Anyone have one of the new electric furnaces?

Electricity is far from being very efficient...there are losses everywhere just to carry the power to the ni-chrome heater wires....resistance is the enemy in this equation.

I don’t want to be a buzz killer here, but anything which heats solely by electricity will be a very expensive proposition especially if it’s the primary heat source when the temp drops into single digits.

However in reality nothing is completely 100 % efficient...my wind turbine is probably in the neighborhood of 35-45 % efficient.
But any power source has losses, regardless if it gas, oil, solar, thermal, mule, sled dogs...anything around 100% I would consider it something very fishy and sales hype.. As in an over unity machine, etc etc.
At the end of the day, it boils down to how much efficiency you can squeeze out of a dollar on a given source of power, some power sources simply put out more BTU's than other's do for the same amount of cost

I agree with what others have said about a watt being a watt being a watt. That said, I do think some heaters do better than others at spreading the heat. I live in a doublewide mobile home with central heat. It should be 12 KW, but only one half works, so I only have 6 KW. I purchased an oil filled radiator and placed it over one of the vents. I found quickly that if I also put a small fan behind the radiator I seemed to get more heat. Yes, I know I'm not getting more heat, it is just spreading the heat around more. I have an open floor plan (around 700 sf in the living area), and one oil filled radiator keeps that area warm enough except when the temps dip below 40 when the central comes on. So in a temperate climate it is possible to heat 700 sf. with a 1500 watt unit if that is not the sole source of heat.

Here is a fuel cost comparison guide, however, you will need to adjust the numbers to your local rates.

http://www.lgeenergy.com/rsc/lge/res_heating_costs.asp

The site is far from perfect, but it will allow you to get a pretty good idea of comparative costs of heating (or producing hot water.)

Hope this helps.

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Supply and demand - Not just a good idea, its the law.