Electric Heat vs Gas Heat: Which is Cheaper? (2023 edition)

[JEDI]

Electric Heat vs Gas Heat: Which Is Cheaper?

The choice of electric heat vs gas heat could have a big impact on your energy bills this winter.

www.kiplinger.com

Fuel Type (Units)	Cost per Unit Delivered	Heating System	Annual Cost
Electric (kWh)	0.23	Geothermal Heat Pump	$ 1,681
Electric (kWh)	0.23	Heat Pump (ductless)	$ 2,297
Electric (kWh)	0.23	Heat Pump (ducted)	$ 2,871
Electric (kWh)	0.23	Electric Baseboard	$ 6,202

Fuel Type (Units)	Cost per Unit Delivered	Heating System	Annual Cost
Natural Gas (therm)	1.91	Natural Gas Boiler	$ 2,122
Natural Gas (therm)	1.91	Natural Gas Room Heater	$ 2,169
Natural Gas (therm)	1.91	Natural Gas Furnace	$ 2,362

Wow @ electric baseboard.

The house where i grew up had hot water/steam radiators on 1st + 2nd floors but nothing in the basement.
My parents remodeled the basement and i remember the heat looking like electric baseboard.
could have been been a baseboard radiator?

With these prices, I hope it was baseboard radiator!

Interesting that gas boiler is slightly cheaper than gas furnace.
I'm assuming they're not taking into acct the additional water cost?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Depends on where you live too. My electric is closer to .1, rather than .23. That said, most of our heat comes from biofuel (wood pellets).

 

[Brainonska511]

Not surprised at the cost of electric resistive heating; the big thing is to switch everything from natural gas to heat pumps: extremely efficient and you reduce your overall carbon use.

As for the water with a boiler: I doubt the boiler is using that much water, given that it's usually a closed system.

My parents remodeled the basement and i remember the heat looking like electric baseboard.
could have been been a baseboard radiator?

They do make baseboard radiators that use water and not electric. My parents' house had them in the basement and a bathroom on the main floor. Just a hot water pipe with fins attached to help dissipate heat as the air flows through.

 

[nakedfrog]

They do make baseboard radiators that use water and not electric. My parents' house had them in the basement and a bathroom on the main floor. Just a hot water pipe with fins attached to help dissipate heat as the air flows through.

That's what we had in the place I rented in winter of 2020-21, it had an electric boiler to heat the water that circulated through the baseboard heat throughout the house.
It was appallingly expensive, even with the heat relatively low and set on a timer, and in a PNW winter.

 

[MrSquished]

We had hot water baseboard in the house I grew up in. Pretty sure it was a gas water heater that ran that closed system, separate from the hot water heater obviously.

 

[RPD]

Not surprised at the cost of electric resistive heating; the big thing is to switch everything from natural gas to heat pumps: extremely efficient and you reduce your overall carbon use.

As for the water with a boiler: I doubt the boiler is using that much water, given that it's usually a closed system.

They do make baseboard radiators that use water and not electric. My parents' house had them in the basement and a bathroom on the main floor. Just a hot water pipe with fins attached to help dissipate heat as the air flows through.

Except the problem is going from gas to electric when it comes to heating water or air for HVAC systems, is the massive physical size difference. There needs to be a new technology break through. Right now a you can get about 60MBH air source boiler that is the same physical size as 500MBH NG boiler.

 

[Torn Mind]

The other variable is how the heat is delivered, with radiant requiring less power.

 

[solidsnake1298]

I find these kinds of charts waaaaay over simplify the cost aspect of electric vs heat pump vs gas furnace. And they don't provide any of the efficiencies of the non-resistive heating systems. The cost to run a 60 AFUE gas furnace is WAY higher than a 96 AFUE furnace, etc.

When talking about gas furnaces vs ducted air source heat pumps, specifically, you also need to take into account the COP of the heat pump at various outdoor temperatures since heat pumps lose efficiency as the outdoor temps drop below ~45*F. If you live in a place with very cold winters AND very hot summers, like I do (US mid-atlantic region), you may also need to consider a dual fuel setup. Which further complicates things because now you have to consider at what outdoor temperature the cost crossover point is to run each fuel.

