🚀 go-pugleaf

Perhaps someone can help me with this puzzler which has been bothering
me for a long time.

It is generally a well known fact that if you drive a car using the 
accelerator a bit like an On/Off switch then you are very likely to waste
fuel. The most economic driving style is gradual acceleration and 
gentle braking.

Recently on T.V. I saw an advert which showed a Gas central heating system
with a sound-over of someone driving a car uneconomically - the message
being "You wouldn't drive your car like this; so why run your central
heating in the same way?"

I've never really understood this: Some forms of heating are more 
uneconomic than others - why? Fan heaters for instance are said to be
very efficient but very expensive - I don't understand the contradiction.
I use Fan Heaters on a Thermostat switch. Is it more economical for me to
maintain the temperature of a room by having the heater on longer on a low
heat setting, or for short bursts on a high heat setting?

Any enlightenment would be nice - it might even reduce my electricity bill.

-- 

Dougie Nisbet

University of Edinburgh      | <UUCP>  ...seismo!mcvax!ukc!its63b!dougie
Medical Statistics Unit      | <JANET> dougie@uk.ac.ed.its63b
Medical School 
Teviot Place
Edinburgh