I think you are mistaken.
Electric resistance heat is virtually 100% efficient. No combustion fuel comes close.
You'll notice I did not address CO$T. Given highly efficient equipment, natural gas fuel is less expensive. The same can probably be said about LP gas.
Good advise. Directing a clothes dryer outlet into living space is a BAD idea for many reasons, electric included.
An oil unit boiler has a pump, a furnace a blower, neither of which are part of AFUE, pumps might take 120-150 w, a blower easily 375w, so the cost of competing electric heat is a bit lower.
Hi Mark,
The electricity consumed by these auxiliary devices wouldn't make electric heat any more (or less) competitive, provided the boiler or furnace is located within the home's thermal envelope. Put another way, the electricity used to operate the oil burner and circulator pump/furnace fan is no cheaper nor more expensive than the electricity consumed by a portable space heater.
The key thing to remember is that the electricity consumed by these secondary devices offsets a portion of the home's oil demand, so if the electricity used to operate the boiler is $20.00 a year, say, you need to subtract the value of the oil that this electricity in turn displaces, and that will be determined by the cost of the fuel oil and the boiler's AFUE.
Cheers, Paul
Kinda surprised about some of the responses here. For an electric dryer, there is NO carbon monoxide. None at all. Zero. There is no health risk I can envision by doing this.
The issue about expense of electric versus oil/gas depends on whether you are venting the air from a load of drying clothes into the house (in which case you get the heat for free -- you'd otherwise just be venting your heat outside). Of course, then you get the humidity as well, which may or may not be what you want. That would keep your skin from drying out in the winter, but would leaves puddle under your cool windows. I could see venting the dryer into the house during the last stages of the dry cycle, when most of the water is gone.
But I would not run this through your HVAC system. Last thing you need is condensation in the ductwork.
Just using a clothes dryer as a standalone heater blower seems expensive. In most places, per BTU produced, electricity is more expensive than oil/gas, as most people are pointing out. I mean, just turn on all the lights in your house. It'll do the same thing as your electric dryer, but warm all your rooms uniformly, instead of just the area around your dryer.
You have to run the numbers with often electric resistance heating isn't out of the question compared to NG or oil. You have to run your own numbers.
The NG & oil have to be vented (with the exception of "ventless" NG or LPG heaters). From 5% to 25% of your fuel goes up the stack and the air that goes up is replaced by cold outside air.
Small electric heaters are quite cheap ($20-$30 or so). You can place them EXACTLY where you want the heat and seat the house thermostat to something like 60 ot 65F.
Venting the dryer inside during the winter might be OK if the excess humidity doesn't cause a problem. You might want to add an extra lint filter.
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I'm surprised at some of the answers too. He said he it going to run it when there are no clothes in the dryer, just using it as a heater. Won't be any humidity from it that way.
Yes, that was exactly my point. It is clear that one could save heating money by venting the dryer into the house while drying your clothes (which had not been noted). It is not clear (and, actually, pretty unlikely) that you would if just using it as a standalone heater without it drying clothes. Part of my point was that, to some degree, humid air could be advantageous.
Actually, I think somebody had made the point... :)
I've seen ads for venting filters to do precisely that offered on late night TV. I think one would require almost a HEPA filter to collect the finest of lint that would collect over time if did it often.
Agree totally that an electric clothes dryer is a sorry for a space heater--for one minor thing, they're usually not installed where one really wants/needs the output heat.
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