Anyone know how much wattage they use or amperage hey pull? More specicly, I'm wandering what it cost to leave it plugged in for X amount of time.

 

stock ones pull 1000 watts i believe

 

I'm coming up with 11 cents per hour or so. I looked at a recent electric bill, it was $300 for about 3300 kwh. Feel free to check my math.

 

I used a "Kill-a-watt' meter once on my 1983 F250 & measured 1500 watts draw, IIRC. At 11 cents/kwh, that's 16.5 cents an hour. Once I made a mistake & left the heater plugged in for a couple of weeks (I thought I was plugging in the trickle charger for my batteries), and paid many dollars for my mistake. What I am less sure about is whether the block heater is thermostatically controlled or whether it just runs full blast all the time. If there's a thermostat, it will draw less juice as the ambient temps go up.

 

Years ago when I had to start the thing in cold weather, I used a timer on the electric line to my block heater, set so that it started 3 hours before I needed to start the engine, or in subzero temps I would start it 6 hours ahead of time.

 

i do the same as artfd and have mine running on a heavy duty outdoor timer to come on about 3 hours before i need the truck and since i usually leave at 7 i have the timer set to shut off at 8 if i don't end up using it that day.... of course since were hangin between 50-80 degree's now i don't have to plug it in

 

x2 except for the temps... still getting down in the 30's at night here. Its nice getting heat in the truck before I hit work, so I'm keeping it plugged in another week or so at least. Stupid snow on the first day of spring after being 60 and melting it all last week

1500 watts should be the stock unit, although replacements can be found at 1000 I believe. Block heater is constant full blast, NO thermostat.

If you wanted to be fancy, I'm sure you could rig up a relay and a thermostat, but the timer is the way to go during the work-week at least. On weekends if I know I need to run out, I'll run out and override the timer a few hours before leaving.

 

the std is not thermo controlled just a small heating element on a plug. you can get fancier ones that push the coolent and are capible of running battery warmers, have thermostats, and tank/line warmers
[Hay tec be glad we were supposed to get another 6" today though the begenning of the week was cold enough i could get the tractor in the field and clear out some garbage bales ]

Fuel & Fluid Warming - PartsSystems

below is more or less what a stock looks like

 

I like learning the details of the machines I depend on. My OEM block heater kept my F250 starting down as low as -25F, back in the days when I had to get to work in any weather. Now that I'm retired, I leave 'er parked until it gets a bit warmer, y'know.