What are the types of Heating Systems?

Brad White_169

all that in five minutes yet tell me that typing is not your forte'?

Next thing you will tell me is that you live at the North Pole....

What's next? :)

NotionofNote

Heating Systems?

I'm planning on building a house and don't know how i want to heat my home. I've heard some suggestions on three heating systems: Hydro Air, Radiant Heating, and a Two Pipe System. Can anyone tell me the pros and cons about them or a website where i can find more information on? Thanks in advance

Weezbo

Tell us about this home....

is it a one bedroom slab ongrade or a McMansion spread over half the side of a mountain?

Even a hint at how many people the home is designed to consider and maybe the long term view you have..do you need a starter home or a small village living under the roof? it does matter as to what you may require...that is something like do you even need heat in a garage or are there individuals that have lots of allergies or belive it or not where you may be located...

in some instances you might want the ability to completely cut the heat off to a six bay garage things like that ...

I personally like Radiant heating and hydronic distribution methods ,however everything has its place...

thinking about efficentcy,comfort, health, current and future useage and the heat source is somewhere to begin.

look at the top right corner of this page...The Library has a rich treasury on Steam, hydronics just about every and anything related to getting a BTU delivered to just about anywhere:) Have a nice day *~/:)

Brad White_169

Hydro Air, Radiant, Two Pipe...

As Weezbo said, what kind of house and in particular the foundation?

Also, is air conditioning or humidification essential to your well-being? You found the right web site, let's see what we can conjure up...

First things first- Make your house as energy efficient as possible (build it with the smallest practical heat loss). Next, assess what fuel you have available and at the lowest cost. Gas? Oil? Electricity? Wood? Coal? Old Barney Dolls?

My personal preference is forced hot water or FHW (known as hydronics but this is shared between water and steam). This is the most efficient way IMHO to deliver BTU's to your space at the same rate as they leave. This means efficiency and comfort.

Within FHW the most to least efficient means are as follows (again, in my opinion):

Radiant Floors (walls or ceilings)

Radiant panels

Cast Iron Radiators (close second to radiant panels)

Fin-Tube baseboard.

Hydro-Air (if AC is also desired)

Oddly but perhaps not surprisingly, the costs tend to follow the efficiency so you have to think long term. The water temperatures required also tend to go from lowest to highest as you move down that list.

FHW can be created using any fuel. My preference is gas if available, then propane, then oil. I prefer gas or propane because these are readily used in modulating condensing boilers which are the highest efficiencies available. If you have oil, it is still a very efficient system when set up properly to allow outdoor reset while protecting the boiler.

The term "two-pipe" when applied to FHW means that there are separate supply and return pipes. Some systems are indeed "one-pipe" whereby water is diverted to each radiator (diverter tees) or radiators are in series like pearls on a string.

Diverter tees allow balancing of each radiator while "in-series" by comparison does not allow individual adjustment to any one room to the exclusion of others.

My next preference would be steam and this would be my choice if only oil were available. This is because condensing with oil is fussy, limited in manufacture and dependent on "cleaner" low-sulfur fuel.

Hydro-Air or any ducted system I personally would avoid unless air conditioning, filtration or humidification were desired or essential. It takes a lot more air volume (horsepower) to deliver heat than with water. Your "motor delivery charge" for FHW can be measured in Watts (less than 100W and often in the 50-60 Watt range) compared to 1/4 or 1/3 HP or more (200 to 250 Watts) for similar BTU's. This adds up.

Again, if you need AC and cannot afford separate AC and heating systems, this is the system most often installed in my experience. It requires hotter water temperatures and the air distribution is critical to comfort.

That is the short view from here!

Brad

Maine Doug_52

Some other factors

How long do you expect to live in the house?
If a short time, what are your expectations for comfort versus cost?
At what temperature extremes do you want to maintain what indoor temperature? If it is only -10 every 5th year year, do you want it to be 72 indoors all the time or will you wear a sweater and allow the house to dip to 65 for a bit?
If it gets to be 105 outside only 5 times a year, do you want to be at 72 inside during those periods?
Do you use all the rooms all the time?
How are you generating your domestic hot water?
Do you want a very quiet system or do you care?
Are there extreme differences in exposure on the various sides of your house?
Is equipment reliability and serviceability important because you will be living there 10 plus years?

Is there a company in your area that can deliver to your expectations and service your system?

These questions may help the nuts and bolts decisions.

Rich Kontny_3

Great Question

I like proactive homeowners who do their homework. In a sensibly sized home I would use hydronic heat with the capability of heating your home with various distribution systems. I prefer in-floor distribution however hydronic heat gives you versatility to use radiators,fan coills etc.

Hydronic heat also gives you domestic hot water capabilities using indirect storage tanks that have many advantages and great recovery.

For A/C I would use a separate high velocity system like Unico or Space Pak. This of course will increase up-front costs but you will never regret the comfort level and efficiencies!

Good luck!

Make Peace Your Passion!

Rich Kontny

GW

You have some good replies here. Since you're doing the proactive thing, you may also research your building envelope; that is how efficient will the house be? Can this answer be guaranteed by a home energy auditor (rhetorical, yes it can, but will the builder give you a dumb look when you pose this question?)

My web site is pretty beefed up on all this

www.wilsonph.com


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