Don’t be fooled by convincing nonsense when it comes to energy efficiency. In the 1990s, I visited a man who was eager to show me a wonderful home heating system he’d installed in his house and was then acting as a retail distributor for.
“It warms things up by radiating energy to people, not the building,” he explained. It was about -20 C outside that day and, for whatever reason, the system was not radiating much energy to me. This guy’s house was as cold as a fridge. It was probably less than 10 C in there, though he didn’t seem to mind.
“The manufacturer says you’ve got to move around for this kind of radiant heat to have any effect on you. The more you move, the more radiant energy you attract,” he said, smiling as he paced back and forth in the living room, inviting me to do the same. “We’re hardly spending anything on heat this year and I’ve had all kinds of people come over to see how this thing works.”
I hope they all brought sweaters.
The snake oil industry is vibrant and vigorous in the 21st century, and it’s been given an especially strong new lease on life with our increasing interest in saving money on energy.
Growing interest
While some of these products are completely legitimate, a surprising number are not. And like all such swindles, today’s “green and efficient” schemes use the same tactics as such things always have. Present a few half-truths in the context of a technically complex situation, then pull the wool over people’s eyes just long enough to take their money.
But this doesn’t have to happen to you. Knowledge is the way you protect yourself. Grasp the basic facts of physics that I’ll share with you here and you’ll never fall victim to a sneaky sales pitch that promises energy savings that can never happen.
The truth about saving energy
The cost of heating your home depends on three things and three things only:
- How much heat escapes from your house
- How much you pay for the energy entering your home
- What portion of the energy you buy actually translates into warm air.
And of these three, the last one – generically called “efficiency” – is used most often to fool people. This is especially true when it comes to electric heaters.
One classic example of this shady business arrived in my workshop a few years ago. The press release and product packaging claimed that this particular new electric heater saves more than 70 per cent compared with conventional heaters.
Strictly speaking, this fact was true, or at least half true. Yes, the new heater did use substantially less power – 400 watts compared with 1,500 watts for standard heaters. But it also put out correspondingly less heat.
In fact, every single penny of electricity it did not consume was exactly proportional to the warm air it didn’t deliver compared with a conventional heater. And to understand why this is the case, you need to realize something unique about electric heat.
Efficiency cap
We’re so used to the idea of technical products becoming more efficient as time goes on that we tend to think that the possibility for efficiency gains exists across the board. It does not.
When it comes to electric heaters, there’s no room for efficiency gains because these devices are already 100-per-cent efficient. You can’t get better than 100 per cent.
Electric heaters have been doing this ever since they were invented. None are more efficient than any other, though claims to the contrary are widespread and often based on some bizarre technical fiction that sounds legitimate on the surface.
Weaving a lie
In the case of the miracle 400-watt heater, the manufacturer claimed that because it was wall-mounted, with a small space behind to allow air circulation, the unit made you feel as warm as all the other 1,500-watt electric heaters on the market. I only wish it were as easy to circumvent the immutable laws of physics as it is to weave a plausible-sounding lie.
Another slippery tactic is the old “cost per day” ploy. Just this past year I’ve seen two manufacturers use it to make you think that their heater is cheaper to operate than regular heaters.
“Costs less than 25 cents per hour to operate,” the headline screams. That sounds cheap, right? What they don’t tell you is that’s the same as the cost for running any kind of 1,500-watt heater. What they also don’t tell you is that the measly 25 cents per hour adds up to a whopping $180 a month for that one little heater alone.
Exceptions to the rule
The only exception to all this nonsense is radiant in-floor heating systems. They tend to make you feel somewhat warmer at a slightly lower room temperature because they keep your feet toasty. There are savings in that.
Electric heat pump technology is also a different story because heat pumps harvest ambient heat from the outdoors, rather than making heat from scratch with a high resistance circuit. But that’s yet another story.
Reducing household energy costs is very much like the rest of life. True success depends on tackling the boring basics.
Do you really want to reduce household heating costs? The best return on investment for most homes comes from adding insulation. Either that or pacing back and forth vigorously in your living room thinking warm, and hopeful, thoughts.
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