When you build an addition onto your home, one of the challenges you'll face is how to keep it warm during the colder months. It's not a good idea to simply rely on warm air circulating into it from the rest of your home—temperatures inside the room will quickly become freezing if your addition doesn't have dedicated heating. Thankfully, there are a number of inexpensive methods you can use to keep your addition comfortably warm. Read on to learn more about four ways to warm your new home addition.

1. Use Your Current Heating System

One of the simplest ways to warm your addition is to bring it into the rest of the conditioned space in your home. By running a new air duct to the addition, you can use your current heating system to keep the space comfortable during colder months.

Unfortunately, this option is limited by the capacity of your furnace. If your furnace can't keep up with the added heating demand, the rest of your home will become too cold. You'll need a heating system installation professional to run a load calculation on your home. The load calculation enables you to see if your furnace can keep up with the additional demand for heating the addition.

If your furnace has the capacity to keep your entire home comfortable with the addition included, then extending your current heating system is the simplest and least expensive option. If you'd need to upgrade your furnace to meet your heating demands, then it'll become much more expensive than the alternatives below.

2. Window Heat Pump

Window heat pumps aren't the most efficient heating option, but they're inexpensive and simple to install. Heat pumps operate like an air conditioner in reverse. Instead of absorbing heat from the air in your home in order to cool it, it absorbs heat from the air outside and releases it into your home in order to warm it up.

One downside of using a window heat pump is that they don't operate very well in extremely cold temperatures. When temperatures start to drop below freezing, it's difficult for the heat pump to extract heat from the outside air. If you live in a climate where temperatures are regularly below freezing, then it's best to go with another option.

3. Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pump

Instead of a window heat pump, you also have the option of installing a ductless mini-split heat pump in your addition. In this system, an air handler is installed on one of the walls in the addition. The air handler is connected to a compressor outside by a conduit that runs through your walls. It functions in the exact same way as a window heat pump—refrigerant absorbs heat from the outside, and an air handler blows the heated air into the addition.

Ductless mini-split heat pumps are much more efficient than window units, but they still struggle in freezing temperatures. They're also considerably much more expensive to install. However, operating costs will be lower due to increased efficiency.

4. Electric Baseboard Heating

Another simple option for warming your addition is to install an electric baseboard heater. Baseboard heaters are installed near the floor. When they're in operation, a heating element warms the air inside and a fan blows that warm air across the room at floor level. Since warm air rises, electric baseboard heaters are fairly effective at keeping small spaces comfortably warm.

Unfortunately, electric baseboard heaters don't function very well in large spaces. The fan doesn't circulate the warm air across large rooms very well. If you need to heat a large addition, you may need to install multiple baseboard heaters, and that will raise the price.

Which is the best option for your home? If your furnace can handle the added load, extending your current heating system into the addition is the best choice. Calling a heating installation company for a load calculation will allow you to determine if this method is suitable for you.

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