> Germany is one of the few countries that do this though probably because it's common to have electric heating for the house.

In Germany, electric heating for the house is very uncommon (in opposite to France, I think) for the reason that in Germany, electricity is rather expensive.

I just happen to live in a city where this is quite common - whole streets where every house with multiple apartments has electric heating (overall not a majority by any means but still common). I was contrasting with other countries where this is not only uncommon, it's basically completely non-existing. Even in countries like Bulgaria, Romania, or Moldova despite having some of the cheapest electricity in Europe. [0]

If I understand correctly from other comments below, Belgium seems to use this form of heating despite having some of the highest prices for electricity [0]. Is that the case?

And yes, it is expensive (for a 2 floor house with electric heating including water, total electricity was in the 3-4K Euros per year range). I assume there's no viable alternative for the particular buildings. Usually the rent is substantially lower for those houses (I lived in houses where the rent was lower than the nebenkosten+electricity for this exact reason).

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

> I just happen to live in a city where this is quite common - whole streets where every house with multiple apartments has electric heating (overall not a majority by any means but still common). I was contrasting with other countries where this is not only uncommon, it's basically completely non-existing.

You extrapolated from "common in my city" to "common in my country", and a fairly large one at that. That isn't contrasting anything; its just plain wrong.

It's only common with old houses built for renting, where the owner doesn't have to pay the energy bill, and where modernization as part of insulating the house and building central heaters isn't feasible or economical eg. historic buildings. The devices are heating at night, and emit heat during the day to save energy costs. Not sure if this model makes much sense today. However, heating with electricity, as inefficient as it is, might actually grow compared to heating with gas or oil because of renewable energy subventions (similar story with e-mobility).

> renewable energy subventions

The word you are looking for is subsidies.

Not every Latin-derived word also works in English. ;)

AFAICT electric heating in houses is not common at all in Germany. It would be ridiculously expensive with local electricity prices. A few households have night storage heaters. A few others have heat pumps.

Electric heating in Germany would be insane. A sure way to get very poor very quickly.

Considering average electricity prices around 0.34€/kWh, that’d be the fastest way to bankruptcy imaginable, beating even the "what’s the fastest way to become a millionaire? be a billionaire and buy an airline" joke.

Most German houses run on "Fernwärme", a district heating system where the cities reuse the leftover heat energy from waste incineration plants or powerplants. Another major heating source is gas. Only a tiny minority in rural regions uses oil, and that’s pretty much it — electricity is pretty much never used at all.

Adding to blattimwind, the average electricity price is 30ct/kWh, not 34, and would be lower if people bothered to switch to cheaper providers: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Artikel/Energie/strompreise... (see chart at the bottom of the page for composition and history of electricity prices)

> Most German houses run on "Fernwärme"

Actually about 50 % of households use gas, about a quarter uses oil and the remaining quarter is Fernwärme, heat pump, solar etc.

France and Belgium also have electric heating in most houses, and electric heating always runs on 240V. It really works just fine.

Direct electric heating typically runs on 240 V, but at least in Northern Europe (Finland, Sweden) electric heating is often a central heating via hot water circulation.

Here it used to be common that there's a rather large water tank (1 cubic meter or even more) that is heated up during night time when electricity was cheaper, and then gives out the warmth during day. This is no longer a feasible use case because night time usage of electricity has gone up and night electricity is not cheaper.

Heat pumps (operating with drilled wells going 100 m deep) have become more common. The pumps take 400V 3-phase.

Air-to-air heat pumps are really common. No new houses are built relying on direct (resistive) heating, at least they have water circulation under floor so you can later upgrade to alternative heat sources.

Exactly. Circulation under floor is good for heat pumps with drilled wells as heat source; there the water is not that hot (often around 40 degrees C after pump.)

Belgium does, in fact, not have electric heating in most houses. The most popular heate sources are gas and oil (diesel, often incorrectly referred to as mazout). Electricity is very expensive in Belgium.

Air source electric heat pumps are on the rise, but it'll be decades before they catch up to gas.

Don't know about France, but in Belgium almost every house is gas or oil heating. Although water/Air heat pump is getting more popular for new buildings.