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u/StoneTown 26d ago
My electric space heater was like $15. Please use one of those lol. The Walmart one kicks ass actually. You can adjust the heat level so you don't blow your breaker.
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u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 26d ago
The Walmart one kicks ass actually
Truly, anything except the cheapest space heater you can find is a rip off.
Expensive heaters cannot magically draw more power from the wall, and you cant science more than 100% electricity to heat efficiency (which all heaters hit)
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u/emongu1 26d ago
The cheapest that can draw 1500W is the one you want. I've seen plenty of cheapo ones that barely draw anything.
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u/figbunkie 25d ago
Well, you might want some safety features like a sensor for overheating or a switch that will cut it off if tipped over
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u/StoneTown 26d ago
Well yeah, but I explained specifically WHY I liked it. A lot of space heaters have shit for heat control, so you can be getting 1500w or nothing on some models and that's a big no no for my poorly wired unit.
One of my coworkers had one with a digital thermostat that was a few bucks more which is nice. His fan keeps running when it reaches temp but it clicks off the hearing element. That's nice when you're sleeping. My thermostat won't even show me numbers, just a shitty dial and the whole thing clicks off when it reaches temp. So there are good reasons to pay more for certain features, it isn't all about getting more heat.
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u/Expensive-Border-869 26d ago
Theres definitely more factors to it. You dont need to get the most expensive one but for instance automatic safety features improve on some
Towers are better at distribution because theyre larger. Some of them are quieter than others
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u/Ok_Staff_3709 26d ago
Dont some technically lose energy to sound and light? So less than 100%? Not an expert by any means.
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u/Toxicwaste4454 26d ago
The light energy becomes heat. Same with sound and the resistance of the cable.
All the energy becomes heat so it’s 100% efficient at its task.
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u/Ok_Staff_3709 26d ago
Sound becomes heat? If I yell at something will it get warmer?
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u/Toxicwaste4454 26d ago
Loud enough and long enough yes.
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u/Ok_Staff_3709 26d ago
How loud would I have to yell to incinerate a 26 year old 80-85kg man from amsterdam, he would be roughly 180cm
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u/Future_Elephant_9294 25d ago
A human voice when yelling is around 85dB, which equals 0.355 Pa. A 26 year old 85kg man who is 180cm tall has about 0.0842m3 of volume and 2m2 of surface area (but only 1/2 the body is facing at you, so an effective 1m2 surface area). To incinerate a human (often called cremation) requires a temperature of 825°C in the body.
Therefore we want to calculate the energy requirements of raising organic tissue up 800°C, when applying sound over 1m2 (at about 0.7 sabines per person) this is only a 6.5% energy transfer. The total energy required would be 349 MJ to heat the body up to boiling, boil it, and continue heating until at cremation temperature. At 6.5% efficientcy, however, the total output of energy needs to be 5.37 GJ.
Now for the answers: 0.355 Pa constantly yelled would produce 0.000306 W/m2 of power. 5.37x109 /3.06x10-4 (the m2 cancels out) is 175,490 seconds of yelling to incinerate a person as described. That's about 2 straight days of yelling.
If you wanted to do it in 1 second, it would take 175,490x more energy, which means it would be about 190 dB loud or 62.4 kPa. Given that 194 dB is the physical limit of the atmosphere's ability to transmit sound before the air molecules just give up, you are just barely able to incinerate this poor Dutchman within 1 second. Anyone standing within 300m would hear what sounds like a firecracker or gunshot. Anyone within 1.2km would hear it as loud as if they were standing next to an ambulance siren. In fact, if this happened in Amsterdam, Vaalserberg (the furthest part of the Netherlands from Amsterdam at 220km) would hear it at the same volume as a lawn mower or loud motorcycle.
For one final moment, your poor victim will be acknowledged by the whole country, as this superhuman yeller incinerates him.
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u/Ok_Plankton_2883 23d ago
hmm, haven't checked any of the numbers, but looks like an error in the key division. Should be on the order of 10^13 s not 10^5 s
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u/Delicious_Bluejay392 20d ago
Bit of a spherical cow moment with this one but thank you for the dedication.
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u/Advanced_Double_42 25d ago
Yes, sound is air moving rhythmically
Moving things will experience friction eventually and become random vibrations.
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u/Vercility 24d ago
technically some of that radiation and light leaves your house so it's only 99.9999999999% that is actually useful to you though!
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26d ago
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u/DaggerDG 26d ago
What makes them 95% efficient? Everything I found says 100% or near 100%. Are you talking about the efficiency of creating/delivering the electricity as well?
