It’s a space heater. It’s supposed to be “inefficient.” The whole fucking point of a space heater is to convert electricity into heat. What the fuck is wrong with you?
EDIT: I didn’t expect people who know what they’re talking about to reply lmao
The strange paradox is that electric heat is actually 100% efficient technically! All electrical energy is converted to heat. The inefficiency comes from generation and distribution.
Also, fun fact… the reason why all electric space heaters are 1500 Watt here in US is because (1500W / 120V = 12.5 AMP… which is close to the max safe power draw on a 15A circuit (-20% is intentional - you intentionally never want a 15A circuit to run at max capacity).
Oh yeah, absolutely, heat pumps are far superior because they pull ambient heat from the environment. Heat pump efficiency is like 300+ percent.
Yeah, I know that sounds weird… but basically for each unit of electricity used, three units of heat are generated (from ambient atmosphere).
real Technology Connections hours, who up
Technically speaking, the answer they are searching for is an electric heat pump mini-split system. These systems are basically air conditioners that push the hot air inside and cold air outside, so they run as heaters. Not sure why it took so long for this to become a thing, but they have efficiencies over 100%, because they aren’t converting energy to heat, but using it to move heat. Some are close to 200% efficient.
HVAC contractors don’t like to do them though, because its more work for them. Its not what they’re familiar with doing. And they don’t have to if you don’t ask for it. So a lot of HVAC systems are still the old technology, even though heat pumps have been popular and trending for about 10 years now.
Do heat pumps maintain that efficiency when there’ s no hot air outside to pump in?
Ambient air heat pumps generally work well down to around 20F or so, then effectiveness drops. Still pretty good though.
There’s a version that pumps water in pipes underground and uses ambient geothermal heat (because underground temperature stays a constant temperature year-round) that avoids this shortfall, but its more expensive to install because it involves drilling.
They become less efficient at temperatures near or below freezing (below 7 C), firstly because it becomes harder to extract heat from the outside, and secondly because the heat pump will need to switch to a reverse cycle at regular intervals to defrost internal components (usually at temps below 2 C).
My apartment is outrageously hot most of the time (probably because i’ve practically got whats nearly an almost mini data center runnin in a 1br, no joke I even had stuff rackmounted for a while) , so I got a AC unit, but the windows are all horizontal sliding and fucky, so I had to get one of those weird as free standing deaies with wheels and a tube coming out the back you put out the widow. Sometimes when its actually manages to be cold (recently), I just turn it on without putting the tube out the window. heats things up.
what if your space heater accidentally plays computer games and sends text messages on the side
people want more heat for less electricity is what they meant is my guess
