Replace gas fireplace vs. Electric baseboard heating

[Sunnysof]

I am trying to decide if it is worth it to replace a broken gas fireplace with a new direct vent gas fireplace, or just stick with our existing electric baseboard heating. It will cost about $5000 to replace the fireplace, which we have never used since moving into the house. The house is relatively small, 750 sq feet per floor, and the fireplace is in a central location on the main floor so I think will be able to heat the space fairly well, with the heat travelling up the staircase to the upper level.
We are on the west coast and electric baseboard is fairly common here, but would like to cut the energy bills if possible. Also debating if we should also put in a gas stove, which would be pure luxury, but I'd love it!

[soccerluvof4]

Lets do the stove first. Since you have a gas FP you obviously have gas to house so thats a plus so the biggest cost there is running a gas line. For resale and better cooking its worth it imo.

For the gas direct stove vs electric heat.  Again its a cost issue. 5k for the Stove sounds about right , you can obviously spend more or less , I just did one for that which include a real stone front, mantle and tile across the base. So shop it.  They will give you the square footage of the area covers so I would get one obvious with fan settings and one that covers more space than you have.  Mine for 5k looks very real and has a remote were I can control the fan speed, flame size , room temperature etc...  I had baseboard heat in my cabin up north and wood burners and would use the baseboard heat till the woodburners took over but I like the baseboard heat. I dont know costs on the  West Coast for gas vs electric so you would have to run the numbers and then compare that to if the gas is more the ambiance a FP gives vs the look of baseboard heat. I'd keep the baseboard heat unless looks like crap and or it doesnt work at all again for resale but I love the ambiance of a FP but also live in the Fridgid upper midwest. One thing you could always do too is put a small fan at base of steps to help blow the heat up.  I have a older direct vent gas FP in finished basement of which 1k square feet is finished (its a walkout) and about 400 not and that thing will heat you out of the lower level no problem! So we keep that one on a thermostat. Good luck my friend!

[BudgetSlasher]

I recommend this excel spreadsheet: http://www.pacificpud.org/heatcalc.xls

Once you input the needed information for the heating sources under consideration it will give you a cost per million BTU which you can compare.

If you know how many kWh of your last year of bills are devoted to heating you can multiply that by the fuel heat per unit column to get the total BTUs you used; using all of the information you can estimate you annual cost savings.