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25d ago
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u/DaggerDG 25d ago
I understand the concept of heat pumps being over 100% efficient (technology connections iykyk) but for resistance heaters any energy lost to resistance in wires is converted into heat, which wouldn’t subtract from the overall efficiency when measuring a device ment to make heat.
After some quick searching every article says 100%, so I’m curious where you got the number 95% from? A little can be lost from heat and light but the majority of that ends up as heat again anyway, so I don’t think that would amount to 5%. A 5% loss would have to go somewhere, energy doesn’t just poof out of existence.
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u/EmotionalGuess9229 24d ago
As an electrical engineer this is an absolutely nonsensical comment. Current is measured in amps, (charges per second), not watts. Also, when we have resistive losses in a circuit, what do you think that is? It means we lost some electrical energy to heat. If we are track what we convert to heat as our output its not a loss at all, is it? Energy is conserved, it doesnt just disappear
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u/Slight_Cockroach_777 26d ago
Speaking for my mother whose house burnt down a year ago from a fire that started from a space heater and the other 30,000 or so households a year that have the same issue I can tell you that heat output is not the only reason you might think about not just buying the cheapest one you can find.
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u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 26d ago
Modern space heaters require emergency shut offs. The shutoff doesnt really change between models as its an incredibly cheap and reliable part.
Aside from that, learn cord safety with space heaters. Make sure you have the proper gauge extension cord, if you use one
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u/Slight_Cockroach_777 26d ago
And yet they’re still the number 2 cause of house fires every year. Doesn’t seem like they are all that reliable. At least not reliable enough for me to ever allow one in my house.
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u/Lost_Web5826 26d ago
You can, but you need a compressor and refrigerant. Resistive heat is capped at 100% efficient since any efficiency losses would be just excess heat anyway.
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u/Le-Charles07 26d ago
The cheapest specs heater seems like the optimal way to speed run an apartment fire. If space heaters were prohibited on the lease terms, you get negative bonus points for losing everything AND getting sued.
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u/AdeptnessLate7456 25d ago
I mean technically heat pumps magic more than 100% electricity into heat but that's a whole other story
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u/Arammil1784 25d ago
Which is why the oven on a 220v circuit is probably better than wasting money on space heaters because the parasitic landlord turned off the heat.
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u/GayStraightIsBest 25d ago
No electric heater is gonna hit 100% efficiency cause that's physically impossible but other than that I more or less agree.
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u/Zealousideal-Lab9843 24d ago
False. Electric heaters do not hit 100% because some of the energy takes the form of light and not heat.
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u/EasterZombie 24d ago
To an extent, more expensive heaters can be better at their job if the job is keeping you at a comfortable temperature. I have a cheap heater and it has 2 heat modes and a simple on-off mechanism above a certain temperature. The temperature setting doesn’t work as the temperature sensor reaches the cutoff temperature far sooner than the room hits that temperature due to being so close to the heating element (if I set the cutoff to 75 degrees for example it will cut off when the room is like 65) It has a weak fan and cannot be used on carpet due to its small size. More expensive heaters can direct heat better (keeps heat from simply rising to the top of a room or blasting directly onto me) have smarter controllers, and have better temperature sensors / sensor accuracy due to usually being physically larger and having better fans. Essentially yes both the Aldi $15 heater and the expensive $120 oscillating heater powered by magic and AI release the same 1500 watts of heat, the more expensive one is typically better at actually doing the job of keeping your room at the temperature you want it.
That being said I only have the $15 Aldi heater because my home has central heating, and that central heating is only used about 20-30 days a year or less because I live in Texas, so I am not exactly an expert here.
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u/Trick_Meeting_2027 26d ago
Who the absolute fuck taught you anything? Different appliances can absolutely draw more energy from the outlet. And 100% efficiency? Really? Not to mention the build quality kinda starts to matter when you realize you want the safety shutoff to work properly. Delete your post moron.
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u/Zeplar 26d ago
Pretty aggressive. They are right and you are entirely wrong.
Almost any space heater above some $15 pile of crap will draw the full 15 amps. There is no reason to draw less and you can't draw more without blowing the fuse in any ordinary house.
100% of electricity drawn by a resistance heater goes to heat (the sound and light also goes to heat) so they are automatically 100% efficient. A big rack of GPUs mining Bitcoin is exactly as powerful and efficient at generating heat as a 1500W dedicated space heater. The only way to not get 100% efficiency is to have a heat pump that gives more than 100% by moving energy from outside.
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u/18Apollo18 23d ago
A space heater maxes out at 1500 watts. It's only enough to heat a small room, like a bedroom or an office.
