Answer first, context after
Is it cheaper to run space heaters than central heat?
It depends entirely on how much of the house you are heating. One space heater warming one occupied room while the rest of the house sits cool can genuinely beat running the furnace for the whole home. Space heaters in three rooms trying to replace central heat lose badly, because electric resistance heat is the most expensive warmth money buys.
This question has a genuinely honest answer on both sides, which is rare enough in this industry to enjoy. The deciding variable is not the heater, it is the square footage you actually need warm.
Where the space heater legitimately wins: the home office in an otherwise empty house. One person, one room, eight hours. Heating 150 square feet directly while the furnace stays off or deeply set back can cost less than warming the whole envelope, even though the space heater’s electricity is expensive per unit of heat, because you are buying so much less heat. This is the one scenario where the little heater earns its cord.
Where it loses, and loses badly: as a substitute for central heat. Electric resistance heating, which is every plug-in space heater ever made, converts a unit of electricity into exactly one unit of heat, full price, no leverage. A gas furnace delivers heat cheaper per unit in most of California’s rate reality, and a heat pump beats resistance heat by moving two to three units of heat per unit of electricity instead of making one. Three space heaters running all evening to avoid the furnace is the most expensive heating plan available, and it also drags peak-hour electric rates into your winter.
The safety footnote that is not a footnote: space heaters are a leading cause of home heating fires nationally. Three feet of clearance, hard floor, never on an extension cord, never unattended, never overnight in a kid’s room. A heater on a bedroom carpet all night to save gas money is a bad trade against the thing it risks.
The permanent version of the space heater’s one good idea: if a specific room chronically needs its own heat, a bedroom over the garage, a converted space, an office, that is the exact job description of a mini split, which zones one room like a space heater but produces heat at heat pump prices, cools the same room in July, and never sits glowing on the carpet. The space heater is a fine tool and a terrible strategy. Use it like a tool.
Still stuck? That's what the truck is for.
The diagnostic is $89, waived when you book the repair, with a written flat price before any work starts.