Giant Toaster in the Sky

I am frequently asked: "Is my baseboard/cadet/ceiling heat efficient?" In short, Yes. They are all essentialy giant toasters with different bells and whistles.

Electric heat, by its nature is 'efficient'. For every 1 watt of electricity it pulls out of the socket it creates exactely 1 watt of heat. That makes these units 100% efficient. Every single one of them. It does not matter if the Amish made them in the sticks of North Carolina, or whether Paul Harvey tells you one particular brand makes him happy, or whatever new name/approach a fancy marketer made up to sell their product. Every single one of these units is 100% efficient. Yes, every one.

The 50%+ savings frequently marketed by some of these units requries that you turn off your main heating system and only use this unit in the room that you are currently in, while the rest of your home is not heated (check the fine print for these details). If you do that there certainly could be some savings, but by its nature that electric heating box is 100% efficient just like your electric furnace (I may talk about duct systems some time in the future, but for now lets just assume that they carry all the heat into your house).

This is the limit of physics people, you just cannot make heat from nothing, and since you are trying to make heat there are no loses. It does not matter if they call it "infared-heat", or "liquid-heat", or "your-kids-will-now-listen-to-you-be-happy-and-quiet-Heat". Electric heat is electric heat. You are likely to see the same 'savings' if you buy a $15 space heater at Walmart, or you could see even more savings if you bought an electric blanket and turned all your heat off.

I do realize that often what people mean to ask is which option is cheaper, and what is going to make me more comfortable. Those are much harder questions to answer.