Energy efficient heaters - advice sought

uganda

Hi everyone,

I am starting to work from home and will be working from my loft. My house (rented) is centrally heated, but the loft is not.

So I need to buy a heater. Obviously I don't want to fork out lots for one, but am prepared to pay that bit extra if it is energy-efficient. I do not fancy running up regular large bills for leccy or gas and I know many heaters absolutely devour energy.

Can anyone advise me what sort of heater I am best off getting? I am guessing an electric one will be safer, I certainly don't fancy the idea of gas or flames up in the attic. But are there ones that won't cost me a fortune to have on the whole working day?

Many thanks for any suggestions....

Cardew

You can buy an electrical fan heater for £10 of an oil filled radiator for about £20.

However they are not economical to run, neither is any other electrical heater as they all have EXACTLY the same efficiency.

Pincher

Ideally, you want to have 100mm of Kingspan or 200mm of rockwool in the rafters. Insulation, that is. If all you have is a plaster board with a void between that and the tiles, you'll need a space suit to survive up there.

With good insulation, you can keep the hatch/door open, and let the rising heat keep you warm. Use non-energy saving light bulbs, so you get the heat as well as the light. If you are lucky, the monitor, PC, printer etc.will get you close to comfortable. Finally, a floor fan heater under the desk will create a cosy zone.

Efficiency
=======

Move over Cardew, 100% efficient is nothing.
It takes a Financial Engineer familiar with leveraged investments to achieve better than 100% efficiency.

If you can isolate the energy usage for the home office, using an energy monitor for example, you can claim business expense tax deduction. If you can get 20% tax deduction, it means you are paying £80 for £100 worth of electricity.

£20 / £80 = 25% => 125% Efficiency


Interstellar travel can only be attained by better than 100% efficient engines. What we do is to "borrow" against the gravity well of the sun. So line up your space ship towards Alpha Proxima,
with the sun behind you. Create a temporary spatial discontinuity, so that the fabric of space bounces back from the gravity well shape, and your space ship is whipped outwards like a sling.
Unfortunately, the fabric of space is all messed up, so it really should be a propulsion of last resort, when the sun is dying on us, and we have to get away quick.

If you imagine hedge fund managers selling shares in the space ship, putting all the goodies from Earth onboard, and then they board the ship, fire the discontinuity drive, and shoots off to a nice planet called Alpha Bahamas, leaving the rest of us to cope with the Credit Crunch spatial/financial anomalies, that's pretty much the mess we are in right now.

amtrakuk

Some good ideas above if you live in a modern house where insulation is easy to do. I live in a 1900s house so insulating is a big job (taking down the old plasterboard, installing insulating, fitting new plaster board, making good and decorating)...

As Cardew says, the heating itself is 100% efficient be it convector, oil/clay filled radiator. Just make sure you get a heater with a thermostat and ideally with a timer so you don't forget to switch it off...