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There are months when many of us only need to heat one room in the evening for a few hours.
How much does it cost to use an electric fan heater for this purpose? Depending on where you live, it could be about 90 cents per evening or $27 for a month.
That’s probably cheaper than using central heating throughout the house. The calculations are easy once you know how to find the right information. This article walks through a clear example.
We also give you some easy tables if you want a quick approximate cost.
Typical Cost Of Heating One Room
I don’t expect that you’ll be heating your entire house all day and night with a small fan heater in every room. Central heating would be far more cost-effective.
However, many people are choosing to reduce their use of central heating throughout the house. Instead, they only heat the room that they use most often in the cold evenings.
Let’s say that you spend most of your evenings in your living room between 7 pm and 11 pm. How much would just heating that room cost if you’re using an electric fan heater?
To calculate the cost, we need to know two other things:
- the watts we are using e.g. 1500W or 2000W
- the dollar cost per thousand watts (or KW)
How to know the watts
This one is simple to know. If you still have the box your heater came in, the number of watts will be printed in large letters.
But who keeps the box? The easiest way is to search for an online listing on any marketplace. The specification will have the number of watts.
The number may be specified in KW, which is simply a thousand watts. In other words, 2KW is 2000W.
Most appliances come with two power settings. Each setting uses a different amount of watts. Personally, I find that the lower setting is usually sufficient to heat a room.
How to know the cost per thousand watts
Different states and countries have different rates. You will typically find it easy to find your rate on the website of your electricity provider. It will also be marked on your bill.
You’ve probably noticed that electricity rates have gone up in many areas within the last year.
If you’re in the United States, this government website tracks the rates per state. It has commercial as well as residential rates, so you only need the left-most numbers. This picture shows an excerpt:
By the way, the numbers are in cents, not dollars!
And if you’re wondering why the numbers in the picture are so high, they are ordered from the highest to the lowest. Idaho residents are only paying ten cents compared to over twenty-five cents in Maine.
The first numeric column has the residential rates for the current year. The next column shows you what you were paying twelve months ago. You just need to scroll down to find your state.
I’ll use a national average of fifteen cents for the examples in this article. You can adjust as needed.
How To Calculate The Cost Of Using Your Electric Fan Heater
Now we know three numbers:
- the watts
- the electricity rate
- total number of hours
The calculation is [watts] * [electricity rate] * [total hours]
Let’s take the example of running a 1500W heater with an electricity rate of 13 cents per thousand watts. Every evening, we run the heater for four hours.
The calculation is: 1500/100 * 0.13 * 4 = 0.90
That is ninety cents for four hours. It stacks up to $27 for thirty days.
Once you’ve done your own calculation, you can estimate how many months in the year that you need to heat your living room in the evenings. Now you can work out the annual costs.
In order to make it easier for you, we’ve pumped out the numbers for typical scenarios.
How Much Does It Cost To Run A 750W Fan Heater?
This table assumes an electricity rate of 15 cents per thousand watts.
Estimate how many hours that you’re heating a room per day. Scroll down to find that number of hours. We give you the cost for a single day, and the total cost for a month (30 days).
| Hours | Daily Cost | Month Cost |
| 1 | 0.11 | 3.38 |
| 2 | 0.23 | 6.75 |
| 3 | 0.34 | 10.13 |
| 4 | 0.45 | 13.50 |
| 5 | 0.56 | 16.88 |
| 6 | 0.68 | 20.25 |
| 7 | 0.79 | 23.63 |
| 8 | 0.90 | 27.00 |
I haven’t gone past eight hours in the table above, because I doubt people run their appliances for more than that at a time.
However, I do get asked about leaving it on for longer. Check out our article on whether you should leave an electric fan heater on overnight. We don’t recommend it.
But we don’t have the same reservations about leaving an electric oil-filled heater running all the time (with precautions, of course).
How Much Does It Cost To Run A 1500W Fan Heater?
A 1500W appliance may also be labeled as 1.5KW.
This table assumes an electricity rate of 15 cents per thousand watts.
| Hours | Daily Cost | Month Cost |
| 1 | 0.23 | 6.75 |
| 2 | 0.45 | 13.50 |
| 3 | 0.68 | 20.25 |
| 4 | 0.90 | 27.00 |
| 5 | 1.13 | 33.75 |
| 6 | 1.35 | 40.50 |
| 7 | 1.58 | 47.25 |
| 8 | 1.80 | 54.00 |
How Much Does It Cost To Run A 2000W Fan Heater?
A 2000W appliance may also be labeled as 2KW.
This table assumes an electricity rate of 15 cents per thousand watts.
| Hours | Daily Cost | Month Cost |
| 1 | 0.30 | 9.00 |
| 2 | 0.60 | 18.00 |
| 3 | 0.90 | 27.00 |
| 4 | 1.20 | 36.00 |
| 5 | 1.50 | 45.00 |
| 6 | 1.80 | 54.00 |
| 7 | 2.10 | 63.00 |
| 8 | 2.40 | 72.00 |
