Do Space Heaters Help Reduce Your Bill?

I'd like to believe that using space heaters do not help reduce your bill. The average space heater is 120v using 1500 watts / 12.5 amps per hour. To put that into more visual terms, that's like having 25 60watt light bulbs burning away hour after hour.


Now a standard central heat and air unit with heat pump very well may use more wattage, voltage, and amperage; however, you have to consider the fact that your central heat and air unit doesn't run constantly hour after hour. The unit may run for only around five minutes before bringing your house to temperature.

So long story short, using a space heater does not help reduce your electric bill, if anything, it makes it more expensive. I don't know the average energy consumption of a central heating and air unit, but my guess would be around 4500 watts 40 amps at 240 volt. These numbers are higher, but keep in mind that an entire house is being heated and also the until could run constantly for 30 minutes per hour before it would become more costly than a space heater running non-stop each hour.