SMALL HEATERS FOR HEATING SMALL HOMES

One of the big perks of living in a tiny home is that you don’t have large extensive areas of space to try to keep warm.  This means you can get away with a much less powerful source of heat and you should be saving huge amounts on your energy bill.  If you aren’t saving drastically compared to when you were living in a full size home, something is definitely wrong.  However, equally as exciting as it is to have the freedom to purchase a small heater, it’s also equally important to make sure you don’t purchase something too large, as you’ll likely cook yourself out of home and find yourself unable to find a happy medium.  What does that leave you with for options?  Here are some common and recommended options when it comes to tiny home heating, from the views of upfront cost and running cost.

Lowest Upfront Cost

The most affordable option at time of purchase is going to be a small, portable electric heater.  You can find electric heaters in just about every shape, style and design.  Within the electric family you can opt between a variety of “styles.”  The most common are convection heaters, but you can also look into infrared heaters or even oil filled heaters.  Remember as you’re looking at these that the convection heaters and oil heaters are more suitable for heating “space.”  Infrared heaters, on the other hand, are best for heating “objects” near the heater, but this also makes them very energy efficient, since heat is directed and absorbed, rather than spreading out and attempting to fill a large area.  Depending upon the prices of electricity in your area, you can easily figure out if running an electric heater will be more cost effective than another method. 

Note: When it comes to measuring, look at your room size and multiply by 100.  If your home is 300 square feet, then look for a heater that runs at or near 3,000 watts.

Mid Upfront & Mid Running Cost

Although your upfront cost will be considerably higher than with an electric heater, if you have access to wood, a small woodstove will likely be your most affordable option for fueling.  Your only costs should be your yearly wood permit and the fuel needed for hauling and chopping the wood.  There’s really no heat quite like the heat from a wood stove, which means you can give your tiny home one of the coziest environments possible.  The most difficult part of the entire process is likely the legwork to find a small enough stove, as a regular size will kick you out of house and home.  Small woodstoves designed for camping can be feasible options.

Highest Upfront but Potentially Lowest Long Run

The two final types of heating popular for those going green in their small homes are radiant and solar heating.  While the upfront cost may seem steep, the fact that you’re heating a tiny home instead of a regular size home might be enough to make this affordable and doable when it would otherwise not be.  Plus, the ability to heat with renewable resources that take no effort (hauling wood is only so fun for so long) is unbeatable.  Radiant hot water heating does require significant installation and thus is best suited for tiny homes in the building stages.  For locations anywhere near a source of hot water, obviously this would make radiant hot water heating an easy option.  However, you can also obviously use water that is heated with a home boiler.  Depending on factors like location, flooring type, amount and method of installation, etc., your price will vary largely.  Of course, if you can do the majority of the work yourself, your costs will be greatly minimized.

Note: Will likely cost twice as much as a forced air heating system would, but will run approximately 30% more efficiently.

Solar heating involves less extensive/invasive “installation,” which means, unlike radiant hot water heating, you could theoretically switch to solar as an afterthought.  Other perks: there’s no hot water to heat and no “fuel” of any sort to keep up with.  You simply need the sun, making it 100% efficient and sustainable for long term use.  Purchasing and installing the solar panels runs about $6-$9 dollars per watt. 

Note: you should be able to pay back your investment with your energy savings in around 5-8 years.

Freelancer Jocelyn writes for Heater Home and helps promote the use of a small, energy efficient electric heaters whenever possible to conserve energy use on a daily basis.