Dollars and Cents ~ An Idaho Block Heater's Story

[ScottnID]

Heres some interesting numbers for ya...

It costs about a dollar per watt for the electricity to operate an electrical device all year. For example: It costs roughly $75 to burn a 75 watt light bulb all year. From: Estimating Electric Costs of Electric Devices

Following that logic:

1000W block heater should cost $1000* (1000*$1) to run 24/7 for one year...

Thats $2.74 dollars a day (1000/365)...

Or $0.34 cents per hour (2.74/8)...

So to run the block heater for 3 hours (using a timer; 3 hours being the general consensus on the time required to heat that motor to a good starting temp) it cost $1.03 (0.34*3) to warm up that PSD...


Thats got to be cheaper than the fuel it take to do the same thing on a COLD Idaho () morning!

Scott

*Assuming a "standard" cost bases for the electricity ~ your cost may vary slightly

[01flatbed]

Very interesting, thanks

[venom_nitrous]

It doesn't cost that much. 1 KWH (kilowatt hr) is 1000 watts for one hour. So a 1000w block heater on for 1 hr uses one KWH. Check your electric bill, it will state the per KWH rate on it. Mine is 12 cents per KWH here, and that is a high rate.

[JakeLewis79]

Yeah, I pay $0.076 per Kwh. 3 hours per day = $0.228.

[Highbeam]

When you went from days to hours you divided by 8. If you had divided by 24, pretty sure there are 24 hours in a day, then you would arrive at a more realistic 10 or so cents per hour to run a 1000 watt device.

I run mine on a timer for 3 hours a night on cold nights. So 30 cents. That is the equivalent of 1/10 gallon of diesel fuel which is way less than what I'd burn during the warm up period either due to inefficient cold engine driving or due to warm up idle time.

My actual cost for power is about 10cents per KwH according to my bill.

[ScottnID]

DOHH! Highbeam you got good eyes! That should have been approx 34 cents for 3 hours...

My Bad!

[DieselNoob]

That's pretty fricken interesting right there. Nice job.

[MountainMan]

Back in my workin' days I commuted to work in a 1982 Mercedes 240D. Even in the summer parked in the garage I preheated the engine for 3 hours using a timer. It always started like a hot knife in butter. Needless to say the engine outlasted the body.