Block Heating Your Engine

Block heating your engine to 100 F dramatically speeds warm-up, so you can defrost your windows faster. Warming also reduces cold-start wear which dramatically enhances the useful calendar life of your vehicles engine; it also reduces tailpipe emissions. Best of all the electricity used cheaper than the gasoline saved, so block heating saves money! 

On warm days it only takes ~2 hours, on very cold days it can take 5-7 hours. In extremely cold locals people leave engine block heaters plugged in any time a vehicle is parked to keep the engine from freezing, which can prevent startup if the engine frozen totally.

I got the idea of block heating from F1 racing information, since they pre-heat F1 engines to 154 F before starting them, in part because they are machine so tightly that they have to be warm to start more easily! Aluminum expands a lot when warmed, so pre-warming reduces wear

I was also reading about Hypermiling on PriusChat when I found articles about using a block-heater to reduce cold start emissions & improve fuel economy. Enabling the engine to get to full operating temp faster reduces cold start fuel consumption by up to about 1 liter or slightly less, during the first 5 min of warmup when the ECU varies the fuel air mix to warm up the catalytic converter, thus enabling the cat to heat up faster, which also reduces cold start emissions!

At 30 F or just below 0 C, it takes about 5 hours of 400w block heating, so about 2 kWh of electricity- locally worth about $0.20 to save $1 worth of gasoline So it technically saves money too, if you do not pay yourself for the labor of plugging it in & unplugging it

At my ground floor apartment unit, I make use of a 50 ft 12-3 outdoor extension cord, plugged into an outside outlet, with a cover protecting it from rain intrusion. I usually plug the cable into the connector on the front of my car when I park, then when I wake up to pee in the middle of the night, I plug the other end of the cord into the outside power outlet ~5 hours before I leave for work, or when plan on driving next. I try to always preheat because it saves money, reduces emissions & enhances the longevity of the 1NX-FXE engine in my 2005 Prius II!