4 ms·

Space heater, 20 bucks. In the past I chose to heat the bedroom a little on cold days and otherwise suck it up and dress while shivering (no point burning a ton

by lucb1e 4y ago

Space heater, 20 bucks. In the past I chose to heat the bedroom a little on cold days and otherwise suck it up and dress while shivering (no point burning a ton of gas to heat an entire bedroom). Now, I use 1.5 kW for ~3 minutes (0.01 kWh) to have hot air be blown on me while getting dressed in the morning. Because it changes how warm I feel while going downstairs, I also don't need downstairs to be as warm to get warmed up again. I'm already warm and can sit in a normal temperature room to work. --- Air purifier (40 bucks on offer I think). We got it for unrelated reasons, it didn't help for that. Unexpected uses: 1. Neighbours' smoke occasionally comes into our apartment somehow and now I can do something about it. Before, I would just suck it up and try to convince myself that the little residue coming through whatever wall isn't going to impact my health. 2. This winter, people seem to like to heat the house with whatever old painted glued rotting wood they can find (or maybe also dead bodies, it's hard to tell). I can wait a few hours, but if it doesn't clear up and I want some fresh air before sleeping then what I do is open the bedroom window wide for a few minutes to replace the air, doors closed, then close window and turn on purifier on high for 30+ minutes, and then go back in there to sleep.

angry_moose 4y ago
I posted this separately, but look into a heated mattress pad too. Its life changing for cold climates. Direct heat into your covers makes it so much cozier.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  Heh, I'm the opposite. I want a mattress cooler. I stay up later than my wife and like to go to lay in a cool bed. She likes it warm. So we compromised and got a mattress warmer for her, and I have the heat set to drop by several degrees at like 11 PM. But then she gets up at like 7 AM (6 AM on workdays), and she'd be freezing, so I have the heat set to turn back up at 6 AM, which means if I wake up, I find myself roasting and can't get back to sleep.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    What's the temperature in your bedroom? You say "drop by several degrees" (but not from what to what) so it sounds like you heat there during the day and let it drop at 11PM?
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      I haven't checked the bedroom temp itself, but I do change the thermostat for the whole house from 71 degrees down to 68.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  Got something like that too! Not sure why I didn't mention it honestly. So in the morning I get out of bed and turn on the air heating so I get dressed in warmth; in the evening I turn on the heated blanket while brushing my teeth and warm up the bed and covers. Also allows me to leave the room colder while not being cold in bed for the first twenty minutes. I don't know the power draw while it warms up. The packaging says 100W but I measured it to actually use only ~30W, average during 1.5 hours. Maybe it does use 100W the first 5 minutes or so. Let's say it uses the full 100W for up to 15 minutes while I do my evening hygiene ritual as an upper bound, that would be 0.025 kWh (1 cent last year, 2 cents at current prices). Definitely recommendable.
dajonker 4y ago
Your math is off by a lot. 1.5 kW for 3 minutes is 0.075 kWh.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  > Your math is off by a lot. 1.5 kW for 3 minutes is 0.075 kWh Oh, you're right, I rounded the three quarter up to a one, but failed to remove the zero before it. Either way, it's a lot better than even just filling up the cold radiator with hot water, let alone it heating the rest of the room up!
lfodofod 4y ago
I took this even further, put air purifiers in most rooms and hooked them up to air quality sensors. Mostly they run on the very quiet setting (or not at all), but they’ll automatically spin up if someone cooks, farts, opens a window or hits a vape pen.
- fellowniusmonk 4y ago
  What sensors do you use? I have a bunch of air filters but just leave them running all the time.
  - lfodofod 4y ago
    I use airgradient sensors. On the other hand, instead of DIY you could just buy air purifier units with integrated air quality sensors. A friend of mine uses these, they appear to work very well https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/AC2936_33/2000i-series-air-purifier https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/AC2936_33/2000i-series-air-pur...
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      I got a Philips air purifier with such a sensor, it's a different one though (it's oval and just white at the sides). I would not recommend it purely because they decided to use an extremely poor touch interface for control which quiet often doesn't register when I try to manually adjust something like shutting the unit down temporarily or resetting an error code
      - lfodofod 4y ago
        Honestly, that still sounds like a minor inconvenience compared to DIY. Those things seem pretty set-and-forget beyond filter replacements.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Also don’t stress yourself out about air purifier quality. The only thing that matters is the disposable filter and the difference between cheap and expensive is how fast they can move air through it. They all reach the same destination. Buying a purifier that can fit standard sized “box” filters will save you $$ in the long run.
satvikpendem 4y ago
When I used to mine cryptocurrency, I ran the miners as my space heater too. Now with gaming PCs and GPUs pulling up to 1.5 kW as well, I just use my computer, running GPU tasks, plying games, etc, when I need some warmth. It works well and at least the miner and computer were doing useful work rather than simply shedding heat.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  > I just use my computer [...] when I need some warmth The difference is that the computer's fans don't blow directly at you and make you warm while leaving the room effectively unchanged as in my use-case. When heating up a room, regular natural gas central heating is usually a lot more efficient than electricity. A gas power plant creating electricity for you to turn back into heat is rather lossy. Heat pumps are different: they roughly break even if you have a 100% gas power mix, because they move heat at 300% efficiency instead of creating new heat.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    That's true but I still get useful work out of the electricity to heat conversion. For example I turned off my heater the other day and upscaled a bunch of media on my computer, my room was quite toasty.
    - lucb1e 4y ago
      Oh sure, when you're using waste heat that you would otherwise be venting or actively cooling then this is definitely better. The way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you'd find extra gpu tasks to turn on whenever the room gets cold that would otherwise not be done at all. In that case, on most grids it's unfortunately still better to burn gas directly.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> Space heater, 20 bucks. Which probably produced just as much heat as a $200 space heater. Technology Connections did a great video on that. https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM I used to occasionally run a space heater under my desk on low because my legs and feet would get cold. It felt nice and cozy, but eventually I just got used to putting on socks and pants.
henry_viii 4y ago
> Air purifier Bless you. Not only do my neighbors burn wood for heating but I also have to use an AC for heating. Totally forgot air purifiers existed.

