No heat source at all
by Scharlene
(Gainesville Texas)
I live in North Central Texas, in a rental house. The house has NO heat source! We are expecting our third grandchild in September, and will need the most efficient economical heat source.
The landlord said we could do no modifications to the house, there is only electricity, no gas.
Pier and beam house, original wood floors, built around 1925, so probably little insulation. I am not sure about the electrical wiring but there is a newer electric breaker box outside.
We would move but there is no money for that.
In this part of Texas the weather can be radical in its cold and heat temperatures.
We now use small electric heaters, I have had them on in the living room and kitchen only, for four hours and its only 62F with the outside temperature of 52F. Most days it is colder in the house than outside.
We will be getting our income refund soon and would like to know what to buy.
Thank you for your time and advice.
Answer from Green Energy Efficient Homes
It sounds to me like you have limited options to solve your heating problem. There are two things I recommend you consider.Insulation and sealing
First you want to cut down on heat losses as much as possible. Obviously since this is a rental you can't actually add insulation to the walls or roof of the house. But you can tackle the windows.Much of the heat in a house is lost through inefficient windows. Even the best energy efficient windows have an insulation R value of only about R-5, while insulated 4" stud walls have an R value of R-12 to R-15. You can boost your window energy efficiency in the following ways:
1. Make sure the edges of the window frame are properly sealed. If you can feel any air movement around these areas you have drafts coming in from outside. Buy some caulking and caulk around the window frame.
2. You can add a layer of insulation to your windows, and reduce air leakage, using plastic window kits, where you tape a sheet of special plastic over the window frame on the inside, then blow-dry it until it becomes flat and smooth (and virtually invisible). I did this on a rental house in Ohio decades ago, and it really paid off in terms of home comfort.
3. You can reduce heat loss in winter, and heat gain in summer, using better energy saving window coverings. Curtains, blinds or shades can add an extra layer of insulation, and they will also cut down on convection currents that draw warm air towards the glass and then cool it.
Heating
As I say in my main article on energy efficient electric heaters, all electric resistance heaters such as the ones you are using, operate at exactly the same efficiencly level, because of the second law of thermodynamics.
Therefore it shouldn't really matter what kind of electric heaters you buy with your income tax refund. Since you can't change the wiring in the house you should probably stick to heaters rated at 1500 watts or less, and 110 volts (they should be fine on a 15 amp or higher circuit). But by the sound of things you will need a fair number of such heaters to warm the place up on cold days.
Your other alternative is to buy a window air conditioner that is also a heat pump. Heat pumps can produce more heat per unit of electricity used than a regular electric heater, because heat pumps use electricity to move heat from outside to inside. A good whole house heat pump can actually provide up to 4 units of heat energy per unit of electrical energy consumed.
Heat pumps work most effectively when the outdoor to indoor temperature spread is small. The colder it is outside the less efficient they are. For an outdoor temperature of 52F you are in an ideal climate for a heat pump. If it drops below about 40F a heat pump starts to become less efficient than standard electrical heating.
There are a few window air conditioners and portable air conditioners that also come with a heat pump; I've included a couple from Amazon here. I recommend you buy one of these for the main living area of your house. Not only should this cut down on your heating costs (because as mentioned, heat pumps produce more heat per unit of input electricity than an electric heater), but since you mentioned that it gets hot in your area in summer, the air conditioner will help keep you cool.
The last thing to bear in mind: if you do decide to move, make sure you take a good hard look at any new prospective property with heating and cooling costs in mind. That includes thinking about who pays what part of the heating and cooling bill. I think it works best if landlord and tenant share heating and cooling costs 50/50, because that creates an incentive for the landlord to upgrade the insulation of a rental unit, and an incentive for the tenant to not overheat or overcool the rental unit. There are way too many landlords who take no responsibility for the efficiency of the houses or apartments they rent out, simply because they can get away with it. If more tenants were aware, before they signed a lease, of how much they would have to spend heating and cooling their rental, this would drive the price of poorly insulated rental homes down and make well insulated rentals more popular, which in turn would make landlords more motivated to upgrade the efficiency of their units.
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