Bargain Electric Fireplace!
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Bring on the cold weather. The office here at Ranchero Indebto has a brand-new bargain-priced electric fireplace! How the heck did that happen, you ask? I never thought I’d own an electric fireplace … they’re tacky, or so I thought. Lo and behold, my search for a suitable space heater ended the minute we saw this charming little oak beauty on sale for half price at Lowes.
I’ve been freezing my tail off in our home office for years. We’ve been lucky this winter but it was only a matter of time until the crazy warm weather ended. Our twenty-year-old oil filled portable radiator never really warmed the room up. If I had a dollar for every time I defrosted my hands over the computer monitors, I’d be able to take the rest of the month off and head up to Killington.
While I’d still like to spend the rest of the month in Vermont, our new electric fireplace has banished the cold from the office air. (I gave serious thought to ordering a USB-heated mouse, but I didn’t think it would add much to the ambiance of the office … even though the yellow model might go nicely with our exercise ball/chair.)
The unusually warm winter here on the east coast has been kind to our heating oil bills. It’s also left scores of electric fireplaces and snow throwers collecting dust at home centers and hardware stores. The half-price deal we scored on our little electric fireplace was too good to pass up.
We’ll see what the electric fireplace does to our electric bill next month. In the meantime, I’m going to plug it into the watt hour meter to get an idea of how much juice it consumes …
[tags]electric fireplace, space heater[/tags]
4 Comments
Tim Hodkinson
January 18th, 2007
at 8:05pm
Electric heat? Are you nuts? Get a contractor to fix your central heating system or add insulation or something like that. Electric heat might seem convenient right now, but you’re going to pay a bundle for it. I’d suggest a wood stove. I thought everyone in Vermont had a woodstove…
Dan Gray
January 19th, 2007
at 8:00am
Yep, I’m nuts! :) But it’s not as bad as you might think …
The central heating system is forced air, fed by an oil-fired hot water boiler - a bit of a hybrid. There are two vents in the room, but they do not deliver enough BTUs on cold days. It’s impractical to add more vents. I shut the central system down to 60 degrees during the work week (with a programmable thermostat) when everyone’s out of the house, except for yours truly.
I fully considered a woodstove, but it would be a considerable expense and not worth the hassle for the limited use. If the office was more centrally located within the main structure of the house, a wood stove would have been much more practical and cost-effective.
The office is passively solar heated on sunny days (like today) with 50% south and west-facing glass. The electric fireplace will only be used on overcast days, when I’m working at night, and briefly on cold mornings — fairly limited usage, overall.
Special me
August 5th, 2007
at 3:31am
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Alternative Space Heaters ~ Technobabble
May 21st, 2008
at 8:14pm
[...] my long-running obsession with space heaters over the years and my decision to purchase the bargain electric fireplace (that turned out not to be a bargain in the long [...]