I believe that you live in the continental EU?In main living spaces we use infrared panels mounted to the ceiling. They're almost invisible and are supposed to be efficient because they only heat the 'targets' which are the occupants instead of heating ambient air. I can't really tell. They're scheduled to drop at night.
In rooms we use wall-mounted electric heaters that are also scheduled to drop at night. In effect, we only actively heat where we sleep. Colder is also better for sleeping.
So compared to Americans:
- your electricity prices are probably on the high end (their average, a little out of date, was 13.5c /kwhr but could easily be USD 0.30+ in New England/NY/ California. European retail prices run sort of USD $0.30/ kwhr in my mind*)
- your domestic natural gas prices should be 2-4x theirs (we'd have to convert BTU to kwhr etc to figure it out)
- if you heat by oil/ LPG (propane)/ even biomass (wood or pellets) your costs will be higher still (albeit because heating oil is not usually taxed, very similar to what a homeowner in New England might pay for their heating oil)
So very limited space heating makes sense v heating the whole house?
(I am working from analogy with the UK. My late aunt, big house in country with oil heat, used to only heat the sitting room and the bedroom with electric fires).
* the big thing in places like Italy is that the power ration. The basic domestic circuit won't run an Air Conditioner and a toaster or kettle at the same time (I think the basic domestic circuit might be 2 kw?). You have to pay for more circuits if you want to do better than that.
Italian and Spanish homes use much less electricity than the EU average*, despite the growing presence of domestic air conditioning (responding to the increased temperatures and heat waves of recent years).
* UK is around 2700 kwhr pa I believe. Figures I saw suggested Spain and Italy were, from memory, around 2000 kwhr pa?
Statistics: Posted by Valuethinker — Fri Nov 29, 2024 5:39 am — Replies 20 — Views 1187