Gas Heater Recommendations

[Dan Borecki]

Hi, 

I have a 3 family property (built in 1900) that I purchased about 2 years ago and just recently got a home energy audit and in order to take advantage of the state of Massachusetts credit toward insulation of the unit, I am going to have to replace the below space heater because the carbon monoxide emissions are slightly above the allowed limit.  

Does anybody have any recommendations on what I should use to replace this gas space heater?  I am trying to make this replacement economical for both myself upon installation and for the tenant's future operating costs.  As far as I have gathered so far, I have 3 options, but am leaning toward the first 2 more strongly: 

1) gas space heater

2) electric heat 

3) baseboards w/ boiler in basement.  

For some background, the gas line to operate this space heater is running directly from the basement to this 3rd floor unit and is being vented through the chimney.    Overall this 3rd unit is approximately 500 square feet and when I purchased the property this space heater in the living area was the only heat source.  Since there was no heat in the bedroom or bathroom, I recently had installed small electric heaters in the bedroom (baseboard) and the bathroom (wall heater) as can be seen in the pictures.  

I recently had a plumber come to my house and his recommendation (due to the scope of work and expense of installing baseboard heat) was to just install more electric heaters in the living room area rather than incurring the costs of running piping from the basement for baseboard heat. This would probably be the easiest solution, but I also don't want to scare future tenants away by saying that it's 100% electric heat.  I am torn because I am figuring that the electric cost to heat the unit won't be too high since I will be getting the apartment fully insulated, so with that in mind I would ideally like to find a gas space heater to just replace the one that is currently installed, but it doesn't seem like these are a commonly used heating device like they were 40 years ago when this one was installed.      

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 

[Tim Wilkinson]

1Ton minisplit. It is ductless, it is electric, it is very efficient. Although I don't believe the are the best rate for conditioning a whole large home yet, they are ideal for this space. They also are air conditioning, which may all ow you to raise your rent a bit. 

Secondly, there are rebate programs from MassSave for minisplits. You can pay anywhere from $1,000-$1600 or so for a 1 T unit, but it will pay back for itself. 

You'll want to factor in at least an annual servicing to the unit as well, but I'm sure you were doing that with your furnace anyway.