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Ed, LOL, that is the very situation that I want to avoid……0 degrees outside and a hurry up replacement which I may not get to select another manufacturer.

i would keep the rads and put a high efficiency wood pellet boiler in to control your heating costs. I live in an 1830s Greek Revival (also in upstate NY!) that was converted to forced air with two propane furnaces by the prior owner. To heat our 4100 sf home we were burning 500 gallons of propane a month from December through March and 500 gallons during the shoulder months. To control our costs, I installed a 120k BTU boiler (MBTek Phoenix 35) with heat exchangers in both furnace plenums. We figured this would just supplement our propane use but the system is so efficient we no longer need to burn any propane and the boiler heats our entire home on its own. We burn 6-7 tons of pellets a year, keeping our house at 67 degrees from October through April, plus it indirectly heats an attached 1900sf garage and workshop to 50 degrees. This effectively cut our heating costs in a third, easily. The initial cost of our install was more than recovered during our second year, plus there were additional biomass tax deductions realized (not sure if these are set to expire). If you have a rad system, you have the setup that would make adding a pellet boiler even easier and more efficient than starting with forced air.

Good catch. One project on my list is to bring the washer and dryer up from the basement and build a laundry room.

Timely topic. I am in Maine and am closing on an 1860 3,000 sq. ft. house in about two weeks. Cast iron radiators that are tied to a 2 year old Ideal condensing, outdoor reset boiler. Uses about 1,000 gallons a year with the thermostat set to 60F. It uses LP and that is $3.41.

I have been chewing over the heating options. Present plan is spray foam the rock mortar basement walls. Thermostatic valves on all the rads, and probably an air to water heat pump in parallel with the boiler.

For this winter, we will be installing a pellet stove to help keep the cost down. We used to import and sell air to water heat pumps, so even with high electric costs, this will work well. The rest is energy retrofits. New windows (eventually), create a conditioned attic space by spray foaming the rafter space and just tighten up everything. BTW, where I am the average winter temp is 32F. Perfect for a HP. Was debating minisplits but the inside units of any configuration would just not blend aesthetically.

Might sneak in radiant floors in the two bathrooms that will be retrofitted.

I knew there was a good reason for buying that thermal imaging camera..

Photos sometime soon.

Merry Christmas! And a Warm New Year.

tom in maine

Morning. There are tons of great comments on the heating, but I’d like to comment on the A/C. I live in Ohio and also have allergies. Pretty sure everyone in ohio does. Anyway, my previous house was a huge 1924 Tudor Revival. 6500 sqft, 7 bedrooms and 5 fireplaces. Couple kitchens and laundry rooms. There was a full basement, 3 living floors and actually an attic above the 3rd floor.
It had steam heat that I tweaked after reading Dan’s book a couple times and hiring Gerry Gill. The heat was great.
However, there was no central air. I’m a stickler for maintaining the historic look and feel of old houses. Also, the roof was a bit of an optical illusion (on purpose). The slate roof on the front and sides went “way up” and you assumed it went right back down on the other side, but that was the trick. They separated them and added a large flat roof. That way the 3rd floor was actually 800 sqft with a 7+ foot ceiling. Plus, there was a 3-4 ft attic above it.
I agonized for several years before deciding and installing the A/C system. Here’s what I did..

I had a high velocity Unico system HUNG in the attic to prevent transmission of vibration and noise. Make sure you use the minimum length of tubing because it decreases the whooshing noise. I opened up a large access hole to that attic in the nursery that I changed to a big laundry room I also reframed that part of the access hole and continued it directly above to the flat roof. I had the condensing unit craned up to the flat roof near the back so you couldn’t see it from the road. I used ceiling vents for the 2nd & 3rd floors. Make sure you choose exactly where each vent goes. You don’t want air blasting in your face directly over the bed, for example. I created access holes to the 3rd floor knee wall areas, laid plywood flooring and used them to install ceiling vents on the 2nd (bedroom) floor. I added extra vents over the great stairway, knowing air would sink downstairs. Then I filled the knee wall areas w Insulation and permanently closed them up. I put one large return grill with built-in filter holder on the 3rd floor.

For the first floor, I used a separate conventional, ducted system as I had access to the basement. I spent time w the contractor deciding exactly where each vent would go, both for aesthetics and to utilize the empty joist spaces in the basement ceiling, since I was finishing about 1000 sqft of the basement. This system was ONLY for cooling as the steam did a great job heating.

Then I put a THIRD forced air system in the basement that both heated and cooled the basement.

So, there were four separate systems: steam heat for floors 1-3, high velocity A/C for floors 2-3, regular A/C for first floor and a forced air furnace/A/C for the basement.

It worked and still works great. you might ask why high velocity for upstairs and conventional for the first and basement? High velocity is more expensive to purchase, install, run and maintain. It’s absolutely necessary and worth it for the historic homes where you need to hide ductwork AND the cooling is MUCH more even than conventional. Come to think of it, perhaps I should have done the first floor in high velocity?

I moved down the street to a normal sized house I ended up removing the beautiful steam system here and replacing it with TWO forced air systems, one in the basement to heat/cool/humidify the first floor (and basement), and a system in the huge attic to do the second floor. While I love the A/C, I hate the heat. Boy do I regret removing the steam system. I’ll never do that again.

So that’s my story over the past decade or more. Please spend the TIME needed to really research everything. It sounds like you are and that’s fantastic. Good luck in this and the many other projects you will have.

Todd Brown

I second that! A Merry and blessed Christmas 🎄 to all. Mad Dog

Merry Christmas to everyone on the WALL.

Especially to @DanHolohan @Erin Holohan Haskell & Andrew for providing this forum!!!