14' X 24' - Electric heaters - Not getting it done

Now that we actually have some cooler temps (low of 11 last night), it's obvious that the electric space heaters cannot keep up with the heat loss in our bedroom. This morning our bedroom is a cool 58. Now I don't mind it cooler at night, but 58 is something I leave for camping.


Right now I have the Pelonis heater on full, and it's not budging the temp up. The other Delonis heater we bought was turned off as it was 60 when we went to bed. We might need to have both going until I come up with a better solution. The one downside of the Pelonis is the dryness in the air.


I really miss the wood stove in this room. It did a great job of heating the room. I spoke with the local pellet stove store, and they told me that I could have a pellet stove in here so long as it has a fresh air kit. Need to talk to the town hall to confirm. Unfortunately we do not have the extra cash to go out and purchase a pellet stove at the moment. Our tax returns should be enough, but we are talking a little better than a month and a half away before we could have that in place.


The other option would be to contact a local electrician to install electric baseboard heat. For all I know, they are several weeks out before they could get to us. I'll call today.


Sadly our room was suppose to be repaired about a month ago. The person we scheduled to do the work has not been responsive to our calls. Due to other circumstances, the money set aside for the roof had to be used for other items. Which pushes us to wait for our tax returns. Ugh. Without fixing the roof, I am not willing to insulate the roof from the inside. Which would help with the heat loss in the room. I believe that if the roof were to be insulated properly, we'd be fine with just the space heaters.


More on insulating the roof. To get by until the spring when I can afford for the roof to be repaired, I am considering putting down tarps. That would give me a piece of mind to insulated the roof. My fear is that any leaks would ruin my insulating efforts. With tarps in place, while not a permanent solution, it should be enough to prevent any leaks. Thus freeing me to insulate the roof.


Now you might be wondering why the roof is not insulated already. Captain shortcut. When he built the this room, he put up 1-3/4" tongue and grove pine with exposed beams to carry the roof load. It looks wonderful, but has very little of an insulating factor.


My plan is to install 2"X10" beams in the cavities in order to put in insulation. Then put in wall board for the ceiling material. This would give us an R38 for the ceiling. Considering there is nothing their today, that should be a remarkable improvement on our heat loss factor. The reason I am putting up batting is the cost. I'd prefer to go with a blown in closed cell solution. It would be too expensive right now.


If you have any better cost effective solutions, I am all ears.


Thanks for all of your support and recommendations while I try to figure out our bedroom heating problems. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but not this bad.

 

I would recommend holding off in the baseboard heaters if at all possible. I had them in my house and only running 5-7 of them in the rooms we were using our electric bill was well over $300 a month. Plus as an electrician I would guess that the cost of having new circuits run for them will be very very costly. I don't know what your situation is but it sounds like your remodeling/repairing the room I would recommend running both space heaters grabbing some extra blankets and a getting close together to keep warm.

 

There are also electric blankets.

 

Also the oil heater should stay on all the time, even if just on low. The radiant heat needs to heat the contents and walls before it becomes effective. Its not a convective principle, it's a radiant principle.

 

Baseboard heat is expensive as h3ll to run. The oil filled radiator heater should do it, but like said above, it needs to be on either 24-7, or put it on a timer to turn on a few hrs before bed, and off once up.

Electric blanket will help tremendously. Also recommend a timer for those as well.

 

Someone recently suggested an electric mattress pad. I checked, and some have dual controls.

 

Fire him!!!!

 

Yup, as a contractor, that is unacceptable. It will only get worse from there. I'm always hearing horror stories from customers. ....

 

I've been leaving it on all the time. It has three settings for the level of heat output plus you can set the temp you want. On output one and two it does a good job on 44+ degree days. When below that, it does not. On output level 3, it admits a nasty smell. I believe the smell is due to the unit being new. Today I put it one level 3 as I am not home. Hoping that the smell will burn off during the day. If not, I read a review where one person put it in his garage on level 3 for a full day to get rid of the smell. Due to the smell I cannot tell you if level 3 would keep up with the needs of the room.

According to what I've been told by a wood stove store in our town, I can put either a wood stove or a pellet stove in our bedroom. Either one of them require an outdoor air kit to be able to use them in the bedroom. Based on my experience with the Pelonis ceramic disc heater drying out the air, I suspect that a pellet stove would do the same. Which leads me back to another wood stove for that space with a trivet and steamer to keep moisture in the room.

 

If I have this pictured right:
The cavities are the depth of a 2x10.? If so, depending on the span between the beams, a 2x6 could be used and installed flush with the bottom of the beams to create a smooth ceiling. You could still use the R38 insulation. A 2x6 ceiling joist will span 11'-11" by local code (depending on wood species and grade), your local codes will probably be different. It's best to ask the inspector specifics when in doubt, they are very quirky.....

 

Whole house humidifier, I installed this one this fall. We had a standalone humidifier with a 2.5 gallon tank, and a humidistat. It worked well but during "The vortex" I was filling twice a day. The cool part about the new one is it also circulates the stove air around the house helping to balance the temp a bit. I had to wire it up a little different than the instructions so that it will run without the furnace making heat but if you go down this road let me know, I'll draw up a diagram for ya.

 

Me too...

 

Sure, you basically need the water line like for a refrigerator, an outlet to powere it, and here is the tricky part.... somewhere to run the drain line. The unit pours water onto the top of the element, the extra runs out the bottom to a drainline.... it could be mounted inside a closet with a duct to the other side of the wall maybe. The kit comes with a thermostat and it has its own fan, which is not common in these units.

 

I actually would like to keep the beams exposed a little. This is why I had planned to use 2'X10' flush against the ceiling to leave a little over an inch of the beams. My wife is in the hospital. She had a full knee replacement and a hip replacement today. If I can find time tomorrow to take a picture of the ceiling, I'll upload them.

 

Wow, we're keeping you and your wife in our thoughts after her surgery.

 

With the wood stove that produces radiant heat, a trivet and 2qt steam on top will help keep the air moist. A pellet stove that radiates heat by blowing hot air into the room does not have an option to my knowledge to leverage a trivet with a steamer. The blown air is a dryer air much like the Pelonis disc heater we are currently using.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Thank you. She came out of surgery today, and the doctor gave me a positive report on the results.