A small space heater allows you to thoroughly heat a space, and the objects in it, with ease. You will, by reading this guide, learn how much electricity a small space heater uses, and how to reduce this electricity usage.
What Is A Small Space Heater?
A space heater is a heater that’s used to heat up small and medium-sized spaces. Rather than being large and cumbersome, space heaters tend to be light and portable. Given this fact, a small space heater is a device specifically used to heat small spaces. Just like a regular space heater, a small space heater is portable. This makes it easy for you to bring the heater into other small spaces.
What Can You Do With A Small Space Heater?
Small space heaters offer anywhere from 200 to 600 watts of power. You can use this power to thoroughly heat a space that is around 50 square-feet. One of the most common uses we see nowadays are within the gaming industry, where players who want to keep hands warm while gaming usually employ small heaters around their station. Heating larger spaces, while possible, can be challenging.
Some examples of spaces that are within the 50 square-feet range include:
- A Personal Office
- Bathroom
- Small Bedroom
- Studio Apartment Living Room
- Dedicated gaming room
Each one of these spaces can be thoroughly heated with a small space heater.
How Does A Space Heater Work?
Right before we dive into this question, there are two primary types of space heaters to be aware of. The two types of space heater are:
You can use an infrared space heater to heat objects – a bed or desk, for example – as well as people, such as yourself. But, you can’t use an infrared heater to heat every inch of a space. You can use a convection space heater to heat the air within this space. This allows every inch within a space to receive this heat and to, in turn, warm up considerably. No matter the space heater you choose, you will have access to several heat settings. Each one of these settings determines the number of watts the heater is using and the heat it produces.
Selecting a higher heat setting will use more watts and, in turn, more electricity. Selecting a lower heat setting will use fewer watts and, as you might expect, less electricity.
How Much Electricity Does A Small Space Heater Use?
Small space heaters tend to offer around 200 to 600 watts of electricity. You can select a particular heat setting and, in doing so, determine the number of watts the heater uses per-hour.
Just as an example, let’s say you turn your small space heater to 600 watts. Doing so means that your space heater will use 600 watts of electricity, every single hour it is running.
Since electric companies charge by kilowatts, and since 1000 watts is 1 kilowatt, we can turn that 600 watts into 0.6-kilowatts. Let’s say you run your small space heater at 600 watts, for 50 hours, throughout the month. You can multiply 0.6 kilowatts by 50, which is 30 kilowatts. Right after doing so, you can take your electric rate and find out how much 1 kilowatt costs. You can then multiply that cost by the number of kilowatts your small space heater has consumed.
What Is The Best Way To Reduce The Cost Of Running A Small Space Heater?
To reduce the cost of running a small space heater, you can:
- Purchase A Space Heater With Energy-Efficient Features
- Wear Warm, Cozy Clothing
- Make Use Of The 10W-Per-Square-Foot Principle
The last one is the most useful.
Every square-foot, within a space, equates to roughly 10 watts of power.
Since this is the case, if your bedroom is 40 square-feet, you can set your space heater to 400 watts. By doing so, you will be able to heat the objects within the space/the space in its entirety.
Or, like Linus, just build a dedicated gaming PC that can act as a heater, that is also a solution:
Conclusion
No matter the small space heater you use, as long as you select the appropriate wattage and take electricity-reducing measures, your electricity bill will remain low.
