Electric Baseboard vs Natural Gas Heat in Central New York Rentals

Heating type is one of the most underappreciated factors in rental property performance in Central New York. It affects your utility costs (or your tenant’s), your maintenance budget, your vacancy rate, and how much rent you can realistically charge. And yet, most landlords treat it as a fixed feature of the building rather than a strategic decision. If you own rental property in the Syracuse area and you’ve never run the numbers on electric baseboard versus natural gas heat, now is the time.

The Tenant Utility Burden: Why It Matters More Than You Think

Let’s start with the numbers your tenants care about most. In Central New York, a typical 800 to 1,000 square foot apartment heated with electric baseboard will cost the tenant somewhere between $200 and $400 per month during the winter heating season, roughly November through March. That’s five months of elevated electric bills.

The same unit heated with natural gas will typically cost between $100 and $200 per month during those same winter months. National Grid, which serves most of the Syracuse metro, publishes rate schedules that make this comparison fairly straightforward. As of recent rate filings, residential electricity in the Syracuse area runs roughly 18 to 22 cents per kilowatt-hour, while natural gas sits around $1.00 to $1.40 per therm. Electric resistance heating (which is what baseboard is) converts energy to heat at a 1:1 ratio, while gas furnaces typically operate at 80% to 95% efficiency. Even at the lower efficiency, gas wins on cost per BTU by a significant margin.

For tenants who are budget-conscious (and in the Syracuse rental market, most are), that $100 to $200 per month difference is enormous. It can mean the difference between being able to afford a unit and not. Many tenants will specifically ask about heating type before they even schedule a showing. Some won’t consider electric baseboard at all.

Maintenance: The Hidden Cost Equation

Here’s where electric baseboard has its one genuine advantage. These units have essentially no moving parts. There’s nothing to service annually, no filters to change, no combustion safety concerns, and almost nothing that can fail catastrophically. A baseboard heater either works or it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, the replacement cost per unit is $50 to $150, and any electrician can handle it.

Gas System Maintenance Realities

Gas heating systems require more attention. A forced-air gas furnace needs annual servicing, which typically runs $80 to $150 per visit in the Syracuse market. That annual service includes cleaning the burners, checking the heat exchanger for cracks, inspecting the flue, and verifying the thermostat calibration. Skip this maintenance and you’re asking for trouble, both in terms of efficiency loss and safety.

Beyond the annual tune-up, gas systems generate more emergency maintenance calls. Ignitor failures, blower motor issues, thermocouple replacements, and ductwork problems are all part of owning gas-heated rental property. Budget $200 to $500 per year per unit for gas heating maintenance and repairs, averaged over time. Some years you’ll spend nothing. Other years you’ll replace a furnace for $3,000 to $5,000.

So yes, electric baseboard costs you almost nothing to maintain. Gas costs you real money every year. But that savings gets wiped out many times over by the vacancy and rent impacts we’re about to discuss.

Vacancy Risk: The Elephant in the Room

This is the factor that tips the entire analysis for most Syracuse landlords. Tenants in Central New York actively avoid electric baseboard heat. The rental market here is competitive enough that tenants with decent credit and stable income have options. When they’re comparing two similar units and one has gas heat and the other has electric baseboard, gas wins almost every time.

The result is that electric baseboard units tend to sit vacant longer. Even an extra two weeks of vacancy on a $1,000/month apartment costs you $500 in lost rent. If your electric baseboard unit takes a full month longer to fill than a comparable gas-heated unit, you’ve already lost more than you saved on maintenance for the entire year.

We see this pattern consistently across the Syracuse market. Units with gas heat fill faster, attract a broader pool of applicants, and experience lower turnover rates. Tenants who move into an electric baseboard unit and get hit with their first January electric bill often start looking for their next apartment before the lease is even halfway through.

