SteveC wrote:

We currently have an Oil burning funace heating Hot Water radiant
baseboards. Oil is getting expensive where we live, $0.88 cents per liter.
We are thinking of adding an Electric Furnace to the existing Oil Furnace,
sort of Hybrid system, Just in case I guess. Electicity is $0.09 cents a
KWh, which is not too bad, for now. We always get price hikes though and
could rise. I know that an Electric furnace is 100% Efficient, which is
better then the 80% or so efficiency of the oil furnace.

Anyway, anyone have any advice or things to watch out for, makes/models are
best?

I live in Newfoundland, Canada if that matters.

--
Steve

Bad, bad idea.

With hydronic baseboards, it is perfectly reasonable to have multiple
heat sources on the loop, and keeping a perfectly good oil boiler makes
a lot of sense in that it gives you a backup heat source in the event of
a failure of another heat source, as well as the ability to switch fuels
based on what is cheaper.

The problem is that an electric boiler is very costly to run, and
effectively inefficient since even though 100% of the electricity used
is converted to heat, and electric powered heat pump (ground source for
you up north) is much more efficient, producing far more BTUs per unit
of electricity, effectively over 100% efficiency compared to electric
resistive heating.

Add a ground source heat pump to your hydronic heating loop and you'll
likely only run the heat pump since it will be cheaper than oil. If you
have the space, leave the oil boiler in the loop (with bypass valves)
and you have backup in the event that the heat pump needs service, or if
there is a drastic change in the relative cost of oil vs. electric.

For reference, it is increasingly common in the Northeast US where oil
fired hydronic heat is the norm and wood is plentiful, for people to
install outside wood burning boilers and use that as their primary heat
source, with the oil boiler taking over when they are away and the wood
fire burns down.