Talk Quesada forum

Just a bit of advice needed .

I've lived here in Spain for 16 years now , and as we all are aware , the winters ( especially recent ) are certainly getting colder.

At present , i have a "Invertor" air con unit in the living room , which i have always found suffient in the past .

Can any member here advise me as to wether a Portable gas heater would be cheaper to run than the invertor system ?

Thanks in advance .
Belcat.

Hi Belcat. Inverter aircon systems are probably the cheapest form of heating available - once you've made your initial investment that is.
Portable Butane or Propane heaters are probably the most expensive, but it does depend on what the current price of a gas refill is, and what electricity tariff you're on. The biggest issue with portable gas heaters is the moisture that's produced when the gas is burned. This causes condensation and therefore mould. They also produce fumes that require adequate ventilation, which kind of defeats the object of the heater as you don't really want to be letting cold air in.

We have 3 types of heating:
Inverter aircon
Gas fire with chimney - runs on Propane
400 electric panel heaters

We also hae thermostatic heated towel rails in the bathrooms, which keep these rooms nice and warm provided you keep the door closed.

We primarily use the aircon, supplemented by the wall-mounted 400w panel heaters. These don't have thermostats, although you can use plug-in thermostats if you wish.
The gas fire has a chimney to the outside so the moisture and fumes don't get into the living room. We use this as a form of instant heat when we first get in, as it takes the aircon and panel heaters a while to make a difference. It's also used to supplement the other heating when it's very cold and I like the idea of having an alternate heat source in case of a power cut or electrical problem.

Hope this helps,

Pete.

Thanks very much for that info Peter , much appreciated .
I think i'll stick with the invertor. After all , winter doesn't last too long here !:)

If it's any help to you, we had brand new LG inverters fitted about 4 weeks ago.

The installer said that they should cost around 11 cents per hour to run in heating mode, so around 1 Euro for 9 hours.

The electricity bill is due in a couple of days, so we'll see!

Thanks for that White_Hart !

My advice is get a log burner or open fire real cosy no condensation

How can you tell if you have inverter air-conditioning system. Are all air-conditioning systems that give you heating inverter.

Just wanted to work out what the cost is of running an electric oil filled rad in spain. I believe I read there are different electricity tariffs in Spain, as is the case in England. Can anyone please give me an idea of how much they pay per KWH for electric?

The Rower wrote:Just wanted to work out what the cost is of running an electric oil filled rad in spain. I believe I read there are different electricity tariffs in Spain, as is the case in England. Can anyone please give me an idea of how much they pay per KWH for electric?

Yes, there are different tariffs. You can opt for a day/night tariff which reduces the cost from approx midnight to 12 noon but you pay a slightly increased price for the noon to midnight times.
Normal rate is around 15 cents per Kwh BUT you also pay a charge depending on how much power you are contracted for. Most houses now have 5.75 kw contracted power and you pay around 11 cents per kwh per day. That comes to about 60 cents or so per day whether you use electricity or not.
Bearing in mind they then add taxes and charges to those fees (and VAT here is the full 21 %) it can add up to around 50 euros per two month period onto your electricity charges.
They are now switching to smart meters. This bills you for the use at different times of the day depending on demand. Most properties should now, or be in the process of, have changed to smart meters (and the aim is to change all meters by next year).
Re the oil filled radiator. Same as any other electric heater, depends on the kw rating. A 2Kw electric (of any type) fire will use 2kw per hour. Power in equals power out for any heater like this.
The inverter aircon unit, however, is far more efficient. It takes the air from outside and puts it through a heat pump. It can produce up to four times the amount of power out as power in. A 1kw inverter aircon can give up to 4kw heat depending on the difference in temperature between outside and in. Even in very cold weather, the increase in power will be at least 2.5 times the amount of power in.
The inverter also maintains a constant temp by either increasing or decreasing airflow rather then switching on and off in a non-inverter aircon unit. That means there is no extra cost to switch the aircon on and have it blasting out to get the temp back up to the required level. A 1.5kw aircon will cost around 22 cents per hour to run but will reduce that as the room maintains its heat and the average would be around 9 cents an hour throughout the day but giving around 4kw of heat. Compare that with a direct power electric heater of 4Kw at about 60 cents an hour.

This is our first winter out here and that info was really helpful, the electric bills have confused us and we are concerned if we use our electric oil radiators too much, but will look at other heat sources ready for next winter, many thanks.