Rent Ceiling Impact

Heating type directly impacts what you can charge for rent. In the Syracuse and greater Onondaga County market, units with natural gas heat can typically command $50 to $100 more per month than comparable units with electric baseboard. Some landlords try to offset the tenant’s higher utility cost by lowering rent on electric baseboard units, but this creates a vicious cycle. Lower rent means lower revenue, which makes it harder to justify the capital expense of converting to gas.

Let’s put some numbers on it. If a gas-heated unit rents for $1,100/month and a comparable electric baseboard unit rents for $1,025/month, that’s $75/month or $900/year in lost revenue. Over a 10-year hold period, that’s $9,000 in rent you didn’t collect, not accounting for the vacancy difference.

Running the Break-Even Analysis

So when does it actually make sense to convert from electric baseboard to gas heat? Let’s run the numbers using realistic CNY costs.

Conversion Costs

• Gas line extension to the building (if not already present): $2,000 to $5,000, depending on distance from the main and whether National Grid has active incentive programs. National Grid has periodically offered subsidies for gas line extensions, so check current programs before you commit.
• Furnace installation (forced air, including ductwork): $5,000 to $10,000 per unit. If the building already has ductwork from a previous system, costs drop significantly. If you’re starting from scratch, expect to be on the higher end.
• Furnace installation (hydronic/baseboard hot water): $4,000 to $8,000 per unit. This option works well in buildings that already have baseboard radiator infrastructure.
• Permits and inspections: $200 to $500.

For a typical Syracuse duplex with two units, total conversion cost including a gas line extension runs roughly $12,000 to $25,000.

Revenue and Savings

• Rent increase per unit: $50 to $100/month, or $600 to $1,200/year per unit.
• Reduced vacancy: Conservatively, one fewer week of vacancy per year, worth roughly $250 to $300 per unit.
• Combined annual benefit per unit: $850 to $1,500.
• Combined annual benefit for a duplex: $1,700 to $3,000.

At the midpoint, you’re looking at a payback period of roughly 6 to 10 years for a full conversion on a duplex. That’s not fast, but if you’re planning to hold the property for 10 years or more, it’s a solid investment. The property also becomes more attractive if you decide to sell, since buyers run the same math.

When Conversion Doesn’t Make Sense

Conversion isn’t always the right call. Here are situations where keeping electric baseboard might be the better play:

• Short hold period. If you’re planning to sell the property within 3 to 5 years, you probably won’t recoup the conversion cost.
• No gas main nearby. If the gas line extension alone would cost $5,000 or more, the total project economics may not work, especially for a single-family rental.
• Building layout makes ductwork impractical. Some older Syracuse homes have floor plans that make forced-air ductwork extremely expensive to install. In those cases, the conversion cost can balloon past $15,000 per unit, pushing the payback period beyond 15 years.
• You’re in a market segment where tenants are less price-sensitive. Higher-end units or furnished short-term rentals near the universities may be less affected by heating type, since the utility cost is a smaller percentage of the overall housing expense.

NYSEG vs. National Grid: Know Your Service Area

One detail worth noting: the Syracuse area is split between National Grid (gas and electric) and NYSEG (primarily electric in some surrounding areas). Rate structures differ between the two, so your break-even math will vary depending on where the property sits. Properties served by NYSEG for electricity may face slightly different rate schedules. Always pull the actual rate data for your specific service address when running your analysis.

Making the Call

For most landlords in Central New York who are holding properties long-term, converting from electric baseboard to gas heat is one of the highest-return capital improvements you can make. It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t photograph well for a listing. But it directly impacts your vacancy rate, your achievable rent, and your tenant retention. Those three things drive your returns more than almost any other single factor.

At RenPro Property Management, we help landlords across the Syracuse area evaluate capital improvement decisions like heating conversions, run the actual numbers for their specific properties, and coordinate the work with qualified local contractors. If you’re sitting on electric baseboard units and wondering whether it’s time to convert, contact us for a conversation. We’ll help you figure out whether the investment makes sense for your situation.