Hi Thomas, I live in Montevideo and we don't have snow but we have near 0 C. temps. The most efficient way of heating a house is weather pumps, we call them here split A/C and they have NO RESISTANCE WIRE TO HEAT BUT THE SAME COMPRESSOR, REVERSES ITSELF TO PRODUCE HEAT TO THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE. According to the government specialists this is the most efficient way to heat according to our expensive electric prices. Here everything is expensive such as oil, gas, and electricity. I strongly recommend split A/C which are in two separate parts, one the outside unit which you hang up from the outer wall and the inside unit which you hang up from the inner side of the wall. They consume about the same proportion of watts as BTU. I have 4, ! 18.000 BTU which consumes 1,800 watts. 2 900BTU with a consumption of 900 watts. and an old one 10 years plus of 12.000 BTU with a consumption of 1.200 watts. Lately there are some newones that have Inverter motors and they consume 60 o/o LESS electricity but they're more expensive to buy, Gus