What is the payout for converting from gas heat to electric heat?
In our rush to convert from incandescent to LED, nobody has included the cost of replacing heat generated from incandescent bulbs to the lower heat given off by LED lights. What is good for Australia (getting rid of heat), is not as desirable as in Canada (wanting more heat). The heat loss between the two lighting options must be made up by some other electric heat option, i.e. baseboard heating, electric forces air furnace.
Heating with electricity is usually a more environmentally friendly option to natural gas, and certainly more so than heating with oil, though sometimes the cost of electric heat is higher. Which province are you in, and do you already have electric heating? You are right that the heat generated by light bulbs will contribute to heating your home, which is a benefit in winter, but definitely not in summer. There is more about the efficiency and cost of electric heating here this page –
Why Electric Heating Systems are Best for Zero Energy Homes
Even in Canada where that heat is a benefit in winter, most Canadians live in areas where summers are extremely hot, so incandescent bulbs will ad to the discomfort in summer months, or ad to the cooling bill. There is an easy 1/3rd of the year where you won’t want the heat from those bulbs.
And about your specific case - if you noticed a difference in comfort when switching from incandescent bulbs to LED, then there is something interesting going on with your home, and my penchant for building science forensics has me curious.
I figure you either have - a super-efficient house where a few 100W incandescent light bulbs makes a difference, or you could have had a ton of incandescent bulbs in an older less efficient house. But normally a home heating system is designed to match the worst weather (and more) of a specific climate. So something may be buggy if you’re finding yourself too cold now with LED bulbs.
But as for your original question, we’d need more details. I assume by ‘payout’ you are looking for the return on investment time for converting from gas to electric heat? That depends on what you installed, and utility rates. So – have you already made the switch? What system did you install? And let us know where you are located too.
It is impossible to come up with an accurate number for you given the amount of variables (cost of each respective fuel supply, cost of systems and equipment, operational cost, total heat load of the house, etc..) so don’t get your hopes up too high for an answer but we can at least point you in the right direction to figure it out if you can get your hands on the above mentioned variables.
What is actual cost in dollars
That would be different in every state and every province due to the regional variances in electricity rates, so there is no way for us to give you a dollar value.