The purchase price of each type of heater varies enormously, depending on brand, size, time of year and other factors.

But all plug-in heaters are expensive to operate compared with natural gas heaters or woodburners. Electricity for plug-in heaters costs from 18 to 24 cents per kWh depending on your power supplier and tariff plan.

Example: If you run a 2kW heater on high setting for 5 hours per day at a cost of 23 cents per kWh, this will amount to $2.30 per day or about $69 per month. A thermostat can save some of this.

Night-storage heaters usually cost about 9 to 14 cents per kWh.

Heat pumps work out cheaper because they generate more heat than their electrical power consumption.

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