A copy of my YT Mag post:

AS a retired electrical engineer I enjoy the electrical discussions on here now n then n try to help with questions the best I can. Also, as an engineer YES I KNOW A WATT IS A WATT...... regardless if its consumed and converted to various other energy forms like say an electric motor (magnetic field and rotation) or light bulbs (light n heat) or a cheap wal mart electric heater (heat maybe a lil light) or an expensive Amish built or Eden pure heater (heat maybe a lil light) etc etc.......

BUTTTTTTTT MY QUESTIONS FOR FUN DISCUSSION ARE:

The reason is Im sure we would all agree (engineers n technicians n laymen alike)

1) If we consumed 1500 watts in a room by running a 2hp or so electric motor, since some of the energy goes to magnetic field and some to ROTATION, there would probably be less heat generated then if we ran a 1500 watt electric heater EVERYONE AGREE??????

2) Although EITHER would consume 1500 watts, if we burned 1500 watts worth of the higher efficient (more lumens/watt) CFL bulbs we would get more light (lumens) then if we burned 15 100 watt incansescent light bulbs EVERYONE AGREE????

3) SOOOOOOO just as CFL lighting is more efficient then incandescent (more lumens per watt),,,,,,,,,, and just as A 3 phase motor is more efficient then a single phase motor ,,,,,,, AND SURE A WATT IS A WATT AND EITHER OF THE ABOVE CONSUMES WATTS BUT DOES NOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT YIELD THE SAME IN HEAT OR LIGHT, Id think a more efficient electric heater (more BTU's per watt) will yield more BTU's per watt then a less efficient electric heater..

Everyone agree??????????

4) Or do some think any electric heater (strip or quartz or infrared, Wal Mart or Eden Pure or Amish etc etc etc) ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL have the same BTU per watt effiency????????????????

5) Does anyone have any hard data regarding the EFFICIENCY in BTU's per Watt of say wire strip heaters versus infrared versus quartz etc etc

CLOSING:

I think Question 5 is the key here so we need the actual hard data OF THE BTU'S OF HEAT GENERATED VERSUS WATTS CONSUMED for strip or quartz or infrared heaters etc etc UNLESS someone has data that ANY TYPE OF ELECTRIC HEATER yields the same amount of BTU per watt !!!!!!!!!

A THOUGHT: The inefficiency of a motor or light etc is that some of the energy is "wasted" in the form of heat losses versus light or rotation soooooooooooo if the inefficiency of an electric heater is due to some of the energy is wasted as HEAT welllllllllllllllllll there ya go anyyyyyyyy heater is the same ??? Hmmmmmm lol

Sorry so long, as an engineer now an attorney I cant help myself lol

God Bless yall n keep warm now ya hear REGARDLESS how efficient you do it

John T

If I remember 100 watt = 341.2 BTUs in a prefect world.

Interesting...
Not being fluent in ... well much of anything now that I think of it... let me run this by you. (Like the old saying goes... Sometimes it's better to keep quiet and risk appearing the fool rather than opening my mouth and removing all doubt.) Well I've never been one to heed that advice very well.

I think to cypher the most effecient heat per watt has something to do with the latent heat of fusion of the material being used to act as the resistor for the heating element. Some amount of heat will be absorbed in a material without raising its temperature. (latent heat)

The material with the lowest amount absorbed will win the efficiency battle?

Or maybe I should've just type ... "Duh... I dunno?"

you guys need to get a job or a life. way to much time on your hands. my truck needs washing in COLD water if you need somethng to do. i guess its nice to know that some older people aren't brain dead after all. maybe there's hope for me yet. i do enjoy the thought provoking notes here

I know all about electricity. I have been using since FDR was in office.
Question: What can you do with electricity without producing heat????
Therefore, in summary, electricity is heat!!!!!!!!

Very interesting problem, John. My son-in-law, who works in the green business area, provided the following link to a technical manual which has some efficiency information - the whole website is informative
http://www.infraredheaters.com/page1.htm
This problem has many aspects, as do most things when we dig deep enough!

Electricity is when the valance electrons of atoms are forced from orbit from one atom to the next.
Electricty is not heat. Heat is generated due to resistance/friction of pushing these electrons along a conductor. Electricty runs without resisutance/heat generation in cyrogenic super conducting conductors.

