standard Electric vs Hydronic Electric Baseboard /cost

beermanhil

Hi, I looking into a heating system for a new modular addition in central NJ. We had put electric heat on the permit due to the cost of installing gas/oil system.  In researching electric baseboard heat I know the actual upfront cost is minimal, where the electric bill will be high, even thou the efficiency of the heat.  Currently the house would need a total of 13250 watts of baseboard. we pay .14kwh in electric , figuring it will cost about $2 to run a strait hour. Right?

As i read about Hydronic and how its a softer heat, and that it's a gradual heat, which makes sense. I'm more interested in using  it if it saves a bit of money in the long run. Initially it will cost three times as much to purchase which is fine, but I'm having trouble finding anywhere that tells me the how to figure the cost of using it.  

With standard Baseboard the formula is strait watts / 1000 x .14 = cost of KiloWattHour..

Is this the same formula for Hydronic? Is then the savings just in the fact that it will not run as much? How would you go about figuring how often it would run.

Thanks

Mark N

Electric Baseboard

Where are you getting electricity for $.14 a kwh in New Jersey? I pay $.185 from PSE&G. There are 3415 btus in a kwh. So you need 30 kwh to provide 100,000 btus, 100,000 btus equals 1 therm. At $.14 per kwh that 1 therm would cost you $4.20. What does natural gas cost in your area? My last bill was $1.20 per therm for gas. The btus are much cheaper with gas. Last year I scrapped the electric baseboard heat I had in 2 rooms and replaced it with forced hot water baseboard. I already had a boiler for the rest of the house. I had both types of electric baseboard. They both were expensive to run. In really cold months my electric would be as high as if I was running the AC.

Mark N

Continued

I had two 1500watt baseboards 1 in each room. I looked over some old bills to see how how many kwhs I was using in the winter. Over the past two winters I had the electric in Dec, Jan, & Feb I was averaging about 500 to 600 kwhs a month just for the electric baseboard and that was just for 3000 watts. Your talking about 13250 watts. This won't be cheap to run.

beermanhil

response

I'm actually asking for a kids camp, they belong to a buying network that gets electric a bit cheaper; we have JCP&L (Hunterdon County).  Gas suburban was charging us $6.14lb,  and when we joined this network it droped to around $2. It still goes up and down. The problem with going with a gas boiler (which we have one sitting doing nothing) is the cost of installing the gas line. Our last quote was $1200 to run 30ft of flex gas line strait out the building. This did not include permits. 

The thought process was just to put electric in; its fast and cheap up front. However i am more worried about the bills in the long run at this point.

So the way i see it electric baseboard is gonna cost the same no matter if its hydronic or not... which just results in expensive.  There is nothing i read that says hydronic heats more with less power, just that it will radiate heat after the electric is off for a bit. Is that write.  And to figure out the cost of 1 therm is the same for each basically. Right? Thanks again.

pipe4zen

electric boiler

you may want to look at an electric boiler.



This way you can get the comfort of hydronic, and you may want to look into storage tank

and make hot water during low peak times via electric boiler at an even lower rate.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

Whoa there pardner

I'd back up the bus and take a look at inverter mini-split heat-pumps or if you're of a mind to go for a total package, I'd suggest the Daikin Altherma air-to-water inverter heat pump. Instead of $1 of heat for $1 of electricity, you get $4.20 worth of heat for every $1 of electricity purchased - a much better bargain.

glgto

hey dave

now your speaking my language. You know I have always been a Daikin fan, now I work for Daikin McQuay. funny how things work out.