 

[BoomerD]

That's what we had in the place I rented in winter of 2020-21, it had an electric boiler to heat the water that circulated through the baseboard heat throughout the house.
It was appallingly expensive, even with the heat relatively low and set on a timer, and in a PNW winter.

We had friends in Spokane some 40+ years ago who had a hot water boiler system that circulated water through pipes in the floor for heat. It made the house VERY comfortable...but it was hella expensive to heat the house with it.

 

[Scarpozzi]

There are those people that say a 1500 watt heater is the same as any other 1500 watt heater because they are all equally efficient. I argue that fan-driven heaters can help direct heat and circulate the warm air instead of it pooling above the heater in the room. Just something to consider when comparing electric heaters alone.

My primary heating system is actually dual fuel. I have a 3 ton electric heat pump that operates down to 40 degrees F. Below that, my thermostat switches to a natural gas furnace...80k btu @ 95% efficiency. My bills were lowered greatly when I switched by efficiency on both sides. The freezing temps we get are no match for the gas furnace. Previously, I recall our electric heaters struggling to keep the house above 64 degrees in 0 F degree weather.

 

[Scarpozzi]

We had friends in Spokane some 40+ years ago who had a hot water boiler system that circulated water through pipes in the floor for heat. It made the house VERY comfortable...but it was hella expensive to heat the house with it.

My uncle, like 30 years ago, was showing me his boiler system in Maine. He had those windows at basement level and was using black plastic and hoses to heat water for solar assist to a boiler system be installed. Since then, I saw how you could utilize evacuated tubes to harness solar power that could generate 450 degree water.

Radiant heat is great, but setup just hasn't been practical for me yet. I laid the pipe to heat my garage with 3/4" pex, but haven't found a reasonable heat source yet

 

[nakedfrog]

We had friends in Spokane some 40+ years ago who had a hot water boiler system that circulated water through pipes in the floor for heat. It made the house VERY comfortable...but it was hella expensive to heat the house with it.

Our house in Germany had that on the first floor and in the bathroom on the second floor, it was pretty nice. Definitely better than the baseboard arrangement in the house I was renting.

 

[Paperdoc]

solidsnake1298 makes a VERY important point above. The efficiency of any AIR-source Heat Pump system is very much reduced at low temperatures - he / she says below 45F, and that means for MOST of North America in the winter. A GROUND source heat pump system does not have this issue because the heat source is well below the ground surface and its temperature does not vary a lot, never going below 32F/ It is designed for efficient operation at those source temperatures. In addition, such systems CAN be built to operate in the reverse mode - that is, they pump heat from your house down into the ground when it is hot outside. They become your central Air Conditioning system in summer! BUT such a reversible system and all the buried piping means a significant up-front capital cost paid for over many years by the low actual cost of operation.

Regarding the system of pipes running through the floor carrying water heated by a central furnace (I don't like to call this a "boiler" because they do no come close to boiling that water), many such systems in older homes (like one my mother-in-law had) were built with NO insulation BELOW the heated concrete floor. So there was a LOT of heat from it lost into the ground right below the floor, greatly reducing efficiency in those designs.

There's another factor to consider here with respect to environmental impact. We often use the DOLLAR cost to us as payers to compare various alternatives. But in many parts of North America the pricing of ELECTRICITY historically has been kept BELOW real costs as a means of stimulating commercial growth for political reasons. In such areas the real impact of using electricity as a heating fuel is significantly larger that the dollar cost comparison would indicate.

 

[Brainonska511]

It seems like there are some misconceptions about air sourced heat pumps based on things that used to be true. You can buy models now that remain above 100% efficiency at below freezing temperatures, making them viable for much of NA use.

 

[Captante]

waaaaay over simplify

LURKER!

*(mine!)

 

[RPD]

It seems like there are some misconceptions about air sourced heat pumps based on things that used to be true. You can buy models now that remain above 100% efficiency at below freezing temperatures, making them viable for much of NA use.

Efficiency maybe, capacity? No.

 

[Captante]

 

[solidsnake1298]

It seems like there are some misconceptions about air sourced heat pumps based on things that used to be true. You can buy models now that remain above 100% efficiency at below freezing temperatures, making them viable for much of NA use.

No doubt. Most ducted air-source heat pumps today stay above 1 COP until ~5*F. Ductless heat pumps maintain 1 COP at even lower temps.

Efficiency maybe, capacity? No.

