Heat Tape VS Cable - Electricity Bill

Hello, I was wondering if anybody noticed a difference with their electricity bill when using heat tape and/or cable? Somebody (one person) said that heat tape will save you $ than cable. Have any of you experienced or noticed the difference? Thanks.

M

All I know is I have bulbs running all day and one heat pad and my bill seems to be about $10-$15 more a month.

I notice perhaps a couple dollar increase in my bill. I use heat tape.

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Maybe I should have asked how many snakes you own. I have about 45 and have noticed about $125 increase in my monthly electric bill.

I use both, tape and cable.

I have 11 snakes and 6 geckos all on heat tape. I don't think there should be that big of an increase.

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It all depends on the size and the run.

You can figure it out mathematically.

Each heat tape size has a watt per section/foot associated with it, just add up your total wattage and figure how often it's actually running full blast(if you are running on/off T-stats) and multiply the watts used in an hour and figure that to your power companies cost per kilowatt hr.

I did that with my AC and showed the figures to my landlord. The end result was a power bill that dropped $780/month after a new central heat and air unit was installed.


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Originally Posted by digizure

Hello, I was wondering if anybody noticed a difference with their electricity bill when using heat tape and/or cable? Somebody (one person) said that heat tape will save you $ than cable. Have any of you experienced or noticed the difference? Thanks.

M

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If you are using a thermostat, there shouldn't be much of a different between heat tape and cable. Both are pretty damn efficient at making heat. Even if the heat tape is 10 watts per foot and the heat cable is 20 watts per foot, the heat cable won't have to run at it's full power to maintain the same temp as the heat tape. The difference wouldn't be noticed in your bill.

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Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser

If you are using a thermostat, there shouldn't be much of a different between heat tape and cable. Both are pretty damn efficient at making heat. Even if the heat tape is 10 watts per foot and the heat cable is 20 watts per foot, the heat cable won't have to run at it's full power to maintain the same temp as the heat tape. The difference wouldn't be noticed in your bill.

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That's what I was thinking! There's a guy who insists that heat tape saves electricity than heat cable. I use Herpstat for all of my racks.

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Originally Posted by digizure

That's what I was thinking! There's a guy who insists that heat tape saves electricity than heat cable. I use Herpstat for all of my racks.

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I mean if I wanted to play devils advocate I could say tape is laminate where cable is normally jacketed and insulated, which laminate will pass heat better, tape comes in lower wattages than cable I use at work, which would be fractionally more efficient, but I don't know if cable comes in low wattages also. But those still won't be a difference to show up on your bill. I think the difference between the initial cost (assuming one is higher priced than the other per foot) would save more money than the cost of running of it on a thermostat, but I have no idea what cable costs. They are both efficient, just running electricity through heating elements.

I was just researching and here's what I came up with (by no means I am an electrician).

I have a home made adult rack with two 39ft heat cables, both 100 watts each, plugged into a Herpstat 2. If I were to replace the heat cable with an 11" flexwatt, I'd need 25 feet and they're 20 watts per foot so that's 500 watts and I'd probably hook it up to a Herpstat 1.

Is it safe to assume that the heat cable will save on the electricity bill?