[Varn]

Thanks for the responses. The numbers don't add up for us. Our forest provide all the basic heat that we need.

We have used wood heat from the beginning. We chain downed hardwoods and split them with a maul.That way we are kept warm twice, once while splitting and moving the wood and then when it is burned.

Adding electric heat means that we won't get "have" to get up to stoke the fire every two hours at night.I am thinking of using 750 1500 watts for 8 hours per day max in the deep of winter. Maybe 40-80 dollars a month for 4 months a year, about the same as our internet.

What we might do is upgrade our wood furnace to a longer lasting fire with less heat loss through the chimney.

If the heat was being primarily being provided for by electricity perhaps the geothermal($10-15k outlay)or other type of heat pump might make sense. At this point there is no foreseeable payback using complex heating systems. If the grid goes down we will go back to using wood heat It would mean chopping wood with an ax for the next season but we would hope it isn't going to come to that.