Supplement heating oil, propane, etc. heat with electric heat?

We heat with propane and are toying with the idea of supplementing with an electric fireplace. Is this actually going to save us money or cost about the same in the end?

Does anyone do this?

Nice timing, I was just thinking about this today too

For the last two years, our heater was broken and we couldn't afford to fix it. Last year after we had our son, we supplemented with 2 energy saving space heaters (the kind that look like radiators and have oil inside), one in the living room and one in ds room. It worked good enough, but our bills did go up of course. We were very careful to not use them too much because I had just started staying home and and we are on a strict budget.

We are having a friend fix our heater now (he got the part wholesale, yay!), but I'm terrified of the possible bills. I'd love some input on this....

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We also have an electric space heater and the bill didn't go up that much. Of course their is an increase but nothing I consider to be out of control. I think this is also a good alternative to look into.

I also heat with propane- this is our first time using it again in a few years. Last year we just used kersosene and space heaters- and my gosh the electric bill got super high (they were able to double the kilowatts per hour). That was one of the reasons why we went back to propane. I think supplementing is a good idea- I plan on (in the very cold winter) during the day use the kerosene heater and in my one dd's room one of those oil filled radiator heaters. Especially when it gets super cold- our money becomes super tight- so anyway we can try to "conserve" our main source of heating I think it may be worth it.

I stumbled on a neat website that helps you figure out when to switch the way you heat your home. Found out that if propane hits $3.15 a gallon I should switch to my electric. You may find some usefull information. It is energyboomer.com- the website is pretty interesting and informative. HTH!

I have three ways to heat my house ... a natural gas forced air furnace, electric baseboard heaters in several rooms, and three wood stoves - one in the living room, one in the basement family room and one in the kitchen. I've tried different ways to get the most efficient home heating and have determined what works best for our house. Since we have a basement, I turn on the family room electric baseboard heater to a minimal setting and that seems to keep the chill off of that area. Then if the house feels cold, I run the furnace fan more to move the air around and get rid of the cold spots. In addition, I tend to generate more heat in the house at peak times of day like run the clothes dryer early in the evening as the day gets chillier or make dinner using the oven. Since we live in a dry, snowy area, I also concentrate on adding humidity to the house whenever I can. Again, I tend to cook more things that generate steam and I air-dry the dishes in the dishwasher to let the steam out.

I rarely use the wood stoves mostly because I can't deal with the smokey air and because I dislike having to tote wood into the house and ashes out. But I do enjoy the toasty feel that comes off the little wood stove in the kitchen on the coldest of mornings.

When DD was a baby, we tended to set the baseboard heater in her room to a minimal level just to make sure she didn't get chilled when sleeping. Other than that, we just use electric blankets or mattress warmers and dress a little cozier.

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we do this we have yet to turn on our furnace yet(we have fuel oil wich is equivalent to diesel gas) and it has been in the teens a couple of nights. we have two electric baseboard style heaters (honeywell brand i bought at target for 50 bucks a piece) they have thermostats alarms for if they get two hot(wich in two years they never have) or tip over(wich they never have). we run one on our main floor and one in our upstairs. right now our house is at about 75 degrees a little warmer than i like but in a few days its gonna get chilly. our bill is only 20 bucks more a month to run these non stop. we have used the radiatior oil type ones and found we used way to much electricity we got these to try and these and they are much more energy effecient. so we may only use a 1/2 a tank this winter since we have yet to use the furnace last year at this time it was colder here so we had the furnace on already and we only used 1 tank for the entire winter. we do have drapes on all the windows and keep them closed if its cloudy or very windy. and keep them open if its sunny to help heat it up in here.

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