Hey Forum, I live in Minnesota. Obviously it's cold. The third floor of my house is finished. It used to be an apartment many years ago. According to previous owner, the problem was with the heat. The house is heated with a boiler and radiators, but the third floor wasn't included. So somebody installed a natural gas heater a long time ago. Apparently it didn't work too well. It's centrally located, and some of the adjacent rooms stayed pretty cold. So I'd like to heat it appropriately and use it as additional living space. The guidelines I found online were to take square footage, multiple by 10, and that's your required wattage. It's about 490sq ft. So according to the calculation I'd need 4900 watts of baseboard. My question: does this calculation account for the fact that the third floor is heated somewhat from the heat in the rest of the house, beneath? The temp never drops below about 55 degrees up there. So I'd like to be able to raise the temperature by about 20 degrees. Second question: Am I correct to assume that distributing that wattage around the unit is the best idea? For example, there are 5 rooms up there. Would it be best to have 5 smaller baseboards, one for each room, rather than three 1500 watt units? Thanks!

Hello, Have had gas furnaces my whole life and have now moved to a home with a HP and electric aux backup. Does a HP or electric furnace require annual inspections or maintenance as a gas furnace does? What’s required and performed during on these units to maintain them? I’m fairly handy.