In the US, anyway, when people say electric resistance heat is inefficient they are comparing it to natural gas heat. It's the same story in water heaters; if y

In the US, anyway, when people say electric resistance heat is inefficient they are comparing it to natural gas heat. It's the same story in water heaters; if you install a HPWH you are betting on not needing to resort to resistance heat because if you do that too much, you probably should've installed a cheaper gas unit instead. (I'm a happy HPWH owner weighing the timing of adding a heat pump for central heat.)