Electric baseboard heat in the northeast?

enn

Hello,

We're looking at buying a house in upstate NY which has electric baseboard heat as its only heat source. The house is brick, built in the 1890s, around 1500 sq. ft. It's perfect for us in many ways but the electric heat gives me pause. Local rates are around $0.15/kWh. Am I correct in thinking that this is going to be a very expensive way to heat the house in the winter (especially since I work from home)?

Reading some of the older threads, it looks like one option might be to switch to hot-water baseboard units on the first floor with a gas boiler, and leave the electric units on the second floor as a supplement to minimize opening up walls/floors. Is this my best bet? Would I save enough to be worth the up-front costs?

Thanks.

Brewbeer

Ask to see the electric bill from the current owner.

enn

I plan to ask for the electric bill, but since the house has been vacant for a while, I'm not sure that it will be representative of my costs.

sunlight33

Is your local rate of $0.15/kWh including both the supply and delivery charges?

Brewbeer

Yeah if the house hasn't been occupied the electric bill isn't going to be very useful.

I've converted two house to hot water baseboard, one electric and one forced air. I'd do it again, too.

Robert_25

If the house has had minimal weatherization improvements the electric heat will be VERY expensive. If there are insulated walls inside the brick, decent attic insulation, etc, it may average out alright.

Is there are kind of supplemental heat, like a wood stove?

kcopp

Robert said:

If the house has had minimal weatherization improvements the electric heat will be VERY expensive. If there are insulated walls inside the brick, decent attic insulation, etc, it may average out alright.



Is there are kind of supplemental heat, like a wood stove?

Its a house w/ electric baseboard.... 99% chance it has a wood stove.

Robert_25

kcopp said:

Robert said:

If the house has had minimal weatherization improvements the electric heat will be VERY expensive. If there are insulated walls inside the brick, decent attic insulation, etc, it may average out alright.



Is there are kind of supplemental heat, like a wood stove?

Its a house w/ electric baseboard.... 99% chance it has a wood stove.

I had the same thought...which makes the past electric bills even more meaningless.

Unknown

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enn

There is no wood stove or any other kind of supplemental heat. Presumably at some point there were fireplaces but they are gone.

Thank you all for the suggestions and particular for the comparative cost estimates. This is very helpful for us.

ChrisJ

AJinCT said:

Electric baseboard is EXPENSIVE. What's scary is that it wasn't built for electric. We have a lot of electric houses in CT, but what makes them slightly less bad is that they were built electric, so they were insulated much better than oil houses built in the same time period (late 60's through 80's usually).

The cheapest, easiest, and least obtrusive solution is mini-split heat pumps. I've seen electric houses with them, and they allow you to keep the baseboard as backup and add as few or as many heat pumps as you want to, at 3x the efficiency of baseboard, and you retain room by room control. The end cost to operate is about the same as gas for heat, but you get A/C too.

You feel heating a house in upstate NY with heat pumps is a good idea?

What's the efficiency of those mini-splits at 10F? 0F? -20F?

Docfletcher

The Mini splits work very well from what I understand from a few folks I know. Best if you have a large open area, otherwise in closed areas like bedrooms you would need one for each "closed" in area. That can get expensive.

ChrisJ

Docfletcher said:

The Mini splits work very well from what I understand from a few folks I know. Best if you have a large open area, otherwise in closed areas like bedrooms you would need one for each "closed" in area. That can get expensive.

I've heard mixed information on them.
What I'd really like to see is data on the subject rather than word of mouth. Something to show actual efficiency at really cold temperatures. Just because something functions doesn't mean it does it well.

I have to assume this data is out there but I've never been able to find it.

SWEI

The smallest indoor units have ratings of 6,000-7,000 BTU/hr depending on manufacturer. If they are installed in rooms having much lower heat losses or gains, the outdoor units will short-cycle and the rooms will overheat/overcool. The mini-duct indoor units work well for serving multiple small adjacent rooms.

Unknown

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