Home is dual fuel heat pump/natural gas furnace, natural gas kicks in when temperature outside is below 40

>home is dual fuel heat pump/natural gas furnace, natural gas kicks in when temperature outside is below 40
>overall electricity/gas bills breddy low
>think I can do better by keeping the house in the low 50's, just enough to keep pipes from freezing and condensation out
>use a small space heater to heat ONLY my small battlestation to a cozy temp
>overall utility bills skyrocket following month despite the previous month being just slightly warmer

Is there something just totally wrong here or can it really cost less to keep the entire house warm? How can a space heater be that inefficient compared to big furnace? My battlestation is small and I just keep it on the low setting all the time which uses 800 watts according to my kill-a-watt.

BTW mods fuck off, HVAC is technology.

bump

The furnace isn't on all the time, it turns itself off. That's my guess at least.

Ground source heat pump exchangers provide free heating / cooling after the initial investment.

That's bullshit. You need energy to run the compressor.

if you are on the east coast then heat pumps are totally fucking worthless

i have a similar system: heat pump with oil forced air

the previous owners removed a boiler and radiators for this shit system so they could put air conditioning, and they put the WRONG kind of air conditioning (should have been high velocity but they did regular, cut beams in the basement and there are huge sags in the floor)

does it save money when oil costs a lot? yes

does it suck as a heat source? YES

ID RATHER PAY THE MONEY FOR OIL THAN DIE FREEZING.

Regarding your space heater - does the space heater have multiple wattage settings? if so, set it on the lower wattage setting ~only~ and see if that helps consumption.

Converting electricity to heat is very expensive

I didn't say "free energy". Running the compressor would be 2-5% of your fuel bill.

Burning gas is a real nice way to heat shit
The big ass furnace is also a lot more effective at doing everything than some rinky dink space heater

> not using older battlestations as space heaters

>Is there something just totally wrong here or can it really cost less to keep the entire house warm? How can a space heater be that inefficient compared to big furnace?
you get a fuckton of heat from burning fuel. Electricity is several times as expensive, watt-for-watt.

Problem is it's all inefficient because houses are built like shit with no insulation.

If a house is spray foamed you could heat it with a candle and cool it with an ice cube. Problem is builders are cheap cunts and don't like to spend money on the mechanical end which is impossible to redo without tearing all your dry wall off.

Even faggots building their own homes won't bat an eye when they get a quote for a 50k kitchen but when you tell them it's 25k to inuslate their entire house they look at you like you raped their sister and killed their mother.

People are retarded...would rather pay the electric/gas company their entire lives instead of putting the money in their own pockets.

Gas is a shitload more efficient than electricity for heating. A small space heater uses 1500w, which comes to 15kwh/day if you run it for 10 hours (you're probably running it longer than that). If you have cheap electricity ($0.10/kwh) that comes to $45.38/mo just for that heater.

>not just turning the heat on when you need it

actually it's a heat pump that's more efficient than anything. A heat pump moves 3 watts of heat from the outside to the indoors for every watt it uses in operation.

Heat pumps are only more efficient when connected to geothermal loops.

To expand, a gas furnace can only make 90% of the fuel energy into useful heating.

For most people this means that it costs less to run a heat pump than it does to burn gas.

>not using mining GPU to pay your bills

it's like free money. Even with the current correction I am still at 4:1 earnings to electric costs.

icf house reporting in. currently use wood burning stoves and two fireplaces to heat the house, generally just have to burn for a few hours at night and it stays warm all day. in the summer, we run the ac but bill is always under $120. once you get over the odd deep doors and windows im totally love icf over my old shitty wood frame house

Why is there a piece of mega-bacon at letter E?

>>overall electricity/gas bills breddy low
>>think I can do better by keeping the house in the low 50's, just enough to keep pipes from freezing and condensation out
>>use a small space heater to heat ONLY my small battlestation to a cozy temp
>>overall utility bills skyrocket following month despite the previous mo

The unusual thermals are grounds enough in burgerland for the police to obtain warrants and kick your door in at 3am and then proceed to look though all of your private materials and porn.
In burgerland, even having a shitty insulation job, or parts of your house uninsulated is enough to have you labeled as a potential drug grower

Yes, OP.

Since you turned the heater off, the whole house cooled losing whats called "thermal mass"

Since the house itself is cold, your shitty 1000 watt space heater has to fight the cold air and the cold room.

TLDR: Its cheaper to keep the house warm because it then stays warm and the furnace only needs to work part time at night when its coolest.

I should add, if the last month was december, its possible that you just finally got a non-estimated reading from your utility company.

Often they bill you on what they think you use, then once a year they read the meter and either credit you the difference or bill you more.

You can get excellent gas space heaters with oxygen depletion sensor shutoff. I wouldn't buy an electric heater because they are useless in a power outage.

This. Insulation and conservation generally is your most efficient way to save money. Use programmable thermostat; I set mine to return to 50 F every few hours so that I have to go turn up the heat if I want it. Open blinds on south facing windows. Put heavy curtains/saran wrap on north windows. Electrical resistance heating is very expensive.

just move to appartment you filthy housefags

What is ICF?

small space headers are terrible

insulation is best if you don't have to rip half the house apart to install it

they're expensive tho

Apartments are fucking disgusting, I can't wait to move out of the city

Insulated concrete form

It's the previous gen building material. Next gen is SIPS.

But how much more do they cost?

>outer load bearing wood skin is damaged by moisture/termites
>entire structure is compromised
Nah you need redundancies

I wouldnt buy that shit unless it had redundant oxygen shut off things and run it in combination with a standalone detectors for carbon monoxide, oxygen, and whatever else.
that shit is super sketchy to sleep with.

That small heater effectively heats the whole house, because the room your in leaks heat to all the others.

Any unprotected wood can damaged by moisture or termites. I recommend Aluminum Siding.

You own a home? Holy shit rich bitch

this tbqh

depends on where you live: 10 years rent of an apartment in an expensive city can often pay for a nice house in rural areas

Tfw my home office and bedroom stay very warm thanks to crypto mining and I keep the thermostat at 57 degrees F.

bruh everyone and their grandma owns a home unless you're a poorfag american

You live with your parents

This, my old phenom ii & gtx460 system keep it at least 60 degrees