Is there an equation to compare heating costs of propane versus electricity to heat a bedroom?

I wouldn't sleep with the fireplace either - - - - what about a proper propane firplace insert - since you have propane piped to the fireplace????. They are insurance certified, safe, efficient, readilly available - even in double sided format - but decidedly NOT cheap.

The fireplace is illegal and unsafe if it does not have a non-flamable hearth around it extending a few feet out and to both sides of the fireplace opening. Not an issue with a propane insert.

As I said in a previous post it COULD - but it wouls then reduce the efficiency significantly - possibly as low is 15-25% unstead of 85%+

A sad comment on the state of American education (assoming Patrick is American) - no math skills and no scientific knowlege at all. This is all Grade 5 level knowlege for most of us born in the 50s and 60s - -

I haven't thought about it that far as I didn't even think about the CO when this conversation started - but it's not hard to open the damper.

Clare said most of the heat will go up the chimney though.

So maybe I'll put the heater somewhere else as the damper is chocked 1/4 open by California law anyway (it's a screw fitting that can be undone).

Since both heaters were bought at Costco, I can return one, but I'm still working on figuring out which one to return - the propane or the electric.

The electric has more safety features (like automatic &/or timed shutoff). The propane is 3/4 the expense and 1.5 times the heat (per hour).

Which of the two would you use in a rather open aired high ceiling bedroom (that has a fan in the ceiling and a two-sided fireplace in the middle)?

In my post excepted above, I was arguing with Wolf who I thought deserved rebuttal (each part for a different reason.) Some of those rebuttals should be of interest to you, especially when I quote the Amazon ad that lists places to use such a heater. And the one that asks what a low oxygens sensor is, how it works, does it fail, does it fail because of age? I have no idea how a low oxygen sensor works.

But all in all, I don't know the answer to your question. I mostly know when someone says something doesn't make sense, and you havent' said silly things. Plus anyone who's taken a negligence course or read a casebook is going to be very reluctant to tell people to do something he doesn't know for sure is safe.

The fireplace has a chimney to expel exhaust gases. The moment you just mentioned the fireplace, I thought maybe putting the propane heater in the fireplace would cause it's exhaust gases to go up the chimney, but I don't know. When you first light a fire in a fireplace, the smoke (and the other products of combustion) will fill the room unless you've heated the air in the chimney somewhat. I usually take roll up some loose newspaper to look like a little torch, light that and hold it in the chimney for 5 or 10 seconds (I forget) and that warms it up.

I don't have a feel for what a propane heater would do either with or without heating the air in the chimney, and since aiui the heater makes no smoke, you couldn't tell by looking if the exhaust gas was going up the chimney.

With chimneys :-)

Maybe you could call the people who make Buddy and/or any of the other makers of propane heaters and ask if they are suitable. for an indoor room in a non-drafty house, one with storm windows if you have storm windows, and when they say No, ask if putting the heater in a fireplace would make it okay. I would call more than one manufacturer, and I don't think it's immoral even to call one you're almost sure you won't buy from, especially if you come back here and tell us what they said. Find a model they sell similar to the Buddy you think you will buy.

One of the articles I read said that the Buddy, I think it was, was safer than non-indoor models because it had vents. That sounds like nonsense. What do they vent where? From the inside of the heater to the outside? Of course, what else, why would that make it safe. Venting to outside the house would make it safe.

Another article said "sensors" and I guess they're counting a tip-over sensor and the low oxygen sensor, so only one of those protects agaisnt CO.

YOu could also get a CO alarm for that room. My brother gives the best gifts, and I'd not even thought of getting one but he gave me one and I put it in the bedroom and one night in the middle of the night it blared me awake. I turned off the furnace and opened the window. It was fairly cold in the bedroom when I closed the window, reluctantly, and I couldn't use the furnace all night until I exmamined it the next day. I had fiddled with the air intake for the oil furnace and I learned that I messed it up. The 4" exhaust pipe for the furnace had 1 1/2 inches of soot all around the inside and only 1" for the exhaust, making it 1/16th what it should have been. I had to go buy a better, bigger wet/dry vacuum that could use soot filters in order to clean it. Or maybe first I called the oil company to clean the furnace. Most years it would only have a quarter inch or less of soot, iirc.

I googled: putting a small propane heater in a fireplace But most of the hits still were not about your situation.