by lucb1e 4y ago

angry_moose 4y ago

I posted this separately, but look into a heated mattress pad too. Its life changing for cold climates. Direct heat into your covers makes it so much cozier.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
Heh, I'm the opposite. I want a mattress cooler. I stay up later than my wife and like to go to lay in a cool bed. She likes it warm. So we compromised and got a mattress warmer for her, and I have the heat set to drop by several degrees at like 11 PM. But then she gets up at like 7 AM (6 AM on workdays), and she'd be freezing, so I have the heat set to turn back up at 6 AM, which means if I wake up, I find myself roasting and can't get back to sleep.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  What's the temperature in your bedroom? You say "drop by several degrees" (but not from what to what) so it sounds like you heat there during the day and let it drop at 11PM?
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    I haven't checked the bedroom temp itself, but I do change the thermostat for the whole house from 71 degrees down to 68.
lucb1e 4y ago
Got something like that too! Not sure why I didn't mention it honestly. So in the morning I get out of bed and turn on the air heating so I get dressed in warmth; in the evening I turn on the heated blanket while brushing my teeth and warm up the bed and covers. Also allows me to leave the room colder while not being cold in bed for the first twenty minutes. I don't know the power draw while it warms up. The packaging says 100W but I measured it to actually use only ~30W, average during 1.5 hours. Maybe it does use 100W the first 5 minutes or so. Let's say it uses the full 100W for up to 15 minutes while I do my evening hygiene ritual as an upper bound, that would be 0.025 kWh (1 cent last year, 2 cents at current prices). Definitely recommendable.

dajonker 4y ago

Your math is off by a lot. 1.5 kW for 3 minutes is 0.075 kWh.

lucb1e 4y ago
> Your math is off by a lot. 1.5 kW for 3 minutes is 0.075 kWh Oh, you're right, I rounded the three quarter up to a one, but failed to remove the zero before it. Either way, it's a lot better than even just filling up the cold radiator with hot water, let alone it heating the rest of the room up!

lfodofod 4y ago

I took this even further, put air purifiers in most rooms and hooked them up to air quality sensors. Mostly they run on the very quiet setting (or not at all), but they’ll automatically spin up if someone cooks, farts, opens a window or hits a vape pen.

fellowniusmonk 4y ago
What sensors do you use? I have a bunch of air filters but just leave them running all the time.
- lfodofod 4y ago
  I use airgradient sensors. On the other hand, instead of DIY you could just buy air purifier units with integrated air quality sensors. A friend of mine uses these, they appear to work very well https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/AC2936_33/2000i-series-air-purifier https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/AC2936_33/2000i-series-air-pur...
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    I got a Philips air purifier with such a sensor, it's a different one though (it's oval and just white at the sides). I would not recommend it purely because they decided to use an extremely poor touch interface for control which quiet often doesn't register when I try to manually adjust something like shutting the unit down temporarily or resetting an error code
    - lfodofod 4y ago
      Honestly, that still sounds like a minor inconvenience compared to DIY. Those things seem pretty set-and-forget beyond filter replacements.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Also don’t stress yourself out about air purifier quality. The only thing that matters is the disposable filter and the difference between cheap and expensive is how fast they can move air through it. They all reach the same destination. Buying a purifier that can fit standard sized “box” filters will save you $$ in the long run.

satvikpendem 4y ago

When I used to mine cryptocurrency, I ran the miners as my space heater too. Now with gaming PCs and GPUs pulling up to 1.5 kW as well, I just use my computer, running GPU tasks, plying games, etc, when I need some warmth. It works well and at least the miner and computer were doing useful work rather than simply shedding heat.

lucb1e 4y ago
> I just use my computer [...] when I need some warmth The difference is that the computer's fans don't blow directly at you and make you warm while leaving the room effectively unchanged as in my use-case. When heating up a room, regular natural gas central heating is usually a lot more efficient than electricity. A gas power plant creating electricity for you to turn back into heat is rather lossy. Heat pumps are different: they roughly break even if you have a 100% gas power mix, because they move heat at 300% efficiency instead of creating new heat.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  That's true but I still get useful work out of the electricity to heat conversion. For example I turned off my heater the other day and upscaled a bunch of media on my computer, my room was quite toasty.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    Oh sure, when you're using waste heat that you would otherwise be venting or actively cooling then this is definitely better. The way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you'd find extra gpu tasks to turn on whenever the room gets cold that would otherwise not be done at all. In that case, on most grids it's unfortunately still better to burn gas directly.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> Space heater, 20 bucks. Which probably produced just as much heat as a $200 space heater. Technology Connections did a great video on that. https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM I used to occasionally run a space heater under my desk on low because my legs and feet would get cold. It felt nice and cozy, but eventually I just got used to putting on socks and pants.

henry_viii 4y ago

> Air purifier Bless you. Not only do my neighbors burn wood for heating but I also have to use an AC for heating. Totally forgot air purifiers existed.