^ The pain of using space heaters, as I've been experiencing lately, is that they tend to trip the circuit breaker in various rooms of my house, especially when such heaters are running simultaneously, resulting in power interruptions. I've done some research and realized that most home electrical outlets have a maximum of 15 to 20 amps; since a space heater uses a lot of energy, it often triggers the circuit breaker when two many other appliances are running or plugged into an outlet. It appears having a "dedicated circuit" for a heater would be advisable. I think the best way to keep warm is to turn on your furnace/central heating. Unfortunately, our home's furnace isn't working at the moment because the pilot needs to be ignited. I haven't been getting much sleep lately ... My room is too cold, and I constantly have to get up during the night to reset the breaker. I'm waiting on my sister to call the gas company.
^ Also, concerning electrical heating, in our house we happen to have A/C. However, when the temperature outside is around 0°C, the A/C units struggle but do not seem to be able to raise the temperature enough. The "quality" of the heat is much lower when compared to than of the central petrol-based heating system. (Fireplace heating is also not good though - you cannot warm up an entire room, let alone an entire house!)
I had smaller ones in mind than the ones you seem to be describing. They don't need as much energy. I have rather shoddy electrical lines in my apartment and never had a problem. They're not as good as actual heating, of course, but you can manage to get a room relatively warm.
Very late in the game on this, but Albuquerque has had the ability to call for "no-burn nights" for years and years... Obviously if you have not other source of heat, you're exempt, but for the rest of the population, compliance is a must. The police don't carry out enforcement, city workers do.. A lot of time, just like with our watering restrictions and firework bans, a lot of the population is on the lookout for violators. We live in a bowl and as such, our inversion is a killer in the winter time, and you can really see the smoke in the valley.. Yes, it sucks not being able to have a fire sometimes, but it's a small price to pay for air quality...
Definitely a good idea to limit smoke being released into the air, but in this case it means forcing people to use a much more expensive means of heating in a city that already has the highest cost of living in the country. Electricity/gas ain't cheap, and is it really worse for the environment to burn wood than oil or however that electricity is being generated?
I think it's worse for those areas that are bowls and the wood smoke doesn't dissipate for days or weeks.
Natural gas equipment is normally designed to interrupt the flow of fuel unless the pilot light is heating a component in the equipment OR a person is holding an override button. On many devices you rotate a knob to the ON position, hold the button, PROMPTLY apply fire (fireplace match, grill lighter etc) and wait about half a minute to release the button. Of course it's not a bad idea to have a professional give a furnace a brief annual inspection in combination with a pilot lighting visit. The purpose for the inspection is mainly for ventilation issues like blocked exhaust or cracks in a furnace's heat exchanger. Some equipment saves fuel by not using a pilot light. An electric arc activates to ignite the burner each time it is needed.
As it turned out, the pilot has been lit all along. I turned on the thermostat and voilà! Let there be heat!
This is actually a bit of a sticky wicket... Using wood is actually BETTER for the environment, as it helps thin the forests which are incredibly overdense in most of the country (especially west of the Mississippi River). The cutting of wood for fire/home heating and other purposes opens up the canopy, allowing sun and rain to hit the earth, causing native grasses and vegetation to grow and therby creating better bio diversity and sustainable wildlife habitat. It goes without saying that forest restoration treatments also reduce the severity of wildfire substantially. Wood is an incredibly green (no pun intended) renewable energy and building material... Yes, of course, smoke from fire places and woodburning stoves can cause polution, but technology is advancing all the time, that creates a much better environment for clean burning. While home models of these systems are still rather expensive, it won't be long before they are more cost effective. That still doesn't help the old traditional fire place, but I think you'd find that most of the homes that use those kinds of fire places, do so in an ornamental "There's nothing like a fire during the holidays" fashion and not for heating the entire house. The average home that uses wood for heating has some form of wood burning stove that can use pellets instead of logs. While it's more cost effective to go out and cut your own logs, pellets are less mess, burn MUCH cleaner and are significantly cheaper than gas, electricity or heating oil. And yes, I work for a forestry agency - New Mexico State Forestry