Can a heat pump replace my electric baseboard?

Where baseboard is still everywhere in this town

Baseboard and wall heaters went into most of the pre-1980 housing stock here, and into most of the student rental stock, and a great deal of it was never converted. That is precisely the existing-heat profile PSE’s conversion rebate was written to pay for, which is why a baseboard conversion is the most common job we quote.

What you gain besides a lower bill

You gain cooling, which matters more each summer, and you gain filtration and dehumidification that a resistance heater cannot provide. You also stop heating rooms with a device that has no way to be more than one hundred percent efficient. The Seattle Times reports variable-speed heat pumps can operate as much as five times more efficiently than baseboard or electric forced air, and installers report bills dropping forty to fifty percent on this specific conversion.

What you give up

Baseboard gives you per-room control with no ductwork and no ceiling penetrations. A two-head ductless system does not. Closed bedrooms and a north-facing bathroom will not be served by a living-room head, so either budget for heads or keep a couple of baseboards for those rooms. We would rather tell you that in the walkthrough than have you discover it in December.

The electrical side of a baseboard conversion

A baseboard house often has a panel full of 240-volt heater circuits and not much spare capacity, and older Bellingham houses may be at 100 amps. The outdoor unit needs a dedicated circuit and a disconnect, and freeing up capacity by abandoning heater circuits is a real strategy. All of that is electrical work performed by a licensed electrical contractor, which we coordinate but do not perform.