Currently my house is set up for electric baseboard heat, but gas is available on site. I’m wonding if it would be worth it in long term utility bills if I were to switch to gas heat. What do you think?

Gas was MUCH cheaper. It is still cheaper.

But conversion from baseboard to forced air gas is a MAJOR expense. It might be worth it if it is a house. But with all that construction for the ducting and vents the cost could be prohibitive as the payback time could take many years. It would have been easier if you had forced air electric.

The benefit of baseboard is that it makes it easy to shut off a room or rooms. That is a savings in a way but those cold rooms make it drafter as they draw heat from the other rooms in the winter.

One BIG drawback I found with baseboard was that I thought if I turned off the baseboard while gone for my long workdays I would save.

I found that I was often cold and I had to crank up the electric heat rather high in the evening. Without fan circulation I checked temps and found for several hours with a cold house I would be cold sitting in a chair and the chair measured 65 degrees.

But with the electric heat on it was +100! degrees at the ceiling. I found not letting it get so cold during the day and adding table top fans to blow the air around I was much more comfortable and saved money. I saved by leaving it on MORE because I didn’t crank it up so hot trying to warm the place up when I got home. I know it sounds a bit counter intuitive but was true.

I am an HVAC/refrigeration guy so it was a "project" for me and I had lots of thermometers. LOL.

But what I did was convert the forced air electric for the upstairs plus both water heaters to gas for a BIG savings .

For the downstairs I added a small wall furnace. It cut the bill for the upstairs to half and the apartment to near one third at the time.

When I close the bedroom door in the apartment it doesn’t get heated so I did use the baseboard a bit at night and only in the cold times in the winter. But for the rest of the time the wall furnace heats it just fine. That is the only baseboard I use.

The price of gas has gone up a lot since then but going to gas I would guess you might cut your bill by 1/3 depending on all your factors. i.e. I built the apartment and heavily insulated it.

Here is what I recommend for you:

Convert the water heater. I know people that have said that ALONE justified bringing in the gas. (depends on how many people in the house).

Then add a wall furnace someplace to supplement the baseboard. It can do a lot if not most of the heating. If it is as noisy as mine you don’t want it near the TV. lol.

That is the least expensive and thus most cost effective way to approach it. And you can add, change it, to a central forced air furnace later or if you want to add a/c that we only rarely need in the cool NW . But if you like putting money in to the house.. (wink).

IF your water heater is in the garage, great!, and if your living room wall is common to the garage you can put in a wall furnace there easily.

And the wall furnace adds air circulation. I still recommend using extra fans, even in the winter with just the baseboard (from my experience with how I used the heat).

And don’t be too cheap about the wall furnace. Mine was cheap and has a fan that is too noisy and working on them I know there are better, quieter, ones out there. I would replace it but the property (acres in town with three houses on it) is slated for development, on hold due to the housing situation.

Unless you are planning on staying there 20 to 30 years for the payback IMHO that is your best solution.

Good Luck.