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Where is the wasted energy lost to? If it is lost to heat and you have electric heating in your house, would that lead to a correspondingly lowered heating bill

by bemmu 17y ago

Where is the wasted energy lost to? If it is lost to heat and you have electric heating in your house, would that lead to a correspondingly lowered heating bill?

ovi256 17y ago
Short answer : yes! Long answer : in a certain limited case, it could be different. Maybe you are using your PC mostly during the day, and your house is badly insulated so most of the heat from the PC is lost. At night, you turn on the heating. Using the PC during the day has no influence on the amount of heating in this case.
bjelkeman-again 17y ago
Yes, but you really don't want to heat your house or your hot water with straight electric radiators or water heaters. Use a heat pump. A heat pump will give you a 30-40% lower electricity bill. I have a heat pump which takes heat from the ground (two boreholes) and for every 1kWh of electricity I put into it I get 2.5-3 kWh equivalent of heating in my house. This is essentially stored solar heat in the ground which I use the heat pump to transfer into my house. The electricity comes from regional hydropower. With electricity usage for heating without the heatpump of roughly 50,000 kWh and an electric price of about 15 US cent for the kWh, this knocks off a significant piece of the electricity bill, down to about 18,000 kWh and gives lower environmental impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pumps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pu... Also, reversely, if you are in a warm climate your aircon will have to take all that extra heat from your computer and push it out of the house, with a corresponding loss in efficiency.
- gonzo 17y ago
  I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV. So was my father. His father started a water well drilling business in 1953, my father joined him in that business (post collage) in 1957. In 1980, my father decided to build a house. We (meaning I) was sent to the property in order to drill two 800 foot deep 'wells', which were subsequently cased with 8" (ID) steel pipe, but not perforated. (There was a 1/2" plate on the bottom of the casing.) After this, we filled the casing with water. (A fine test of one's skill at welding.) Then added a 2" galvanized "loop" inside the casing, which was then hooked in to a heat pump. It was the single-most efficient "single family residence" HVAC system in the state. We subsequently added hot-water recapture to the indoor AC units, in order to make the most of the heat "pulled" out of the house. Dad also built the house with R-44 insulation in the walls, R-60 or so in the attic, and a white 'Spanish tile' roof. The result, a power bill of around $100/mo for a 5000 sq ft home in the desert that was numbingly cold in the summer, and pleasantly warm in the winter. (It does get cold in LV.) It helped that 40% of the square footage was basement (something else nobody in Las Vegas has, because it turns hard about 4 feet down.)
rm-rf 17y ago
On the other hand, if you are running air conditioning, you'll have to pay once to generate the heat (the computer), and pay again to extract the heat from the house (air conditioning).

by bemmu 17y ago

Where is the wasted energy lost to? If it is lost to heat and you have electric heating in your house, would that lead to a correspondingly lowered heating bill?

ovi256 17y ago

Short answer : yes! Long answer : in a certain limited case, it could be different. Maybe you are using your PC mostly during the day, and your house is badly insulated so most of the heat from the PC is lost. At night, you turn on the heating. Using the PC during the day has no influence on the amount of heating in this case.

bjelkeman-again 17y ago

Yes, but you really don't want to heat your house or your hot water with straight electric radiators or water heaters. Use a heat pump. A heat pump will give you a 30-40% lower electricity bill. I have a heat pump which takes heat from the ground (two boreholes) and for every 1kWh of electricity I put into it I get 2.5-3 kWh equivalent of heating in my house. This is essentially stored solar heat in the ground which I use the heat pump to transfer into my house. The electricity comes from regional hydropower. With electricity usage for heating without the heatpump of roughly 50,000 kWh and an electric price of about 15 US cent for the kWh, this knocks off a significant piece of the electricity bill, down to about 18,000 kWh and gives lower environmental impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pumps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pu... Also, reversely, if you are in a warm climate your aircon will have to take all that extra heat from your computer and push it out of the house, with a corresponding loss in efficiency.

gonzo 17y ago
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV. So was my father. His father started a water well drilling business in 1953, my father joined him in that business (post collage) in 1957. In 1980, my father decided to build a house. We (meaning I) was sent to the property in order to drill two 800 foot deep 'wells', which were subsequently cased with 8" (ID) steel pipe, but not perforated. (There was a 1/2" plate on the bottom of the casing.) After this, we filled the casing with water. (A fine test of one's skill at welding.) Then added a 2" galvanized "loop" inside the casing, which was then hooked in to a heat pump. It was the single-most efficient "single family residence" HVAC system in the state. We subsequently added hot-water recapture to the indoor AC units, in order to make the most of the heat "pulled" out of the house. Dad also built the house with R-44 insulation in the walls, R-60 or so in the attic, and a white 'Spanish tile' roof. The result, a power bill of around $100/mo for a 5000 sq ft home in the desert that was numbingly cold in the summer, and pleasantly warm in the winter. (It does get cold in LV.) It helped that 40% of the square footage was basement (something else nobody in Las Vegas has, because it turns hard about 4 feet down.)

rm-rf 17y ago

On the other hand, if you are running air conditioning, you'll have to pay once to generate the heat (the computer), and pay again to extract the heat from the house (air conditioning).