Baseboard Heat

[runsrealfast]

Have a home about 20 years old with electric baseboard heat in all the rooms, except one bedroom and the living room. The last owners installed a propane fireplace, which we love, but removed the heater in the living room and then one in the extra bedroom/office. I can't understand for the life of me why they would remove the heat from the bedroom although I can understand from the living room.

In the living room my problem is that cold air moves in from the big window and we probably use more propane than we need to. I have two solutions. Replace the windows, which are in everyone who has looked at it's opinion are the original windows, or I thought an easy thing I can do for very little cost is put the baseboard heat back into room. While I love the fireplace, its not the most efficient way to heat this room.

So with all that background I have two questions:

1. What is the difference between the standard electric and the Hydronic Liquid-Filled heaters. examples:

1. The last owner did at least leave the wiring and the wall thermostat's in both the bedroom and living room. Can I just hook up new heaters to the existing wiring without any problems?

Also do baseboard heaters loose efficiency over time? If so for as cheap as they are it might be worth replacing a few others?

Thanks for the input.

John

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Start with the basic. A watt is a watt and gives you the same amount of heat energy no matter how it is delivered to you. The oil filled units tend to have more mass and larger surface area to give off the same amount of heat, thus they feel cooler since the heat is spread over a larger area.

Yes, as long as the wiring is adequate for the heater size you install. Check to see that it is connected to a breaker also.

Nope, they should be as efficient as the day they we installed, save for a tiny loss if the element is dust covered.

[runsrealfast]

Thanks, your answers made life a lot easier. The old heaters were on a breaker.

John