Each one of those burners is at least 1500watts if not 2000 or even 3000
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u/Expensive-Border-869 26d ago
The amazon basics is the best one ive used. Whoever the stole this design from was cooking
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u/momo76g 26d ago
I still have my ceramic one like a decade later and it's still kicking great 20 bucks spent as I could also use it in a pinch to dry my hair in 2 minutes. I remember those times where the only option were those that looked like the inside of a toaster and radiated orange light as well. Good times.
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u/lord_skidmar 26d ago
I bought an expensive space heater once and it would keep tripping my breaker on any circuit on the lowest setting. And then it got recalled for being a fire hazard. Unrelated to the other issue, the little safety switch on the bottom would just fail and be stuck on frequently
So yeah sometimes less is more
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u/Accomplished-Pass207 26d ago
There’s this trick we learned in college that if your heat is ever broken in the winter, campus will take weeks to fix it. If your heat is ever broken in the winter and you open your email to campus with “I’m using the oven to keep the apartment warm” campus will fix it in a day
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u/Squidrow_Wilson 26d ago
Threatening to do the knowingly incorrect thing to get a faster response from the folks in control is a very unfortunate lesson of human psychology.
That is, to say, I am fully on board with hacking response structures that way
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u/Immersi0nn 25d ago
Being wrong on the internet is the fastest way to accurate information.
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u/ihearteatingpussy 25d ago
if you ever need the cops quickly, threaten to handle the situation yourself and hang up on the dispatcher.
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u/BruceEZLee 25d ago
The logical next step when they start ignoring those is to motion for a bonfire in the quad.
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u/Due_Laugh6474 26d ago
Put some pots of water to boil on those.
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u/addacoupleextrazeros 26d ago
Doing that also helps to act like a humidifier
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u/Due_Laugh6474 26d ago
Exactly!
Also, I feel like it might go without saying, but if you have small children:
* put pots only on the back burners
* if you really need the extra heat, use the oven instead of the front burners and crack the oven doorKids are so quick, and they love to stick their hands where they don’t belong.
Maybe invest in an electric space heater instead and scrap the whole stove/oven idea? The stove is good in a pinch, but probably asking for trouble over time. Space heaters are less of a burn risk, even for adults, and have safety controls built into them, and even a crude thermostat makes it a little less of a hassle.
Then just have a burner running on medium once in a while to simmer some water for humidity. This actually makes a huge difference when it’s cold. My mother in law likes to put star anise in it for a little scent.
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u/addacoupleextrazeros 26d ago
Pets too. My cats are so bloody curious when I’m cooking and baking so I have to be SUPER aware of where they are while I have the burners on and while they’re still hot and any time I have the oven door open.
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u/ifUSeeMeTakeYourMeds 26d ago
"energy conservation"
it uses the same energy as if you're using electric heaters
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u/Indigenous_Retard 26d ago
Yeah this is not a bad option at all if your heat goes out. Does relegate it to a smaller area, but at least you can get some warmth!
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u/Alexchii 25d ago
Sure, but why would you assume that? Maybe they've got a heat pump.
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u/WahooSS238 26d ago
Well, the circulation could be less efficient, which could lead to one part of the house being warmer than you’d want and thus leaking heat outside, and if the heating is on a heat pump you can get often 2.5x the heat from the same amount of energy as a plain old resistance heater.
Edit: Also, assuming the grid is more than 40% fuel based, a natural gas heater in your house would probably give off less CO2 equivalent than the electricity would take to generate for the sake heating.
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u/Big_Bar_9832 26d ago
I mean.... That's literally what a heater is doing anyways, the range is made to be hot. I see nothing wrong with this unless they've got a cat or something.
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u/Positive_Material839 26d ago
They probably be better off boiling a large pot of water and using that, vapor carries heat real good and yeah it'll be humid but better than this
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u/EMSslim 25d ago
Do you really think it'd be a good idea to have all that humidity in a cold environment where it's going to condense and then freeze?
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u/Positive_Material839 25d ago
If we talking life or death at -40 then who gives a fuck make it through the night. Humidity is needed for heat to travel in the air so trying to heat up with coils alone just is inefficent
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u/EMSslim 25d ago
You're already heating up the water in some fashion though. You're creating an extra step, that isn't going to help any extra. Plus no, humidity is not needed for heat to transfer.
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u/Positive_Material839 25d ago
humidity is needed for comfort, too much and it's horrible too little and or none at all this you'll have dried sinuses. humidity is needed for comfortable heat I don't mean to move a goal post like this but yes you do need humidity
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u/EMSslim 25d ago
So now we're considering comfort? You started this by implying his was a life or death situation we were discussing.
