Space heater bills?

How much the heater will need to run is very dependent on the room it is being used. I was running mine in an unfinished section of my basement and it was running at full power (1500W) practically all the time. Huge hit to electric bill. I just moved everything to a finished enclosed room and I can now run it at 600W and get to target temperature no problem.


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A 1,500 watt heater consumes 1.5Kw per hour. On Long Island, we pay around $0.20 per Kwh. Theoretically, running a 1,500 heater would cost approximately $7.20 per day or $2,628.00 per year.

The good news is that you probably aren't going to run these heaters non-stop. How much will it really cost? It varies. What is the temperature of your snake room under normal conditions? What is the temperature you want to achieve by adding a heater? How many watts is your heater? How much do you pay for energy where you live?

If you really want to know the cost to operate, you can purchase a smart plug for $30 that will monitor the energy consumption of any appliance in great detail. https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Monit.../dp/B0178IC5ZY

Like everyone said, it depends on to many other factors and how hard the heater will have to work.

If the room is already at least 70 degrees and its a relatively small room, then it won't have to work very hard.

It also depends on how "insulated" your room is. If you are going to do good with keeping your door closed, that will help. If you have a well insulated window, that helps. Caulk around the edges of the window, often there are "drafts". You can also invest in some "room darkening curtains". Not expensive at all, easy to put up, and when drawn they really keep the cold from entering the room through the glass. Draw them closed at night and on esp. cold or windy days. They actually help in HOT climates, too.

Whenever you have a pleasant day, try to get some air exchange in that room by opening the window briefly or leaving your door open for a short time.

Watch the snakes humidity.

At the beginning of this winter I ran one on an external thermostat. Sadly it increased my electric bill by $80 in one month. Mine were in QT at the time but I have since moved them down to my main floor with my other snakes but I do have to keep my home furnace thermostat set to 75 in my whole house. But this option is still cheaper than running the oil filled heater - at least for me.

Two things are key - the size of the room and how much insulation it has. It would be best to heat a small size room, even just a large closet. Try to get as much insulation in there as possible. I have a small bedroom in my basement that I converted, I put up some real thick foam insulation in the outside window and duct taped it in place and covered it with a fancy blanket wall hanging, can't even tell it's there. That saved a ton of electricity. I also put down luxury vinyl flooring on the concrete floor. Now instead of a cold floor it actually feels warm to the touch. I also have two racks of rats in there, you wouldn't believe how much heat rodents can put out, I could probably heat my house with rat racks LOL. My space heater hardly ever comes on. I run a space heater and control the temp with a 'greenhouse thermostat'. You can dial in the temp and just plug in any heater and it controls the temp to +/- one degree F, they work fantastic:

https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Tool...use+thermostat

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