Electric heat for green home owners


There are two primary electric heating options that might affect an environmentally friendly home: electric-resistance heat as well as heat pumps.

With electric-resistance heat, baseboard electric radiators or radiant- electric ceiling panels are installed in each room and typically operated by thermostats right in those rooms. Heat is generated by converting electricity straight into heat using electric-resistance wire.

The radiators or ceiling panels are fairly inexpensive, and also the price of heat distribution (ducts or pipes) is avoided. With individual room thermostats, zone control is extremely simple and easy , inexpensive. However that electric heat is pricey, significantly more expensive than gas in most parts of the country.

But in green homes with extremely small heating loads - so-called three-toaster homes - electric-resistance heat could be a reasonable option. The truth is that it simply doesn't make sense to place in a USD 10,000 heating system to supply USD 100 price of heat each year.

If electric heat is desired in houses with larger heating loads, a better choice is a electric, which delivers a lot more Btus of warmth for each kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity consumed. Heat pumps are just like furnaces in that heat is delivered via a system of ducts. Unlike furnaces, though, also, they are employed for ac in the summer, extracting heat from a house's air the same as most air conditioning units.

Air-source heat pumps make use of the outside air since the flame as well as heat sink (where unwanted heat is dumped). Since heat could be extracted externally air only right down to about 30° or 40°F, air-source heat pumps shift to electric-resistance heating in colder temperatures; thus, they make probably the most sense in mild climates.

Ground-source heat pumps make use of the more uniform temperature of the ground since the flame as well as heat sink, so that they operate at higher efficiency than airsource heat pumps in colder climates.

In a superinsulated green home, exactly the same arguments presented above on the economics of radiant-floor heating affect heat pumps, as well. With really small heating loads, putting in a low-cost heating system, for example electric-resistance heat or perhaps a through-the-wall-vented gas heater, often helps make the most sense.

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This article was sent to us by: Douglas Gray at 04182011

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