Cheapest way to heat garden office

MattMattMattUK

Miser1964 said:

Any chance of claiming back as a business expense?

Or get a high-end PC with gaming graphics card - they can easily pump out 200W, mostly as heat.

200w is low for a gaming PC, 500-700w is high end.

MattMattMattUK

wittynamegoeshere said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Miser1964 said:

Any chance of claiming back as a business expense?

Or get a high-end PC with gaming graphics card - they can easily pump out 200W, mostly as heat.

200w is low for a gaming PC, 500-700w is high end.

Neither would actually output that amount of heat, IF you were actually WORKING from home and not playing games all day.

It depends what work one was doing, my work can involve using Unreal, that will often max the CUP and put a heavy load on the GPU, video editing (particularly encoding) can regularly cause high load as well.

wittynamegoeshere said:

Both would be less efficient than an electric heater, as some energy would be lost as sound and light.

Desktop PCs are very efficient heaters, a small amount is lost as light and sound, but the vast majority of that will also end up as heat, although a small amount may escape the building.

mcn99

I have been working from my garden cabin for about 7 years now. I did use a high power fan heater at first, but had to stop using it as it was blowing the fuse and using way too much power.

So now i have a large electric heater under my desk, and wear a fleece, as long as i keep legs and hands warm im ok.

Saying that, i abandoned the shed in December, and moved to using house until April. This was just to save money as my house was being heated anyway.

I would never have a log burner in the shed, not because of safety, just because of the mess and phaff factor. I have 2 in the house, the ash gets everywhere eventually.

MattMattMattUK

wittynamegoeshere said:

MattMattMattUK said:

It depends what work one was doing, my work can involve using Unreal, that will often max the CUP and put a heavy load on the GPU, video editing (particularly encoding) can regularly cause high load as well.

Fair enough, but for most types of office work the CPU and GPU would be pretty much off.

My (massive overkill for what I need) Core i9 is currently doing approximately nothing, I've set the fan to be completely off if below whatever temperature and it only switches on if it's a warm day and I'm batch-processing photos.  Fanless PCs are a revelation.  No HDD either, utterly silent.  The top of the case is not quite cold, just an inkling of heat.

My PC certainly would not be happy fanless, my laptop which I do more normal work on (connected to a monitor) rarely kicks the fan in even when using graphics software, but with the desktop I have just learned to zone out the fan noise, though I did go with lots of large diameter fans so there is really good airflow which means that they can run slower, though the fan on the AIO water cooler is the one that runs the fastest. If you have seen the confirmed power draw on the new RTX 4090 that is going to get really hot, 450w on the reference board, partner boards are likely to hit 550w which is insane, I will likely not be upgrading for a while, but it might end up being worth it for Unreal development stuff next year. 

in_my_bumble_opinion

If you go electric, start low and work your way up to see when it becomes comfortable.

You can start with getting one of those greenhouse/attic convector heaters. They usually have a max setting of 500W.....so 17p/hour at the new cap. If that is not comfortable (and you may be surprised to find it is), either add in an electric blanket (100W) or switch to a convector heater that has a 700W/1500W/2000W switch so you can try 700W and dial it up only if really needed.

united4ever

QrizB said:

xeny said:

I'm looking with interest at the idea of a heated desk pad to keep my fingers warm.

Last winter I used a heated seat pad when WFH. It worked really well for me.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78949830/#Comment_78949830

If I end up WFH this winter I'll do something similar again.

Thanks. The link didn't work but I like the idea. Was looking at this which is more of a heated fleece top:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B08FXJFT6G/ref=sspa_mw_detail_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3UQXMMCBICMT9&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWwy

Also considering a more traditional heated blanket that I could wear around me.

Dunno about the validity but the reviews talk about 19p per day but that is probably written before inflation went nuts.

easy

Get a dog. My lad sits on my lap, or on my feet, keeps me toasty warm, and ensures I get up to move about every hour or so to let him out for a wee or chuck his toy a few times to relieve his boredom. 

Alnat1

But the dog wants feeding and that's a bigger expense than buying that new heated blanket (I type with cat on my lap and dog cosied up by my side)

I've asked my kids for the heated blanket as a birthday present next month 

SAC2334

Halogen heater with 3 settings, 400w/800/1200 w. From around £20 new. I used one of these for my main heat source in a terraced house for approx. 16 years .The tubes don t last too long but some Halogen heaters you can replace the tubes. If you only have it on the 400 watt setting there are two more to use anyway
They heat the person better than than they heat the room, or shed, so if you sit close to it  they are ideal . Most days you will get away with the 400 w setting and the  800 w setting is overkill. 
On the EPG rates in my region the 400 w setting would cost me 13.2 pence an hour , 7 hours would cost 93 p .. This is at the 33 p a kwh rates for Yorkshire region  .
Today at my local boot sale I dropped on a brand new one for £5 which I will use myself to try and avoid switching on my gas central heating until December .
Fan heaters are better at spreading the heat around but very annoying , and the fan costs extra  to run .

michaels

Perhaps you bought a portable AC unit during the heatwave.  if you have somewhere undercover outside the home office you could stick it there with the vent house directed inside rather than outside and hopefully benefit from the higher efficiency compared to resistive heating....