FUN THREAD IF YOURE A NERD (I put myslef but especially Duane in that category) THAT IS LOL

Daune, Great info on that URL I will have to ponder over it....... The thread got wayyyyyyyyy long over on YT Mag

http://www.ytmag.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd...k&th=729049

As noted on YT Mag and as I knew (when you get down to the basics of Energy Conservation) plus as Pappy posted, when all is said n done if you use any sort of electrical device ALL the energy eventually gets converted to heat in one form or another, even if a motor turns a device and its friction that creates the heat. I reckon one could say any electric heater (cheap wal mart strip or infrared, quartz, Eden Pure, Amish built, etc etc) is 100% efficient (as I alluded to in my posts A THOUGHT) cuz all its input energy gets converted to heat in the end i.e. no "heat losses" as computed concerning efficiency in some other non heat electrical devices

As one poster on YT Mag noted, its more a question of how efficient the heat transfer is. A forced air heater has to heat the air so you feel warmer (cuz theres less heat transfer off your body to the air) while if you stand direct in front one one of those radiant heaters you instantly feel warm cuz the heat energy is directed right at your body.

BY the way IM NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB, I HAD ONE FOR AROUND 40 YRS now Im just havin fun

Yall keep warm now regardless of your heat source or its efficiency

John T

John T;
Sound's like you're getting bored laying around down in Florida nice and warm while the rest of us are freezing!

Thought I'd arm wrestle with you a little bit since you haven't whooped me lately. LOL

While a watt is a watt, a BTU isn't just a BTU. For practical purposes, time is a factor as well as actual heat. BTU's are measured by the amount of heat per hour (rate of energy consumption), therefore there would be a difference in the efficiency of these heater's. (BTU hr)

Any power that is consumed by the control's or motor will drop the actual BTU hr output of the heater, making it less efficent. Getting there eventually doesn't count! LOL
M-MAN

while you guys are comtemplating all this stuff explain to me what smoke has to do with electricity. every thing that i work on and the smoke comes out doesn't work again. so i think you'll are missing something here. i think i have part of this figured out. those of you up north are brain dead from the cold and those in fla are bain dead from the haet. you'll have fun.

Hey M Man,,,,,,,

I understand your point buttttttttttttt when you say "Any power that is consumed by the control's or motor will drop the actual BTU hr output of the heater" Its still true the power consumed by say an electric heaters fan stillllllllll is converted to heat sooooooooooo isnt that type of heater versus one of the radiant types having no fan 100% efficient????????

Of course, if we consider BTU/hr as you stated the fan type may not generate heat as fast cuz the motors windings have to heat up the motors iron frame mass beforeeeeeeee it then radiates it outwards to the ambient air space VERSUS a radiant type heater with no fan that radiates it faster i.e. we may feel warm sooner if we stand direct in front of it versus waiting for a heater that has to heat the air mass in the room first??????????

Im still hanging my hat on Thermodynamics (heat lost = heat gained) and the physics (we need Duane) principles of conservation of energy that we cant create or destroy energy, only change its form, so regardless what electrical device we run in a closed room the energy we put in is still gonna eventually (albeit some not as fast as you point out) get converted to heat (even from the friction of a fans bearings or the heat generated by its windings) so is a $400 Eden pure type heater superior to a $19.95 wal mart special IF WE FIGURE THE COST OF THE ELECTRICITY IN WATTS VERSUS HOW MANY BTU (NOT BTU/HR) IS DISCHARGED IN THE ROOM???????

If we want to measure how many BTU/HR I see your point so maybe we have to distinguish from BTU/HR to BTU if thats even engineering correct type of unit or evaluation BUT REMEMEBR WATT HOURS IS WHAT THE UTILITY CHARGES SO MAYBE LIKEWISE BTU/HR IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE LOOKING AT

Hey I will arm wrestle you butttttttttt we need a Duane type to serve as referee cuz otherwise how we know who wins lol

YES I have spare time and Im NOT apologizing for that but actually Im temporarily back home again in Indiana for a while cuz my dear old mother was in the hospital n we are baby sitting her a while before we return south which is why I have even moreeeeeeeee time


A curious John T

John T;
I was just picking at you & splitting hair's (so to speak). We don't need a referee cause you alway's win anyhow! LOL

In lay term's, 1 BTU = heat from 1 match (appr) or 1.055 kJ in engineer term's. It would be pretty hard to figure out what was needed from something like that, so BTU/h is the standard that is alway's used when rating a heating or cooling appliance. Since these are all heating appliances, they should be rated by BTU/h and time would apply. Told you I was splitting hair's! LOL

As you noted, in a closed room over a period of time there would be no measurable difference in efficiency(watt/BTU), but that's just my opinion as we didn't spend much time on electrical heat & I don't have much reference material on it. The real difference in these type heaters is just heat transfer or comfort level, but that's psycrometric's & that isn't what the OP was about.

