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Originally Posted by zimbop
Careful what you assume about block heaters. They're basically just enough to keep your oil in liquid form and stop your block from freezing. They do not keep the engine anywhere close to operating temperature, and it still takes as long to warm up the car as it does in normal conditions. They're not a "jump into a warm car" scenario by any strecth, they're there to stop the engine from freezing and make it a little easier to start.
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I guess it depends on the climate and the car. I read last week somewhere (when I was researching block heaters) a post from someone who had one and said that the heater gets warm "in seconds" with the use of a block heater. My guess is it depends on the car and the wattage of the block heater and the external temps.
In addition, in my garage every morning I have been using a space heater to warm "the front of my car" basically for the last couple of weeks. It's a smallish electric fan heater and it blows about 24 inches from the front of the car under the engine compartment. I run it about 25 minutes, and just that little bit of heating has prevented my HCH from losing MPG on my short commute to work in morning temps that are in the 40s. I get 4 bars on the temp gauge about 3 blocks earlier than when I was not using the heater, and I have not lost any MPG after starting to use the heater, while in the first two days of colder weather I lost 2.2 MPG the first day and 1.8 MPG the second day. What that shows/proves to me is that the HCH is very sensitive to the engine temp in colder weather, and those who drive with a cold engine are dooming their MPG.
My guess is that a block heater would do AT LEAST as well as my fan heater, and for less money spent on electricity.