Know anything about (installed) electric heaters?

[entrochan]

So all the bedrooms in my house are heated with electric baseboard heaters.

It seems like I could do better than the decades-old heaters I have, especially for the new room.

Anyone have any ideas?

Comments

[tober]

The fundamental efficiency of electric baseboard heaters has not improved... well, pretty much for as long as electric baseboard heaters have existed. They are very efficient at converting electricity to heat (but electricity is an expensive source of energy). It is probably possible to get new ones that have better convective airflow or augment convection with a built-in fan or that look nicer... but the savings in electricity would be very modest, not enough for the replacement to make economic sense on the basis of energy savings. If it's feasible, you might consider converting to forced hot water baseboard heaters with a boiler fueled by either gas or oil. The initial outlay would be considerable but it would almost certainly make economic sense. Is all of the heat in the entire house currently electric?

[frobzwiththingz]

As far as electric baseboard heaters, as long as they aren't installed in some stupid way that manages to allow most of their heat to escape into the outside walls rather that warming the room air first, they're all equally efficient, 100% even. Power dissipated = I^2 * R, and thats all there is to it. They're a virtually 100% inefficient device, but in this case the waste heat *is* the desired product, so it's OK. Well, except that given transmission line losses, and the cost per kWh in most places, it's the worst option available as far as calories per $ goes.

That said, the last decade or so has apparently seen major improvements in heat pump technology, to the point where you can buy heat pumps that will still work effectively in a New England winter. Heat pumps allow you to get much more energy into the room than you are drawing from your power outlet. I'd look into seeing what you can get in that area.

[drwex]

There are much better and worse designs for these things. Modern ones tend to be better in that they permit more air circulation around the heating elements (sometimes by fan, often just by convection), and as frobz said lose less heat to the wall they're on.

We bought this house with some baseboard heaters installed, as a back-up system for spot-heating one room at a time rather than warming the whole house. We only use a couple of them and the ones we had replaced function noticeably better than the old ones we had before. Therefore if you intend to keep/use them replacing the ones in the rooms you care most about will likely be a win.

If you intend to replace or supplement them it's likely to involve running a lot of expensive piping or ductwork through the house. Such systems tend to be more efficient in the long run but it's probably worth doing some math to see how many years the pay-off comes in versus how long you want to stay in the place.

[chocorua]

Electric heat has been a negative to many house buyers for decades, so an investment in something more efficient would come back to you, at least in part, when you sell.

[xuth]

It's entirely possible that the heating elements in the older heaters are showing their age as well. Over time the heating elements will deform and thin in places creating higher resistances. Ultimately this doesn't make them any less efficient, just less able to put out as much heat as they used to.

But as it's been said in other comments, resistive electric heat is one of the most expensive means of heating a house (but among the cheapest to retrofit into a house).