5 Options to Replace Your Baseboard Heating System
Many homes, especially older ones, feature a baseboard heating system. They run along the walls through each room and give off heat in the colder seasons. Along with heating your home, they also take up space unnecessarily and prevent you from achieving the energy savings your home is capable of. For these reasons, many people choose to get rid of old baseboard heating systems and replace them with something more cost- and energy-efficient.
Replacing your baseboard heating system may sound like a challenge, but it’s easier than you think. With the help of professionals like the staff at Entek, you can easily choose a new heating system that makes sense for your home and your current needs. Here are a few alternative options to a baseboard heating system that may be right for you.
Ductless Heat Pumps
One of the most popular alternatives to baseboard heating is a ductless heat pump. This option is convenient for people looking to heat and cool their homes and has the ability to save you 25 to 50 percent on your electric heating bill. Many people consider this option an upgrade from a baseboard heating system, as they’re known to take up less space while providing better results. Baseboard heating systems take up room in your home, which could feel like more of a burden, depending on the overall size of your living space.
Ductless heat pumps are more compact, as well as very quiet systems that can deliver efficient heating and cooling through the refrigeration lines that connect the indoor units to the outdoor unit. Their smaller size will make furniture placement much easier, which is a plus for many customers.
Unlike typical heat pumps, a ductless heat pump is a stand-alone unit, which allows it to give you more control over the temperature in a specific room. The unit typically only heats one or two areas/rooms in a house, which means you can get a more accurate temperature faster. They are also likely to be placed higher on the wall and beyond eye level.
Solar Heat
One of the most advanced ways of heating your home is doing so with solar heat. Solar energy and solar heat are an eco-friendly way to get your home to the perfect temperature, though they can be costly to get started with.
Solar heat works by using solar energy to heat a fluid in the system, and then that heat is transferred to a storage system for later use. That energy is created by using a solar connector to capture the sun’s rays to then heat the air. This is an option that can save you a lot of money on energy costs after a few years of use, and far into the future, but the initial costs are high.
High-Efficiency Furnace
A high-efficiency furnace can be a great replacement for old baseboard heating systems. Furnaces can be an intimidating choice, but a newer furnace could help you save much more than models from the past. With today’s high-efficiency furnaces, you could be using up to 30 percent less fuel and energy than an older model. Furnace fuel, such as natural gas or oil, is consistently rising cost each year. A high-efficiency furnace can help you to reduce future energy consumption and costs while also reducing your carbon footprint.
Fuel and energy savings aren’t the only benefits of switching to a high-efficiency furnace. If you have a baseboard heating system, you’ll know just how noisy they can become while in use. Newer furnaces have the added benefit of being a much less noisy option than baseboard heating systems. They can keep the noise level down while producing more even heat in your home and maintaining the temperature on a more consistent level.
Wood Heating
There are many different ways to heat your home, but one of the more classic options is to use wood heating. This can be done in the form of a wood stove that uses wood logs to create a fire that radiates heat through the walls and the top of the stove. They can also be used with a forced-air duct system.
Another wood heating option is a pellet stove. Pellet stoves use pellets to feed a fire, and they’re stored in a hopper, which prevents you from having to feed it constantly to maintain a flame. The heat from that fire is then distributed throughout the room. Though this is an older and less effective way of heating your entire home, you may find it works better for you than a baseboard heating system if you only need to heat one or two rooms consistently.
Heat Pumps
If you’re interested in having a furnace or central air unit replace your baseboard heating system, you might also be interested in a heat pump. A heat pump will allow you to minimize the use of your other unit while maximizing efficiency for even more comfort. They can also run off of electricity, which can make switching from your old baseboard heating system and easy transition.
Heat pumps are a top choice for many people looking to switch their heating source because they are an energy-efficient alternative. With the help of electricity, heat pumps move heat from cool spaces to warm spaces, and vice versa, making it a great year-round temperature controlling tool. Because heat pumps are able to move heat rather than generate it, they provide the same amount of comfort control as their alternative for one-quarter of the operating costs. A standard electric heat pump is able to trim the amount of electricity used for heating by up to 40 percent, with high-efficiency heat pumps also able to dehumidify your home.
Having a heat pump system is a great way to heat and cool your home but requires a different kind of maintenance than you may be used to with a baseboard heating system. Unless you opt for ductless, heat pumps require homeowners to have a duct system running throughout their home, which is where the air is stored and distributed to the rooms in your home. Services like duct cleaning should be performed occasionally to ensure that your air isn’t being threatened by harmful chemicals, buildup, or mold.
