Are you thinking about getting a heat lamp? You are probably wondering whether they are the best option, at least in terms of the cost. You cannot select heat lamps without first determining the impact they will have on your utility bills. Fortunately, determining the cost of running a heat lamp is relatively easy.
How Much Does It Cost To Run A 250 Watt Heat Lamp?
250W heat lamp costs $0.03 per hour, $0.72 per 24 hours, $20.16 per month, and $241.92 per year.
| Usage | Cost |
| 1 HOUR | $0.03 |
| 24 HOURS | $0.72 |
| MONTH | $20.16 |
| YEAR | $241.92 |
However, the cost of running any appliance will vary depending on rates, service provider, rating of the lamp, usage & vampire power.
1). Different Country Has Different Rates
Where do you live? The rates in your country will probably differ from the rates in another country. While your electricity costs 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, it may cost another person 14 cents. That slight difference can have a drastic impact on your monthly electricity bill.
2). Different Service Provider Has Different Rates
Even if you live in the same country, the service provider is not always the same. Service providers may offer different rates. For instance, they may have a tiered system that charges you a higher rate if you use a lot of electricity.
On the other hand, another service provider may charge a flat rate regardless of your usage.
Micheal Bluejay expects consumers to take the individual rates of their service providers into account whenever they calculate the cost of running a particular appliance.
3). Rating Of The Lamp Matters
Check the rating of your lamp. Is it a 250W lamp? Manufacturers tend to include this information on the packaging or a label on the heat lamp. Don’t assume that your light uses 250 watts simply because someone said so. You can get heat lamps in various ratings.
Keep the type of heat lamp in mind. The wattage is not enough. Some lights are more efficient than others. For instance, an incandescent bulb will use up to 98 percent of its energy as heat.
Don’t expect the same results from LED and fluorescent bulbs. You should also watch out for other features, such as reflectors and twin tubes. Based on these features, different lamps may consume different amounts of electricity to produce the same quantity of infrared radiation.
If you forget to take this factor into account, you may not understand why one 250W heat lamp uses more power than another 250W lamp.
4). Usage Of The Lamp Matters
How much usage does the heat lamp get? Do you use it for an hour each day or 24 hours nonstop? The amount of usage will affect your total bill at the end of the month. Don’t expect your bill to match that of another consumer whose usage varies. Each consumer is unique. You must base your calculations on your situation.
This is why you cannot afford to rely on the calculations that other people have performed. In many cases, they won’t tell you that their situation differs from yours.
5). Vampire Power Also Affect In Billing
What kind of lamp do you have? Do you always unplug the light when it is not in use? Does it consume power when it isn’t in use? You may receive a higher bill than expected even though your heat lamp gets very little use because you forgot to account for the vampire energy it uses whenever you forget to unplug it from the outlet.
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How To Calculate The Cost Of Electricity Heat Lamp Consumes?
A formula that people that you can use to calculate the cost of electricity is:
Wattage x Hours Used / 1000 x Price per Kilowatt Hour.
The wattage comes with the heat lamp (250 Watts). You have to record the hours of use and the cost of each kWh in your area.
If you prefer kilowatt-hours, don’t panic simply because your heat lamp shows watts.
Just remember that one kilowatt is one thousand watts. Therefore, an appliance with a rating of 1500 watts will use 1.5kWh in an hour because you divided 1,500 watts by 1000 watts.
In the case of a 250W lamp, dividing 250 watts by 1000 watts gives you 0.25 kWh.But you don’t need the kilowatt-hours to calculate the cost of running a heat lamp. The wattage is enough.
For instance, if your service provider charges 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, this is what you can expect: 250 (Watts) x 1 (Hours Used) / 1000 x 0.12 (12 cents per kWh). This gives you $0.03. For every hour that a heat lamp runs, you will pay $0.03.
If the heat lamp runs for 24 hours straight, multiply $0.03 by 24 hours to get $0.72. If the heat lamp is running for a week, multiply $0.03 by 168 (Number of hours in a week) to get $5.
As you can see, the process is relatively straightforward. You don’t have to perform these calculations yourself. The internet has plenty of calculators that can do this math for you once you enter the cost of each kilowatt-hour, usage, and wattage of the appliance.
Do Heat Lamps Use A Lot of Electricity?
Heat lamps have a higher watt rating than ordinary bulbs and lights because they use most of their energy to generate heat. They are supposed to provide more heat than standard lamps and bulbs.
The bulbs in a conventional home don’t use that much electricity. From what superior lighting has seen, their rating will range between 25 and 100 watts. A 100W bulb is very bright. You can save money by using an LED bulb that consumes a fraction of the power that an incandescent bulb uses while producing the same amount of light.
With ordinary bulbs, the lumens are the most important consideration because they show you the brightness you can expect. The brightness doesn’t matter to consumers that use heat lamps. They are more interested in the amount of heat they generate.
In that regard, you have to consider the efficiency. Look for bulbs that use most of their energy as heat. You don’t want lamps that waste their energy. They will use more power while generating less heat. Overall, you shouldn’t buy a heat lamp unless you need the heat. It will cost you more.
From what RS UK has seen, LED lights do a better job of producing light than incandescent bulbs. But they do not get warm enough to work in the place of a heat lamp. Incandescent bulbs, on the other hand, are poor light sources because they waste a lot of energy as heat. Therefore, they are decent heat sources.
Does Distance Increase/Decrease The Cost?
The distance between the heat source and the objects you want to warm matters. You will use more energy to warm a thing that is far away than you would a nearby object. As a result, it will cost you more money to use heat lamps to warm faraway objects. You can cut the cost by reducing the distance or getting a more efficient light.
Is There Energy Efficient 250-Watt Heat Lamp?
Short wave IR bulbs are more intense. They can cover longer distances, but they use a lot of energy. Medium and long wave options are dimmer and better over a short-range.
Amp VS 250 Watt Heat Lamp
To get the amps of a 250W lamp, divide 250 by the volts. If the volts are 110, you will get 2.27 amps. If the volts are 220, you will get 1.1 amps.
Appliances that require more amps and volts result in a higher electric bill.
You calculate the amps by dividing the watts by the volts. But you cannot convert watts to amps and vice versa if you don’t have the volts.
Heat VS 250W Heat Lamp
A long wave lamp can reach 300 degrees C within 20 minutes. These lamps use 40 percent of their energy as direct heat while the other 60 percent is lost to the air in the vicinity.
The type of bulb also matters. Incandescent bulbs will get hotter than LED bulbs. Though, they are less efficient. The wattage is not enough. The amount of heat a bulb generates depends on various factors.
In most cases, the hottest lamps generate the highest electric bills because they use more electricity.