Adding electric heat to existing dwelling

Fred B

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
Existing installation:
Old large stone house about 4000sqft. New replacement windows high efficiency type. Stone walls approx. 3ft thick. Current electrical installation 200A 30 space full boat w/solar panels installation on back-feed breaker. Old mammoth oil furnace way outside of life expectancy, no zoning controls, and HO claims the service techs can't get parts anymore, and to straight up replace HO didn't like the price. HVAC company claims to get the needed btu he would now need two units to replace the old one.

Here is where I was called in.
HO wanted to put in electric baseboard. Preliminary calculations based from room sizes and ceiling heights come to 45.6kW needed for heating with baseboard. Definitely would seem need to upgrade and increase the size of the service as existing service load calc come out to 158A on existing 200A panel/service.

HO also considering Electric furnace as a replacement of existing ducted furnace.
Anyone with any experience with these?
Not sure if would use the same wattage calculation that was for the baseboard in sizing the electric furnace, or efficiency vs baseboard.
HO not wanting to consider mini-split.
 
Jraef

Jraef

Moderator, OTD
Staff member
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
ptonsparky said:
Heat Pump(s). They won't like the price but it's pay now or pay later.
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+1 on heat pumps. It’s the way to go now. Baseboard heat made sense in the 60s and 70s when electricity was almost free, but that world no longer exists. Yes, they might think the solar is free, but only during the day when you need less heat. Heat pumps are more efficient and the cost, since they already have the ducting from their old oil heater, will not be as bad as you might think.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Jraef said:
+1 on heat pumps. It’s the way to go now. Baseboard heat made sense in the 60s and 70s when electricity was almost free, but that world no longer exists. Yes, they might think the solar is free, but only during the day when you need less heat. Heat pumps are more efficient and the cost, since they already have the ducting from their old oil heater, will not be as bad as you might think.
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Agree 100%. Take advantage of as much of the existing system as you can.

Baseboard heat is ugly, uneven, and very labor-intensive to install.

I once had a good customer ask for pricing for installing some oil-filled baseboard. After looking in the attic, I told them they would be better off to put the money into improving the insulation.

I said I would price it if they really wanted me to, but that the one-time expense would be more cost-effective than the continuous expense of trying to keep up with the heat loss year after year.
 
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A

AC\DC

Senior Member
Location
Florence,Oregon,Lane
Occupation
EC
LarryFine said:
Agree 100%. Take advantage of as much of the existing system as you can.

Baseboard heat is ugly, uneven, and very labor-intensive to install.

I once had a good customer ask for pricing for installing some oil-filled baseboard. After looking in the attic, I told them they would be better off to put the money into improving the insulation.

I said I would price it if they really wanted me to, but that the one-time expense would be more cost-effective than the continuous expense of trying to keep up with the heat loss year after year.
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If you want a nice looking unit
king-electric.com

King Electric - MODEL alCove KCV Series

alCove Radiant heaters that also produces convection heat. Quiet and maintenance free. Used to combat drafts, ideal for over glass sliding doors or windows.
king-electric.com king-electric.com
Not really baseboard but there nice looking and give off a nice feel on the skin almost like the sun
 
J

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Baseboard heaters in the 21st century?

What the others said.

The solar is essentially irrelevant.

Stone walls notwithstanding he should also insulate anywhere he can (attic, underneath) if that hasn't already been done. Pay now or pay later. Plus more comfortable house year round.
 
junkhound

junkhound

Senior Member
Location
Renton, WA
Occupation
EE, power electronics specialty
Yep, as others already stated, pay now or pay the rest of yer life, and kWhr cost only going to go UP!

Upstate NY, would recommend ground source HP (GSHP). Cold winters an air-air HP will need to use the high priced resistance supplement heating, whereas ground source keeps on HP operation.
 
J

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
The solar may or may not contribute to the heating load on any given day. But that's essentially irrelevant to the decisions the homeowner needs to make on how they heat their home. Especially if they've already decided to do it electrically one way or the other.
 
T

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
Anyone considering resistance type electric heat in this day and age has to be clueless. In areas that adopt the ICC Energy Code I don't think it would even be allowed.
 
mayanees

mayanees

Senior Member
Location
Westminster, MD
Occupation
Electrical Engineer and Master Electrician
I work for an engineering firm, and we were recently asked to provide pricing to modify the RTUs from gas heat to electric heat in two of their office buildings. One consists of 18 RTUs and the other is similarly sized but with much larger RTUs. The word is that the County will stop selling gas for the heaters so they're trying to get ahead of the process.
It's all about the County reducing their carbon footprint.
I never thought I'd see the day when electric heat would replace gas!
 
T

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
mayanees said:
I work for an engineering firm, and we were recently asked to provide pricing to modify the RTUs from gas heat to electric heat in two of their office buildings. One consists of 18 RTUs and the other is similarly sized but with much larger RTUs. The word is that the County will stop selling gas for the heaters so they're trying to get ahead of the process.
It's all about the County reducing their carbon footprint.
I never thought I'd see the day when electric heat would replace gas!
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OMG. I don't even know where to start. We have lost our minds as a society.
 
Fred B

Fred B

Senior Member
Location
Upstate, NY
Occupation
Electrician
LarryFine said:
I wonder how their power is generated.
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Not sure of the amount supplied by any given method but upstate we have several hydroelectric dams and a lot of wind generation going in as well a lot of large solar farms taking the place of dairy farms too. Not aware of any gas or coal plants up here.
 
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