Dave's Not Here

Math is Fun!

by on Nov.18, 2013, under Dave's Rants

Recently, this viral video has been spreading around the internet, showing how to heat a room for $0.15 a day. But, is that really cheap?

So, time for some simple math. But, first, I have some questions that I’ll need to answer first, in order to do the math:

1. What does the average room cost to heat?
1. Cost to heat an average home per year: $1,400 (I found a reference, but lost it — you can google)
1. Size of average home: 2392 sqft [Census](http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf)
1. Size of average room: 64-144 sqft [Google’ed it](http://www.ask.com/question/size-of-average-american-bedroom)

So, how much per day to heat an average room?

Cost per year to heat a room is:

[math]\Large\color{cyan}(64/2392) * \$1,400 \Longrightarrow (144/2392) * \$1,400[/math]
[math]\Large\color{cyan}\$37.46 \Longrightarrow \$84.28[/math]

So, how much per day?

[math]\Large\color{cyan}((64/2392) * \$1,400)/365.25 \Longrightarrow ((144/2392) * \$1,400)365.25[/math]
[math]\Large\color{cyan}\$0.10 \Longrightarrow \$0.23[/math]

So, using candles is about the average people would spend, by turning on the heater. Not quite as impressive as it sounds. Plus the added fire hazard . . etc. And, I picked high heating bills . .


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