These days the price of all energy is going up so that unless you have the room on your property for a geothermal heat pump you will paying for an increasing fuel load. And sometimes when it comes to looking at heatings it pays to see it from the ground up.
New homes with slab-on-grade construction are being built with in-floor radiant heat. Loops of plastic pipe are set on the concrete subfloor and then covered with a second layer. The pipes are hooked up to a water heater which can be powered by electric, oil or natural gas. This is ideal because cement has an excellent thermal mass and will give off heat long after the hot water shuts off. Different zones can be controlled by thermostats to decide the heat in each room.
This type of heating also puts direct electrical wiring into the fold as a competitor to the boiler systems. On most floors wire is strung out on clips set on the subfloor. This floor can be wood, tile or almost any material used to make subfloors. The flooring cement is then poured over the wiring and the floor leveled off. The wire is then hooked up to a thermostat.
Whether this is cheaper than oil is debatable because electricity goes right to the wire and heats the tile whereas oil or electricity has to heat water first before heating the floor. It is, however, cheaper to install and maintain
The optimum way to enhance this system is through a ceiling fan which distribute the heat through the home. But even without this the heat will rise and add comfort for the area.
