Gas or Electric Heat?

It depends on Gas prices.. But I use a Kerosene heater during the day and electric at night.

I would go with electric then buy a corn stove or gas logs to supplement. I don't know if that is an option for you but we like to have something when the electric goes off. We have a wood stove but are planning to convert to a corn stove.

We have electric heat and we also use our fireplace a lot.

I would think gas would be cheaper. I know that wood or corn burning furnances are big right now, but you may want to check with your insurance co first. Our insurance goes up if whe had a burning type furnance.

I think it depends on where you live and the volitility of gas prices. In my area, natural gas is expensive (we have it -- it came with the house) and electricity is cheap. Due to falling gas prices, our gas bill is a lot lower than it has been, but I know it won't stay like this forever.

Our state has pretty cheap electricity prices (about 10 cents a KWH) but a natural gas forced air furnace is still cheaper! In an expensive electricity state (15 cents a KWH +), having electric heat makes a house impossible to sell.

When we moved in the house had an electric forced air furnace. The previous homeowner's winter electricity bill was over $300 a month! Within the first year we switched to a high efficiency natural gas forced air furnace and now our gas bill is - at worst - $150 a month and our electricity bill is about $50. That is a savings of about $100 a month.

If we could convert other appliances to gas, we'd save more but gas appliances need to be specially vented so the conversion is a little harder to do with the way our house is laid out.

A gas water heater is less expensive to operate than an electric one. We still have an electric water heater - sigh. I think that adds to our electricity bill in the winter because we're on a well and the well water is ICY in the winter so it takes so much more energy to heat up.

I'd also like the option of a gas clothes dryer and gas stove in the kitchen. I know we ran gas outlets to both the dryer and the stove in our previous house and that was a great selling point - the buyers could install gas or electric appliances - which ever they preferred.

As it is, in our current house, we have three heating sources: electric baseboard heaters (which we rarely use), the gas forced air furnace and wood stoves. We live in an area where the electricity could fail in bad weather so the wood stoves are a nice addition. If the electricity goes off, the gas furnace doesn't work because the fan operates on electricity.

In our area gas is half the cost of electric. It probably good to ask people in your area. They could give you an idea what would cost less there.

HTH

If you think the costs would be about even, I'd go with the gas furnace. You can always add a back-up electric system later in the form of baseboard heaters or a 'sun cloud' system. But it is very difficult to get a gas back-up system. If you decide to change to gas later you'd have to switch out your entire furnace.

I take it you're building a house. You may inquire what it would cost to put electric floor heating mats in the areas that will have hard surface floors such as the bathroom. The systems are relatively inexpensive and easy to install during the construction phase and can add lots of comfort to your home for minimal operating cost.

Gas is usually less expensive, but there are other factors. Due to things that have happened to friends and relatives, I will never have gas. I've seen explosions, poisoning, etc. I'm told things have improved, then I hear about a fire caused by gas in a house in a nearby development.

Recently, 4900 people nearby lost their gas because the demand was stronger than supply. It literally took 4 days for the gas company to turn everyone on because they had to visit each individual home to do so, and of course, aren't staffed for such emergencies. I had gas in California, and while convenient and cheaper, just too risky.