Definitely this. I rented a town home some years ago with only a heat pump. One of the winters I lived there got REALLY cold. Like -5*F and that heat pump was running constantly. I'm not sure if there was a resistive electric backup or not. But the fan and compressor were definitely running constantly.

My current home has both an air-source heat pump (16 SEER/8.2 HSPF) and a natural gas furnace (94 AFUE). The cost break even point for my fuel/electricity rates and equipment is an outdoor temp of 28*F, below which my Nest thermostat will run the furnace instead of the heat pump. As it gets closer to that crossover point, the heat pump is definitely running a lot longer than on more mild days. Regardless of the outdoor temp, my furnace will heat my house to the set temp in no more than 10 mins.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Gas has about doubled in price since fall, but I think for heating the entire house it's probably still cheaper than hydro for now. Heat pump MIGHT be cheaper but that also involves spending a good 10+ grand to do a major hvac upgrade so the pay back period might be high because in the grand scheme of things you'll probably be saving under $100/mo. They will also jack up hydro prices if everyone switches to that, so you can't really win. They do make DIYable mini split ones that can work down to like -30 though which are way cheaper than a whole house one and having a few of those around could perhaps supplement a gas furnace but not sure how easy they are to automate via a thermostat or relays.

Me personally I bought a wood stove. The actual install is taking longer than I hoped as between work and other stuff that needs to be done I just don't always find the time to work on it, and I was hoping to hire out the chimney part but can't find anyone so probably end up doing it myself. Once it's all done though I figure a 3-4 year pay back period for the money I put into it. It's basically going to be free to run except for maybe fans/blowers/pumps to move hot air around which I can always run off solar or may not even be needed, I will see once I start using it what works best. If I want to put a price on the wood the main cost is going to be gas for the truck but I will probably get wood opportunistically when I'm already going out in the bush anyway. Chainsaw is electric so that's a very negligible cost.

For heating just 1 room such as my home office, I've been successful using a small electric heater and if the sun is out I plug it into the solar outlet. When it's mild out it's usually overcast and snowing so solar is basically producing near nothing, but when it's in the -25 or colder range the sun tends to be out and the panels work more efficiently too.

 

[I'dluv2]

Not surprised at the cost of electric resistive heating; the big thing is to switch everything from natural gas to heat pumps: extremely efficient and you reduce your overall carbon use.

We live in Hell Az where it gets hotter than, you can guess. 2 years ago we had 40 straight days where it was at least 110*. Everything electric, heat pump, water heater with solar panels picking up the slack. House is under 2000 sq ft keep the thermostat at 76* in the summer. Highest bill was $105, couldn't be happier.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

While we have solar panels, we don’t spend anywhere near $2,800 to run our heat pump. I guess the question is how much space, how occupied is that space and is there an alternate fuel which in our case is oil but a tank of oil so far is on schedule to last me 5 years.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Off topic, anyone if heating oil goes “bad” overtime?

 

[Captante]

Off topic, anyone if heating oil goes “bad” overtime?

I believe just like oil in your car it can absorb water over time and break down and/or become contaminated to the point it will "burn dirty".


What Is The Shelf Life Of Heating Oil? (Burts Heating)

"The truth is, heating oil does spoil over time: bacteria in your storage tank and within the oil itself will degrade the oil, causing it to thicken into unusable sludge. Paint, rust, and other common acids can also decrease the shelf life of your oil.

So how long does heating oil last without decaying? Typically about 18 to 24 months, as long as it includes the right additives is stored correctly."

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I believe just like oil in your car it can absorb water over time and break down and/or become contaminated to the point it will "burn dirty".


What Is The Shelf Life Of Heating Oil? (Burts Heating)

"The truth is, heating oil does spoil over time: bacteria in your storage tank and within the oil itself will degrade the oil, causing it to thicken into unusable sludge. Paint, rust, and other common acids can also decrease the shelf life of your oil.

So how long does heating oil last without decaying? Typically about 18 to 24 months, as long as it includes the right additives is stored correctly."

Hmm gonna have to mention this next fill up. I’m on year three for this tank and at 40% give or take a bit.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Yeah....I installed one in the Fall. Took a lot of work drilling the hole, but it seemed to work great before I shut the cabin down for the winter. This unit is a 12k btu 19 seer Pioneer I got from Home Depot for $750.