Kessil

Lowering the energy bill: Heat the room or the tank

Blaise006

Blaise006

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So last night I went out and bought a ceramic space heater.

My thought process is since all the tanks are going in one small garage that it might be better to just heat the garage with a space heater.

Drywall has insulation, no insulation on the garage door.

Turn the space heater on and PH drops rapidly. Welp I guess the electric space heater must be giving off CO2 in my conclusion.

That seems dangerous if accurate. I assume this must be wrong since people use these to heat living spaces. Does the heating coil pose a threat to tanks or is this just a possible one time correlation?

Would an oil filled radiator heater be a better option? Do you think much energy will be saved heating the room versus heating the tanks individually?
 
For the large tank, I would heat the water in the tank with 2x 600 watt titanium heaters on an Inkbird thermostat. Maybe run 2 Inkbirds and 2 big heaters on your system. Set one to 76 and the other to 78 (or something similar so only one is doing the fine tuning). Heating the room leads to more heat leaving your overall thermodynamic system (of the garage plus the tank).
 
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H2OPlayar said:
For the large tank, I would heat the water in the tank with 2x 600 watt titanium heaters on an Inkbird thermostat. Maybe run 2 Inkbirds and 2 big heaters on your system. Set one to 76 and the other to 78 (or something similar so only one is doing the fine tuning). Heating the room leads to more heat leaving your overall thermodynamic system (of the garage plus the tank).
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PGE is gonna kill me. My bill is already at 350 a month and I only have 100 gallons up and running currently. Can’t imagine what the big tank will do to me.
 
When you say "better" what do you mean? Better according to the power bill? Or better as in less things to worry about (i.e. heaters for each tank)?

If it's your power bill you will not save any money heating the whole space with a standard electric heater, at best you'll break even because you're exchanging one resistive heating element (aquarium heater) with another (ceramic floor heater or oil filled electric heater), at worst you'll end up paying more but that largely depends on if your garage actually reaches the temperature of your tanks which is a direct function of how well insulated your garage space is. A lot of big warehouse/LFS can get away with heating everything primarily because they use some gas fired heaters which tends to be a lot cheaper per dollar spent. Now if you had a heat pump style heater, there is a chance you could come out ahead because heat pumps move heat they don't make heat and that tends to be much more energy efficient.

If you're worried about numbers of heaters, then yeah that's one of the reason why stores would do that, just removing points of failure, plus having a heater for each tank would require better than average electrical placement and circuit runs.

That said if you try to heat with a 250W heater or a 1000W heater it'll cost the same on the bill, since the heater is only heating up to a set temperature it just gets there faster with a larger heater.

As for the pH problem, not sure if the heater is doing it at least directly, maybe something to do with convection it is creating? CO2 is heavier than most other air molecules so if your heater is moving air around it is possibly CO2 is more easily getting into your tank(s).
 
Agree with Michael’s and Mike’s points.

Just to point out that presuming the air in the garage is normally colder than your tank temperature of 78 deg or whatever in the winter, then heating the entire room with an electric heater will definitely cost a lot more than just heating the tanks with electric heaters. When you just heat your tanks, the air in the garage acts like an insulator with a gradation of temperature between the tanks and the temperature outside your garage. If you heat the whole garage, you loose this significant insulating effect. Plus you’d be heating up not only the tank water but also all the air and by extension the inner surfaces of the walls/floor/ceiling.

As far as the CO2 and pH space heater question, that is either a coincidence or a seriously scary/dangerous defective heater. You should try to figure out which it is. I have the club CO2 meter if you want to borrow it.
 
JVU said:
Agree with Michael’s and Mike’s points.

Just to point out that presuming the air in the garage is normally colder than your tank temperature of 78 deg or whatever in the winter, then heating the entire room with an electric heater will definitely cost a lot more than just heating the tanks with electric heaters. When you just heat your tanks, the air in the garage acts like an insulator with a gradation of temperature between the tanks and the temperature outside your garage. If you heat the whole garage, you loose this significant insulating effect. Plus you’d be heating up not only the tank water but also all the air and by extension the inner surfaces of the walls/floor/ceiling.

As far as the CO2 and pH space heater question, that is either a coincidence or a seriously scary/dangerous defective heater. You should try to figure out which it is. I have the club CO2 meter if you want to borrow it.
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Thanks, I turned the heater off last night when I saw a sudden drop in PH. Gave me a good scare. Guess I’ll just have to get solar panels.
 
Assuming you have a gas furnace supporting your living area, how about running a vent into the garage? Nat Gas is cheap, and you are burning it anyway to heat the house.
 
Nat gas prices have almost doubled from last year to this year. If you are not already on Time of Use for your electricity bill, you will be soon. Your peak rates will be from 4-9pm 7 days a week so if you can tune your lights, that will help your bill. I put a 1" thick piece of foam on the back of my tank that faces a window for additional insulation. I also cover the top of my tank to reduce condensation. I do wonder what my dissolved O2 is but system seems fine visually.
 
I would do some more investigating before deciding what the issue is that is causing your bill to be higher than the previous residents, there are a bunch of possibilities. At the very least you can probably see your usage on PGE’s website and compare that with the draw for all the tank gear (Apex or Kill-a-watt). I’ve spent a lot of time looking into these things for myself and it has generally been worth it.
 
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