Paraffin, electric or gas? This is the question of every winter season. We try here to answer it by comparing consumption, power and recommendations of experts in energy and air conditioning.
Article updated on May 20, 2022
The cold doesn’t care about anything: global warming, pandemic, drought or economic crisis, it will descend like a ghost, it will pass through your doors and windows, and it will penetrate your bones with immense efficiency. No matter how much you wrap yourself or swallow cups and cups of boiling tea, the infamous will achieve its goal, starting with your fingers or your feet still on the desk, and as soon as possible – around 5:50 p.m. or so – it will have soaked in your marrow.
The only way to fight him with any degree of success – besides lying all day with a guatero between your feet (although that’s a surrender rather than a fight) – is with a heat source. And since very few homes in Chile have a centralized system (only 2.4%, according to the Household Energy Use Report 2018 —, the rest must make do with a device that emits heat. Like a stove.
The heating expenses of an average Chilean household are not marginal. On the contrary: according to the same report quoted above, of all residential energy consumption in a house, 53% is used for heating and air conditioning, much more than for heating water — 20% — or light the house — 7 percent.
How do you warm up in Chile? Well, in the likes there is nothing written. But when it comes to fuel type, nationally, 39% heat their homes with firewood; 21% with liquefied gas in cylinders; 19.8 with paraffin and 11.7 with electricity.
The Guide to sustainable heating published last year by the Ministry of the Environment, claims that the cheapest method — not counting the investment for the device or its installation — is air conditioning split inverter. By using it 8 hours a day, during the month of July and in a 57m2 house in Santiago, it will only cost us $19,209 per month in electricity bills (according to 2019 rates). For its part, liquefied gas, using it for the same duration under the same conditions, will cost $42,194 per month (whereas at current prices it would easily be around $60,000).
“The economic question is important,” says María Luisa del Campo, director and academic of the Kipus Technology Center , from the University of Talca, where he specializes in energy efficiency. “But we must also take into account the pollution generated by each mode of heating. Not only for the environment, but especially at the intra-domiciliary level”.
The devices that pollute the least, in addition to being the most efficient, are air conditioning. But buy and install an air conditioner split inverter it can come out at least around $450,000. “Not every pocket can afford this expense,” says Miguel Castro, civil builder and professor of construction engineering at Duoc UC in Alameda. For the rest, with a more limited budget, he recommends evaluating several factors before choosing the most suitable stove.
“It depends, first of all, on the space you need to heat and the level of insulation the house has. But if we are talking about a house of 60 m2, with simple windows and which suffers from the cold of the Metropolitan Region, the most efficient device is a kerosene or kerosene stove”.
Because? “Because it has an excellent balance between heat output – an average kerosene stove typically achieves 3.2 kW/h – and consumption efficiency.” Although the liter of kerosene has increased (as of May 19, 2022, it costs around 1,200 dollars, a boom caused by the invasion of Ukraine), these devices consume around 250 ml per hour. That’s $300 every 60 minutes.”
“Strictly speaking, they are not very efficient, because by heating only the air and not the structural materials – as a centralized heating system would do – when the heat is turned off, it almost immediately disappears from the environment. “, criticizes María Luisa. Del Campo. Either way, he recognizes kerosene stoves as the best option. “Their consumption is cheap, but they require frequent ventilation so as not to pollute so much.”
According to the Spanish site Buy better , specializing in product testing and analysis, the best paraffin stove last winter was the Toyotomi LC-33, with laser technology, which reaches a power of 3.2 kw/h. It is designed to heat spaces between 20 and 48 m2. There is also an option, the LC-28 which heats less but is much cheaper.
Toyotomi LC-33 paraffin laser oven
And the gas?
Gas cookers can be much more powerful than a paraffin cooker – one with ceramic panels and three levels reaches 4.2 kWh – and the devices are also cheaper than modern laser heaters. But their energy consumption is more expensive.
Example: a gas stove of the power indicated above consumes an average of 327 g/h. If the price of an 25-pound bottle of liquefied gas is around 20,000 pesos in Florida — by May 20, according to the site gasenlinea.gob.cl —, the hourly cost would be $594, almost double that of paraffin.
“They have the virtue of being mobile and that the devices are not so expensive”, explains Miguel Castro. “But its fuel is much more expensive.” The heating range they have is around 40m2 and they are not recommended for rooms or small spaces.
The liquefied gas stove with the best rating in Falabella is the Würden RF 5700CL-C, with a power of 4.2 kWh.
Gas cooker Würden RF 5700CL-C
And electric?
Only if you need to heat a small room, like your feet while telecommuting or the children’s room before they fall asleep, is it advisable to have an electric heater. “They have a low initial cost but very little calorific value,” explains Miguel Castro, from Duoc UC.
“Their great advantage is that, since they don’t burn, they don’t pollute the air”, explains María Luisa del Campo. “But to heat a space, you would have to have it on for a long time, generating a lot of consumption.”
Recco DI05-20F electric cooker
Pollution is not a trivial subject for the academic from the University of Talca. “With a kerosene or gas stove running for several hours a day, a lot of carbon dioxide is released, oxygen is consumed, and the air is humidified. All of this, by breathing it in, makes us more likely to get sick. , weakens and distracts us”.
To avoid this, she recommends always keeping a window minimally open, even if the damn cold gets in. And once in a while — “about two hours,” he says — completely ventilate the space, opening cross windows — at different ends of the place — and let the air circulate for two minutes to renew the environment.
How do you know when the air is stale, as they say on TV? “If the windows are fogged up,” says Del Campo, “that’s a sign it’s time to air out.”
*Product prices are updated as of May 20, 2022. Values and availability may change.
Source: Latercera
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
