How to heat your bedroom for less than 40p per hour

The Energy Price Guarantee is a Government cap on consumer energy bills capping the electricity rate to £0.34 per/kWh until March 2023, aiming to keep the annual energy bill for a typical household in Great Britain to around £2,500.

The price cap of £0.34 per/kWh allows you to save money by heating individual rooms with low-power electronic devices.

The trick is to look at devices with a power draw under 1kW (1,000 watts) to heat your bedroom for less than 40p per hour. Remember – 1kW is £0.34p, so you can safely use a 1kW device for an hour for less than 40p.

This article runs through the best electronic devices/appliances to heat your bedroom for less than 40p per hour. Yes, you’ll spend money buying them, but the savings versus firing up central heating are enormous over the winter.

Let’s jump in!

Hairdryer

It sounds insane, but a hairdryer is the cheapest way to heat your bedroom. Hairdryers typically use 1,500 watts of power on their highest setting and kick out tremendous heat quickly, giving you an efficient bedroom heating tool.

If you run your 1,500-watt hairdryer on maximum for five minutes, it will cost you around 4.25p if you pay £0.34 per kWh. However, you probably only need to run it for 90 seconds because the air and heat output on maximum power is enormous.

You can use any hairdryer to heat your bedroom, but these offer good value:

• Envie hairdryer (£24.15, Amazon)
• Remington Power Dry (£14.99, Currys)

Look no further for a fast, cheap heating tool!

Electric fan heater

You can pick up electric fan heaters with either a 1,000-watt maximum power output or dual/triple power settings. A 1,000-watt heater/setting will heat around ten square metres, about the same size as a double bedroom.

Here are a few devices for less than £20:

• Beldray EH0569SSTK (Amazon, £19.00) – 1,000 W and 2,000 W settings.
• Stanley PTC Electric Fan Heater (ITS, £17.99) – 1,000 W and 2,000 W.

If you pay £0.34 per kWh for your electricity, the 1,000 W heat setting on all these devices will cost you that amount for every hour of runtime.

Ceramic plug-in heater (PTC heater)

Ceramic plug-in heaters are downsized fan heaters that plug into a 3-pin socket and stay affixed to the socket with no wires. You can expect a maximum heat output of 500 W - sufficient to heat five square metres.

The cost to run one of these gismos is around £0.17 per hour, so you can legitimately run it for two and a half hours for 40 pence.

Here are two devices to consider:

• Stay warm PTC (£25.99, Amazon) – 500 watts.
• Benross 41499 (£16.99, Amazon) – 400 watts.

These devices thrive in small bedrooms; most negative reviews are from people expecting them to heat large rooms. If all you want to do is increase the temperature of a small bedroom by a few degrees, this device is ideal.

Oil filled radiator

Oil-filled radiators plug into a 3-pin socket and provide uncirculated dry heat instead of circulated heat from a fan. The significant benefit is you can usually set timers and adjust the heating power with more control than a fan.

We recommend getting a 1kW oil-filled radiator to heat 10 square metres. Most radiators have two or three heat settings, letting you conserve energy.

If you choose a 500 W radiator, you can heat up your bedroom for less than 20p per hour. Also, lower-output radiators cost less money to buy.

Here are a few devices to consider:

• Challenge 1kW (£45, Argos)
• VonHaus 6 Fin 800W (VonHaus, £34.99)
• CYPA-5 Freestanding 500W (Screwfix, £19.99)

If you found this article helpful, read our piece on keeping warm in bed. You can also find help paying your energy bills here.