies.

In the US, all the "luxury" i have is absolutely no more than what an average middle class person could afford.

Dangers are everywhere in the world, I'm not ingenuous to believe that nothing can happen with me in L.A. but, i'm preety sure I won't be scared to death if I have to walk on the street wearing an Albercrombie T-shirt. Here, the cheapest t-shirts from this brand cost more than 500 dollars and the brand is considered a simbol of status. I don't want to end up with a bullet in my head only because someone tried to steal my T-shirt.

 

[thomasortega]

And yes, heating the whole apartment is considered a luxury and a waste of money here in Brazil.
People use space heaters in the winter, usually those portable oil filled radiators only to heat the bedroom for a few hours every night. No more than that because electricity is too expensive.

 

Instead, people wear several layers of heavy clothes and sleep under a huge pile of blankets. Did I mention before the jackass people that cut a soda can in half and fill it with alcohol and light it to heat the bathroom during the winter or take the mattress to the kitchen and turn on the gas oven and leave it's door open? Oh, and there's the refrigerator external heat exchanger clothes dryer and the "kettle" clothes iron to iron sheets and towels.
The "solutions" people create to deal with the high cost of electricity are scary. 

Anyway, the nights are a little warmer now and very comfortable. The weather is great. Now it's almost 2am here and I'm in my bedroom with the window open.... No electricity being used at all. i'm using the space heater as a fan (heating coils are off) only to make a light breeze.