Propane use way up

Updated,
Originally posted 1.3.18,

Update: 1.4.17:


The idea now is to find other ways to heat up my environs.

There was a way to run an extension so that I wouldn't be using the circuit that is causing problems.  This enabled the use of the space heater last night.  A welcome relief without the need to be so wasteful of energy.

There are other ways to get some heat.  Today, I noticed that the sun defrosted the ice pretty well.  So, I moved the car into the sun, and the ice went away fast.  This gave me an idea to sit in the car while it is in the sun during a cold day.  I'm doing that now while I type this.

May seem strange, but a dollar saved is a dollar earned.  Know what I mean, Vern?

Original post follows:

It is quite expected, but still a shock.  It took only one week to use a 30 pound bottle of propane.

So, I did a few calculations based upon what that really means.

One gallon of propane weighs about 4.2 pounds.  It contains 91.5k BTU.   That's 7.1 gallons of propane in a bottle of this size.  The BTU content is 654k BTU times 1055 joules per BTU equals approx. 690 megajoules.  Divide this by 3.6 megajoules per kwh giving 192 kwh rounded.  Divide this by seven, gives 27 kwh thermal energy use per day.

About ten times what I wanted to accomplish!  Dern.

But consider that it takes about 3 kwh thermal to get to 1 kwh electric, and you get about 9 kwh use per day.  More than 3 times what I wanted to accomplish.  Also consider that I was heating a larger volume by a significant amount, and then the numbers don't seem so bad.  Still, that is a lot of friggin' propane.

If this was a normal week and I used this much ,I would be alarmed.  This week was pretty cold, so it wasn't normal.  Nevertheless, this is a performance that could use a lot of improvement.