Help!

Ok we are building a garage with a loft which has 806 sq ft of living area. The unit will be used mostly during the summer but some fall and early spring use and some holidays in the winter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. Additional appliances include range, water heater & dryer. We are comparing the costs of some options as follows:

1. Natural Gas furnace and appliances - Furnace costs about $5,800 including about $600 in gas line installation charges. This is installed by a contractor.
2. Electric Silicon filled base board which costs about $1,600 for materials/thermostats, etc. which I could install(I am Fairly handy).

Does anybody know of additional options? Is it worth the extra $4,200 to get natural gas for the heat and appliances. What would be the payback?

Comments needed and welcome

For such limited usage I would go electric and forget the silicone models. They do not save ANY energy since all electric heat is 100% efficient to start with. Now I made this statement figuring you would not be heating this section all winter and you would be draining the water lines and winterizing all appliances that use water with the pink stuff antifreeze.

Now if you plan on heating this unit all winter then you will need to do some calculations for the gas heat to see what the pay back period would be.

Use a manual J calculation for your heating and A/C calculations for unit sizes. No reason to install more than you actually need. It is very accurate.