Suspicious Sources of Heat

My home is heated by a propane boiler.  During spells of cold weather—especially when the price of the LP gas is driven high by demand—I may burn through several hundred dollars-worth of fuel in a mere handful of weeks.  Part of my thinking when I installed my solar PV array was that I could supplement my heat with electric sources, which are virtually 100% efficient and would consume the electricity I am producing.

When I constructed my home, I installed, and have often used, an electric toe-space heater in my kitchen.  This winter, I purchased a couple of plug-in electric utility heaters.  The heaters are each rated for 1500 watts (at 120 volts) and are of the type that will automatically shut-down if they tip over.

Twice, in the last month, I have had different people unplug the heaters almost the instant they saw them.  Naturally, I asked these people why they unplugged the electric heaters.

“Fire,” came the answer.

“You realize,” I said to the last person, “that I have a propane boiler that actually runs on fire.”

Just for fun, I checked some recent National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) records to see what they show for the cause of home fires.  Between the years 2007—2011 something near 43% of the recorded home structure fires were the result of cooking equipment.  Heating equipment (of which electric heaters are but a smaller fraction) accounted for only 16% of the home fires.

Unplugging the coffee maker, anyone?

--Mitchell Hegman