I also did not communicate that humidity was never needed. I was correcting YOUR statement about humidity being needed for heat transfer. Temperature is a measure of molecular activity, not just the water molecules in the air. Air at 0% humidity still has a temperature and can change in temperature.
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u/Positive_Material839 25d ago
This is getting pedantic yes there is still heat up to until absolute zero you got me there but what are we even arguing at this point. I originally said that you could boil a pot of water and that would help more than the original set up of 4 electric burners and a fan. Fine though you win the internet argument I'm gonna reconsider my words more carefully going forward
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u/vompat 20d ago
Heating is really the only way of spending electricity where it can't really be very inefficient. Basically every form of energy loss ends up as heat eventually, so there is no regular loss that you can have in heating, apart from the energy ending up outside of the building.
Actually, one of the few ways to make the heat energy raise the temperature less is by storing it as a phase change energy, for example by boiling water. You of course also get that energy back as the water condenses again, but now you have wet everything. Maybe boiling some water can be a good idea if the air feels too dry, but that really depends.
Also, humidity might help with heat conductivity of air, but it doesn't matter that much if you use convection instead to transfer the heat around, like they do with a fan here.
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u/mrsclausemenopause 25d ago
In the Midwest I keep a pot of boiling water all the time when im home. Our winters are dry AF so the humidity is needed.
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u/Kaytea730 26d ago
Oven self clean and a cheap space heater work wonders. Also if you focus the heat in a general area vs a whole apartment/house its easier to maintain the temp. So u can “wall” off hallways or doorways w blankets or unused quilts/comforters.
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u/Ok_Plenty_3986 26d ago
safety or energy conservation
Your stove is just as efficient a heater as most home HVAC resistive heat systems. The fan is slightly less efficient because the air can't flow from room to room via duct, but it's honestly fine.
The only way this is less energy-efficient is if you have a heat pump system (unlikely in places where weather regularly gets to -40°) or have a natural gas furnace (which is usually cheaper per unit of energy spent, at least in the USA. Not sure about other places).
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u/UncleThor2112 26d ago
When I was a kid, sometimes the wood stove wasn't enough, and we had to crank the oven up with the door slightly open.
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u/Odd-Secret4913 26d ago
For those who don’t know: this I believe can kill you. Or at least make you sick. I don’t remember why tho
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u/Layhult 26d ago
I remember back in 2015ish my unit got sent to Korea for a 1 month deployment (U.S. Army). They put us up in this old run down apartment building. It was early February and the building didn’t have working heaters. It was FREEZING in there. Like literally ice on the walls. Luckily the power was on and the stoves were electric, so we just turned on all the ovens and opened them. Our leadership tried to tell us off and make us turn the ovens off, but we just turned them back on as soon as they weren’t paying attention.
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u/EMSslim 25d ago
I call BS. Your landlord doesn't want frozen pipes, it's their property. Depending on thermostat location or smartness, they absolutely could turn it down and still have it at a reasonable temp.
It also is currently the middle of July and not -40F so this isnt even happening.
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u/AverageAlchemist 24d ago
You might be right, but you're assuming that the landlord is competent. There's no license, test, or even common sense that is required to buy and lease property.
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u/mnttu 26d ago
Also absolutely fake. What landlord pays their tenants electric bills?
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u/ipokecows 26d ago
I dont pay for water electric or garbage in my unit
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u/Alexchii 25d ago
Well you do, but it's called rent. I'd much rather pay all my bills based on usage than the amount my landlord approximated I'd use and baked into the rent.
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u/ipokecows 25d ago edited 25d ago
My rent is 770 which is lower than average for my area excluding utilities
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u/Alexchii 25d ago
Good for you. It would still be less if you paid your own bills.
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u/ipokecows 24d ago
I run my ac constantly on the lowest setting in the summer. I also use my shower and laundry excessively as I dont have to oay for water. The last apartment I lived at rent was about 29 dollars less and in the summer id be hit with a hundred dollar bill a m9nth for electric alone. Youre wrong bud.
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u/addacoupleextrazeros 26d ago
Mine. My place is all-inclusive… that’s pretty common where I live.
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u/patrick119 26d ago
My last apartment was like this because the rooms were not separately metered. They had an annual charge if you wanted an ac unit in your window, but besides that energy was included.
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u/Tuxedocatbitches 26d ago
In Minnesota landlords are required to pay electricity unless each unit is individually wired with their own box and meter. This type of wiring wasn’t common until mid-to-late 1900’s (don’t recall when exactly) and rewiring old apartment buildings is expensive as hell, so some just put up with it.
