Electric Baseboard Heating Cost Calculator
See what one room costs to heat with electric baseboard for a month, from the room size, how it holds heat, the weather and where you set the thermostat.
Electric baseboard is heat by the room, and the bill is set by three things: the room, the weather, and where you leave the thermostat. This gives you what one room costs for a month, the size of heater it needs, and what each degree on the dial is worth.
Room size
Length × width of the one room. A bedroom is 100–150 sq ft, a living room 250–350. For the whole house, run each room and add them up.
How well the room holds heat
Tight is newer or sealed, with double-pane windows. Drafty is an older room with single-pane windows and air you can feel; corner rooms and rooms over a garage lean drafty.
What kind of month?
Pick the kind of month you want the bill for. The outdoor average is what the heater works against.
Thermostat setting
What the room's thermostat is held at. Each degree lower saves a few percent of the month; a bedroom at 62 overnight costs noticeably less than one at 68.
Electricity rate
Your price per kilowatt-hour, from a recent bill. The 2026 U.S. average is about $0.18/kWh.
This room for the month
about $68
A 120 sq ft room held at 68°F through a month averaging 30°F, at $0.18/kWh
Why baseboard costs what it does, and the habit that cuts it
A baseboard turns every bit of electricity into heat, so there's no efficiency to shop for; the bill is the room's heat loss times your rate, and electricity is the most expensive way to make heat where gas or a heat pump is available. What you control is the dial and the doors: each degree lower saves about $1.79 a month in this room, an empty room held at 55 instead of 68 costs a third as much, and a closed door keeps the heat where you paid for it. If several rooms run like this all winter, a ductless heat pump in the main room pays for itself in a few seasons.
The heater is sized at 10 watts per square foot (7.5 tight, 12.5 drafty) and 250 watts per foot of 240-volt baseboard. It runs the share of the time set by the gap between your setting and the month's average outdoors, against the 70°F gap it was sized for, with the sizing rule's 25 percent margin taken off; cost is that × 720 hours × your rate. 2026 figures.
💡About this calculator▼
Electric baseboard is heat by the room, and that's both its charm and its bill: every room has its own heater and its own thermostat, and every one of them turns electricity straight into heat at the most expensive price per degree of any common way to warm a house. The question people actually have is not "is baseboard expensive" but "what does this bedroom cost me in January."
This answers it a room at a time. Enter the room's size, how well it holds heat, the kind of month, where you keep the thermostat and your rate. You get the month's cost for that room, the size of baseboard a room like it needs, how much of the time it runs, and what each degree on the dial is worth. For the whole house, run each room and add them up.
The dial is the lever. Baseboard has no efficiency to shop for, so the bill is the room's heat loss times your rate, and the only things that move it are the room's insulation, the weather and the setting. Each degree lower saves a few percent, an empty room held at 55 costs about a third of one held at 68, and a closed door keeps the heat where you paid for it.
Size the heater the way an electrician does. The rule is 10 watts per square foot for an average room with 8-foot ceilings, 12.5 for an older or drafty room, and 7.5 for a tight one. A 120 sq ft bedroom needs about 1,200 watts, which is the next stock 240-volt baseboard up: 1,250 watts, five feet long, since baseboard delivers 250 watts per foot.
Work out how much of the time it runs. A heater sized by that rule is built to run flat out on the coldest design day, taken here as 70°F indoors and 0°F outside, with the standard 25 percent margin over the room's actual heat loss. In any given month the heater's thermostat cycles it on for a fraction of the time set by how far the month's average outdoor temperature sits below your setting, relative to that 70-degree gap. Cadet, a baseboard maker, describes the same thing: at 20°F out and 70°F in a heater "may run continuously," while at 45°F out and 55°F in it might run 20 minutes an hour.
Turn that into the month's bill. The room's heat loss is the heater's watts times 0.8 (the sizing margin taken back off); that times the run fraction times 720 hours in a month, divided by 1,000, is the kilowatt-hours; times your rate is the cost. The calculator also shows the same room in a mild and a cold month and what each thermostat degree is worth, which is the cost divided by the indoor-outdoor gap.
Worked example. A 120 sq ft average bedroom at 68°F in a month averaging 30°F: 1,200 watts needed, a 1,250-watt five-foot heater, a heat loss of 960 watts; (68 − 30) ÷ 70 = 54 percent run fraction; 0.96 kW × 0.54 × 720 = 375 kWh; at $0.18, about $68 for the month. The heater runs about half the time, each degree lower saves about $1.79, and the same room in a 15°F month costs about $94.
📐How it's calculated▼
Heater watts needed = room sq ft × 10 (average), × 7.5 (tight) or × 12.5 (drafty), rounded up to the next stock 240 V size (500, 750, 1,000, 1,250, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 W); feet of baseboard = watts ÷ 250.
Room heat loss = heater watts needed × 0.8 (the heater is sized 125 percent over the load).
Run fraction = (thermostat °F − month's average outdoor °F) ÷ 70, capped at 100 percent. Month cards: mild 45°F, typical 30°F, cold 15°F.
kWh for the month = heat loss × run fraction × 720 ÷ 1,000. Cost = kWh × rate.
Share of the time the heater runs = heat loss × run fraction ÷ stock heater watts. Saved per degree = cost ÷ (thermostat − outdoor average).
Default (120 sq ft, average, 30°F month, 68°F, $0.18): 1,200 W needed → 1,250 W (5 ft); 960 W load × 0.54 × 720 = 375 kWh → $68; runs 42 percent of the time; $1.79 per degree; mild month $41, cold month $94.