Based on the title, I thought this wwould be more relevant but it's only

The fireplace is in the center of the tall-ceiling room along a 3/4 wall, with the bigger room on one side of the two-sided fireplace, and the other side opens into a smaller room. There is a ceiling fan & balcony door too.

Windows are everywhere as there's a wrap-around balcony all along one room. There's a full bathroom and walkin closet since this is the master bedroom.

The fireplace itself is white tile for about 18 inches all around on the walls, and there is a six-inch-tall tiled "step" on both sides which is about two feet deep. There are heavy chainlink "fenches" on each side too.

The walls are white gypsum board with a stucco-like finish and the room is carpeted everywhere else - which is why a wood-burning fire is a pita.

The propane has a valve opened by a key in the wall which has to be lit with a flame which just spits out a short flame out of a couple dozen holes drilled into a straight pipe about two inches (or whatever) along the centerline of the fireplace. The flue has a vent whose valve is chocked open which I'm told is the law that it has to be 1/4 open all year round.

While some rooms in the house have floor vents and others ceiling vents, this room only has wall suckers and blowers for the forced-air propane heating (there's a large propane tank outside that is filled periodically).

I have a high school degree but that was in the early sixties, long ago. Nobody ever said I was smart but I don't mind being called stupid.

If I knew the answer to the questions, I wouldn't have asked them. All I'm trying to understand is how well "room heating" will work.

With the kids all gone, it's just the two of us on social security with a big house that doesn't need all that much heat in California.

We've noticed that below 40 degrees out fingers begin to hurt a little, but most of the time it's above 50 degrees which is just slightly chilly.

Anything above 60 degrees we generally consider to be respectively warm. Of course, we don't use AC so we consider 70 degrees just about perfect.

Anything above 80 degrees begins to get warm and anything about 90 degrees is kind of like anything below 50 degrees in that discomfort begins there.

It never gets to freezing for any length of time - maybe at the coldest time just before sunrise for a couple of hours at most.

Once every ten years (like last winter!) ice will last more than a day.

They should have parked on the grass. I hear that doesn't burn.

Never mind.

And I'm never parking in Canada. It sounds too dangerous.

Not parking in California either.

This article reminds me that cats get hot by design**. And then if something goes wrong they get really hot.

I have a couple of those I probably picked up from a free box at a yard sale years ago. I never realized what they would cost new.

google high+efficiency+gas+heater+for+fireplace for alternative possibilities

Any opening on the damper will waste some of any heat you put into the house.

Look at high efficiency gas fireplace inserts that can be adapted to propane. I don't know if there are double sided ones.

Since I don't like plastic tools, that aluminum body $80 Bernzomatic TS4000T Trigger-Start Torch Head looks like a nice kit for a torch!

They do their job burning off un-burned fuel in hot exhaust and get hot. If they don't get hot, they likely are not working.

I'd put an insulated airtight plug in the fireplace - both sides - and use an electric heater (fan forced - not radiant) - Here in Canada Home Despot has a metal cased SAI fan forced 4700BTU? for $35 Canadian

- about $26 US

Get wooly undies and a sweater and a pair of mitts for when it gets cold and a good comforter and dlannel PJs for cold nights. Get a night cap to keep your ears and noggin warm - just pretend you are camping out !!

ANY "combustion catalyst: gets hot - by design. They don't work cold

Read the description - adapts from 20 lb tank to 1 lb tank fitting. Nothing else required They have male thread on both ends.

We used to use down blankets because I calculated that the savings inherent in buying one $300 blanket was more than using the heat for a winter, so they were free in the end - but - they fell apart too easily in the wash.

A couple of years ago, Costco had a sale on those really thick faux sheepskin "Monte & Jardin" brand polyester blankets (they're so heavy when wet you can barely hold them on the clothesline with them sagging to the ground by stretching the taut rope). I don't remember how much but maybe $25 or $30 each and I bought something like ten or more of them for us and for the kids.

When you pile them on the bed, the sheer weight of them feels toasty! Of course, we wear a wool cap, just like they do in the cartoons.

I'd rather invest in the re-usable blankets than in the ephemeral heat that just goes out the window. Same thing with the Costco hooded sweatshirts, although I like the kind with lots of pockets (one for the phone) and a zipper that goes all the way down in the front (although they always break in the wash).

The blankets don't need to be washed all that often as they are piled up so only one touches you if the cover sheet falls off (and it often does).

Suggestion: An electric _mattress pad_. Yes, lots of people are familiar with electric blankets, but these are _under_ you, so combined with a decent blanket, are super duper...