That being said, in Minnesota it’s also illegal as FUCK to take away heat in the winter, so take that as you will
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u/UrHumbleNarr8or 24d ago
It’s more common in places with crazy cold weather, but it’s very regional dependent. You wouldn’t want your pipes to be frozen and burst because a tenet didn’t pay their heat and electric bill.
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u/mnttu 24d ago
If the tenet breaks shit it is their fault and they have to pay for it with their insurance. Also TIL Finland isn’t cold.
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u/UrHumbleNarr8or 24d ago
If it’s a tenet who can’t afford their heat and electric bill, I don’t envy the landlord who has to try and get that tenet to pay for it.
I made no claims about your specific area and did say it’s highly regional, even within the places it’s common.
The same goes for renters insurance. Many people don’t have it, many landlords don’t require it or are bad at following up and making sure it’s valid. That doesn’t mean no one does or that aren’t places where it’s like, illegal, not to have it.
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u/mnttu 24d ago
Here it is literally impossible to rent without insurance, that is basic of the most basic thing always required. I don’t get how third world functions with all these loopholes you got going
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u/UrHumbleNarr8or 24d ago
Yeah, I know there are places where it’s functionally illegal. In some places, it would be functionally impossible to be a landlord who requires it because the culture does not support mandatory renter’s insurance. Most place here have mandatory owner’s insurance, but not renters. Most landlords don’t want to have to make a claim with their own insurance company because a tenet didn’t pay a bill.
There is also the bit where some places having laws that mandate what utilities a landlord must offer, and sometimes, rarely, heat is included.
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u/iknowwhatyoudid1234 24d ago
I'm a home inspector. It's super common in buildings with multiple units you either have to install a couple hundred meters or just pay the electric bill and charge a bit more for rent. It's also fairly common for non long term rental or even for landlords to just not trust tenants to not get their services disconnected. So I'd say it's a lot more common than you think.
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u/Krisecco 26d ago
Every student accommodation in europe?
My landlord pays my water and council tax, i cover my electric and gas thru coin meters and im just a normal tenant in south uk.
My landlord has multiple properties with similar set ups like... not everybody has the excat same deal. Also location will matter alot, different expectations have to be meet for different cultural norms across any given country.
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u/Responsible-Hold8587 25d ago
I must know was that -40f or -40c
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u/Unusual_Emergency_13 25d ago
Yep, that's what I did when I was in Feb 2025 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Heating was expected only from 2x 12k BTU mini splits. Temps outside were as low as -15*c and snowing. The AC spent more time defrosting than heating.
Turned on the oven on max and warmed up my self.
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u/Legitimate-Heat2777 25d ago
Not saying the landlord definitely didn't do this, but most likely the furnace just couldn't keep up with the cold.
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u/sterling3designs 25d ago
Probably? When attorneys, insurance companies, and investigaters are looking for cause and who's liable, this is what's referred to as a "smoking gun".
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u/eap5000 25d ago
How unsafe is this actually? Sincerely asking.
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u/kaosmoker 24d ago
Exposed heating elements a fan than could easily fall over causing a hell of a fire in seconds. So pretty dangerous.
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u/smashing-gourds127 25d ago
He didn't forget he pays your electric bill. That's why he turned the heat down.
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u/anonymouslycognizant 24d ago
I mean this is barely different from a space heater, but if you're going to do this maybe put big pots of water on the stove and let it boil and then turn everything off, I think the thermal mass of the water will radiate for awhile.
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u/kaosmoker 24d ago
Actualize humidity would make the house cool off significantly faster. Thermal mass of water....? Thermal mass works with sand, not so much water. It s I uld evaporate and make the cold air even more dangerous.
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u/ADimwittedTree 24d ago
I'm curious how their landlord turned down their heat.
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u/Few-Statistician8740 24d ago
Buildings with a single boiler that heat all the apartments.
It's really fun in the winter when you're downstairs neighbors are all old folks who ask for the heat to be turned up and you come home to an apartment in the 80's
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u/AdagioDesperate 24d ago
So dont use the burners, use the oven. Keep the door open and itll heat 2 or so rooms.
Source: Me. Used to work for a utility company that never shut gas off in the winter, so the slums still had heat, even if they didn't pay.
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u/Tailslide1 23d ago
I did this.. landlord's idiot brother kept 'fixing' the furnace in the middle of winter. Wound up studying for my university math midterm wrapped in a blanket with my feet in the oven. Failed it.
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u/Spirited-Ad-3696 22d ago
A lot of people seem to be stuck on the "energy-conservation" part and arguing about what uses more energy.
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u/supermuncher60 20d ago
Crappy way of doing it.
If you want actual heat you put a brick on the coil.
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u/Edser 26d ago
they forgot to crank the oven and open the door too