Tight room: 900 W → 1,000 W (4 ft), $51. Drafty room: 1,500 W (6 ft), $84. 300 sq ft living room: 3,000 W (12 ft, two heaters), $169. Same bedroom set to 62°F: $57.
📎Sources:Marley Engineered Products — QMark 2500 Series Electric Baseboard Heater submittal (240 V wattage by length),Cadet — The Cost of Running the Heater (cost formula, thermostat cycling),Natural Resources Canada — Air-Source Heat Pump Sizing and Selection Guide (heating appliances sized ~125% of design heat loss),U.S. Energy Information Administration — Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A (average residential price per kWh)
🔍Finding your inputs▼
Room size: Length times width of the one room you're pricing. A bedroom is 100 to 150 square feet, a living room 250 to 350. Baseboard is zoned, so price each room separately and add them for the house.
How well the room holds heat: Tight is newer construction or a sealed room with double-pane windows; drafty is an older room with single-pane windows and air you can feel. Corner rooms, rooms over a garage and rooms with a lot of glass lean drafty even in a decent house. This sets the heater size and the bill together, because both follow heat loss.
What kind of month: The outdoor average the heater works against. Mild is around 45°F, a shoulder month or a Southern winter; typical is around 30°F, an ordinary Northern winter month; cold is around 15°F, January in the upper Midwest or northern New England.
Thermostat setting: What the room's own thermostat is held at. Each degree lower saves a few percent of the month, and a bedroom set to 62 overnight or a spare room held at 55 costs far less than either at 68. This is the input you control.
Electricity rate: The per-kilowatt-hour price on your bill. The 2026 U.S. average is about $0.18, but baseboard-heavy regions run from about $0.08 in Quebec to over $0.28 in New England.
⚠️Special situations▼
Why does the cost stay the same when I pick a bigger heater?
Because the bill follows the room, not the heater. A baseboard turns every watt into heat and the thermostat only lets it run until the room is warm, so a bigger heater runs a smaller share of the time for the same electricity. That's why the calculator sizes the heater from the room and prices the room's heat loss. Where a bigger heater matters is on the coldest nights: a heater sized under the rule runs nonstop and the room falls behind.
I have a whole house on baseboard. How do I get the monthly bill?
Run each room with its own size, insulation and setting and add them up, because that's how the house is actually heated: each thermostat only sees its room. Rooms you keep at 55 or 60 cost a fraction of the ones at 68. A 1,400 sq ft house of average rooms at 68 in a typical 30°F month comes to roughly $700 to $800 at the national rate, which is the bill that sends people to look at heat pumps.
My rate is 8 cents in Quebec. Does baseboard still cost that much?
No, the same 120 sq ft bedroom in a cold month is about $42 at 8 cents instead of $94 at the U.S. average, and that's why baseboard is the normal way to heat a house there and a costly one in New England at 28 cents, where the same room is $147. The room, the month and the setting do the same work everywhere; the rate is what makes the same heat cheap or dear.
The room never reaches the thermostat setting in January.
Check the heater against the sizing row: an older 1,000-watt baseboard in a 150 sq ft drafty room is short by nearly half. On the coldest days a right-sized heater runs most of every hour and holds; an undersized one runs all the time and doesn't. The cheap fixes come first, weatherstripping, curtains at night, sealing the outlet plates on the outside walls; if it still can't hold, add baseboard, 250 watts per foot, on its own circuit.
❓Common questions▼
How much does electric baseboard heat cost per month?
For one average 120 sq ft bedroom held at 68°F, about $41 in a mild month averaging 45°F, $68 in a typical winter month around 30°F, and $94 in a cold month around 15°F, at the U.S. average rate of 18 cents. A 300 sq ft living room runs about two and a half times that. A whole house is the sum of its rooms, which is how bills of several hundred dollars a month happen in cold climates.
What size baseboard heater do I need for a room?
The electrician's rule is 10 watts per square foot for an average room with 8-foot ceilings, 12.5 for a drafty or older room and 7.5 for a tight one, rounded up to the next stock size. Baseboard delivers 250 watts per foot at 240 volts, so a 120 sq ft bedroom needs about 1,200 watts, a five-foot 1,250-watt heater, and a 300 sq ft living room needs 3,000 watts, usually two six-foot heaters. Rooms over 2,500 watts get more than one heater and their own circuit.
Is electric baseboard heat expensive?
Per unit of heat, it's the most expensive common way to warm a house: a baseboard makes one unit of heat per unit of electricity, a heat pump makes two to three, and gas costs less per unit than either at most rates. What makes it livable is zoning: you only pay for the rooms you heat, at the setting you choose, so a house with three rooms at 68 and the rest at 55 costs far less than one heated evenly. At 8 cents a kilowatt-hour it's cheap; at 28 it isn't.
How much does turning the thermostat down save with baseboard?
About a few percent per degree, and the calculator shows the dollar figure for your room: roughly $1.80 a month per degree for an average bedroom in a typical winter month. Set that room back from 68 to 62 overnight and it saves about $11 a month; hold a spare room at 55 instead of 68 and it costs about a third as much. Because each room has its own thermostat, baseboard rewards setbacks more than a single central system does.
Why does my baseboard heater run all the time?
Either the month is as cold as the heater was sized for, or the heater is undersized for the room. A right-sized heater runs about half the time in an ordinary winter month and most of the time in a cold one; one that never cycles off in a mild month is short of the 10-watts-per-square-foot rule or fighting a draft. Weatherstrip, close curtains at night and seal the outlets on outside walls first; if it still runs nonstop and the room stays cool, add baseboard.
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