VERIFY QUESTION

A WFMY News 2 viewer reached out to us with a timely inquiry -- how do we cut down heat bills without cutting comfort?

Stephanie from Danville asked us to VERIFY if gas heat or an electric space heater is the cheaper option to conserve energy.

She explained she recently moved from a house with a heat pump to a house with gas heat, and her electric bill seems higher.

So, she wants to know if she should stick with gas heat or install an electric heater.

VERIFY SOURCE

For answers, we turned to home improvement expert Tom Garcia from Southern Evergreen.

VERIFY PROCESS

Garcia explained electric baseboard heat is the most expensive type of heat there is. He said for every dollar you spend on natural gas (furnaces and fireplaces), a heat pump system will cost about $2 for the same amount of heat, and electric baseboard heat will cost about $5.

VERIFY CONCLUSION

To answer Stephanie's question, gas heat is the cheapest heat source -- five times cheaper than the electric heater. So, if Stephanie's gas bill is higher than it used to be, she might want to call a technician.