Least Costly Way to Heat a Basement

alemaofabricio asks,

I'm trying to add heating to the basement and to the finished attic. The energy source is natural gas and the whole house has hot water radiators. I'm looking for something effective and efficient at the same time. My budget is somewhat limited but I do need to heat the basement. Should I add a radiator, or baseboards? The basement area is about 300 sq.ft. I really appreciate your advice.

Our Answer

For a small basement, the most cost-effective way to heat it is with electric baseboard heaters. While we’d never recommend electric heat for a larger space because the operation cost is pretty high, to have just a couple of heaters for a basement that will only need to be used for a limited period of time throughout the year is definitely the easiest and least expensive way to add heat.

Make sure your baseboard electric heaters are wired to a wall-mounted programmable thermostat so you can set the heaters to come on only when needed.

Basements & CrawlspacesQ & A