I wish your mother the best & hope she get's well soon.
M-MAN





John;
Smoke has everything to do with tricity. Tricity won't work without it so in every motor or control, there is a hidden compartment where smoke is stored. All you have to do is keep it inside! LOL
M-MAN

This sort of started when my 85 yr old neighbor bought an Eden Pure and I told him a wally world $20 heater would do the same thing which he didnt wanna hear after spending like $400 OUCH

However I can tell ya this, the output from that heater is like really really hottttttttttt to where you cant hold your hand direct at its output without feeling burned and the pure old CFM volume of air exiting out its front sure seeems like more then my wally world unit generates........ It just rubs my NON engineers intuition a bit that just as a CFL is more efficient then an incandescent and a 3 phase motor more efficient then a single phase (although that innefficiency results in a so called heat loss) why cant some forms of electric heaters be more efficient then others??????? BUTTTTTTT any inefficiency still comes out in the end in the form of heat so Im back to square one and what I told my neighbor WALLY WORLD IS GOOD AS EDEN PURE.....

John T

John

I often wondered bout that, but did not let it interfere with "Miller Time"

As I see it there are some resistance heaters that are more efficient than others. Here is how I know for sure. I saw the add on TV with the highly skilled Amish folks in this little wooden shed manufacturing the ultimate heater cabinet.

So these folks being the most highly skilled cabinet makers around would only contrct with like folks in China and put a more efficiet heaster in that there cabinet. That is the only way you could save those big bucks on the electricc bill as advertised.

So there ya go

By the way, you snow birds will have to scoot over one seat come the first of March. Cus I am hooking up and driving my highly efficient one decade old rattling diesel South to the pan handle in order to get some sand in my shoes and put a dent in the oyster availability.

My take on this like the old Indian saying. "Whiteman build big fire and stand back, Indian build small fire and stand close". Which one saves the most firewood?
I say the same for electric heaters, not more efficent but smaller directional heat zone provide the saving.

John T, I love it when you do things like this! Even if you are down in Florida running away from that little dab of cold weather you get in the Tropical Zone of Indiana.

You can get as technical as you want on this one; One BTU/Hr=3.412 Watts, one BTU/Minute=.0568 Watts, Etc. The bottom line is not so much the efficency of the heater itself as it is the perception of warmth. Add to that the factor of whether or not there are any women in the area being heated and you have a formula that even Einstein couldn't figger out! You could have the most efficient heater known to man in a room and if a woman is in the same room and says, "It's cold in here", then by God, it's cold in that room. End of discussion!!

We all know the technology behind all of this, i.e., you can't destroy energy, only change it's form. However, the fact that the resistance of the electric heater producing heat doesn't necessarily mean that it's 100% efficient from a BTU/Hr. standpoint. And the same applies to the losses from controls and/or fans that are associated with the heater. In a literal sense, all of the electron flow used with an electric heater produces heat (the resistance of the elements, the impedance of the circuit, the friction of the bearings, etc). This, however, does not necessarily translate as efficiency in terms of BTU/Hr. Nor does it mean that if you have 10 people in that room, they'll all feel comfortable. I think it would be pretty much accurate to say that almost all of the energy used with an electric heater produces heat, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that it's 100% efficient because of that.

Kinda in the same realm as the CFL business. Of course, we've been duped over the years in regards to lamps equating Watts to light output/brightness, when it's actually Lumens we should be looking at. There's probably 90% of people who don't realize that the added light from a 100 Watt lamp over a 60 Watt lamp is the by-product of the added electrical consumption of the 100 Watt lamp. Therefore, they think that that 35 Watt CFL will give them less light.

Now, when it come to heat/warmth/comfort, it's just like I said earlier. It's more a matter of what each individual percieves as warm and comfortable. And, more importantly as I stated earlier, when you involve a woman in this process of perception, all bets are off. I've never been able to understand exactly why, in the summer when it's 72 degrees outside, they think it's hot and need the air conditioner running to bring the house down to 68 degrees, but in the winter, when the house is 68 degrees, they need the furnace running to bring it up to 72 degrees. One of life's great mysteries. I guess if we could ever understand them, we'd never marry them...

One other point to make here. Just like any other electrical appliance, once you let the smoke out of an electric heater, it's done and will no longer function. ALWAYS strive to keep the smoke inside of all of your electric appliances!