Oil-free radiant heat?

Mark McWiggins

My wife and I have a 7-year-old home with radiant heat,
fired by a high-efficiency propane burner.

But with the price of oil projected to skyrocket beyond
its current high level, I'm wondering about the feasibility of substituting a heat pump and/or electrical resistance water heating system for the current propane.

Any ideas? Thanks much.

Steamhead (in transit)

On a cost-per-BTU basis

electricity and propane are the two worst. Natural gas and oil tend to run neck-and-neck.

If the only choices you have are electricity, propane and oil, I'd go with oil. Its cost per BTU will remain below the other two. Also, if you get the right boiler, you can switch fuels without buying a new boiler if you wish, by having a different burner installed.

There are geothermal systems that can drive a radiant setup, but installation is pretty involved and therefore not cheap.

"Steamhead"

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Weezbo

well, in This century you have a lot of options...

though not all are a perfect fit for every area and location in our country. Our Electrical supply in America derives a great many KW's from coal. We happen to be lousey with coal ...so , in some areas of our country the price is stabilized against price changes in oil and gas somewhat..meaning , some places the prices of electricity are not a bad deal.

under options we have the current Green trend and yellow trend picking up steam *~/:)

we have a very cool site here , if you look about you can research some of the material in our new section. It has many white papers on just this very topic.

Look under Resources and at the end of the list you will see the word Green not meaning long green ...( lots of money going out )buh instead, meaning Your green coming back to you, over time:)

After you read some of the materials you will see what the replies you have already received mean. there are many sources to drive heating systems these days and quite a few well considered strategies on how to go about it...here you have individuals that look to more than one aspect of the idea of comfort.there is every likelihood one of them might be available for the work on your home ...look for Find a professional.
hold on... Lets chirp up The Beans site at Healthyheating .com while we are on the topic.
give it a go...GL

hot_rod

I doubt any one fuel will be \"cheap\"

they all seem to float around in price.

Electricity in my area has been most stable. But the utilities did have to crank up the NG fired generators a few times when the coal fired plants were un able to keep up. I would imagine the utilities will somehow pass this additional cost on to the customer.

LP actually dropped in price last week around here.

As bizzare as it may seem all 12 LP suppliers are at $1.64.9 around here. One told me LP dropped and he will be at 1.52.

Or he could be blowing smoke up my butt??

hot rod

Mark McWiggins

Re: oil-free radiant heat

I live in the Pacific NW and we have cheap electricity, and from what I read on Peak Oil I won't be surprised to see the oil price (& propane price) quadruple or quintuple over the next 5 years. Natural gas isn't an option where we live, as the line stops 1.5 miles away from us, and in any event it looks to be about the same 'peak-wise' as oil.

I wasn't looking for an economic analysis, just a technical one: has anybody done radiant heat using strictly electricity in any form: heat pump or electrical resistance?

hot_rod

Electric boilers

are quick and easy and near 100% efficiency. Sure a heat pump could run a higher efficiency, but the up front cost and maintenance will be considerably more.

I like and install the Thermolec brand electric boiler. They come with outdoor reset built into the control and they modulate around the load and do so without noisy maintenance prone magentic contactors.

Depending on your load size you should be able to buy an electric boiler for way under a grand. I doubt you would get much geo-heat pump purchased or installed for that kind of money.

What are your electric KWH costs? we are still a tad under 7 cents per KWH. I've heard stories of 3 cents in your area??

Several large cities are offering reduced costs for off peak residential customers. Dallas and Chicago both have programs in place. The Chicago program allows you to purchase in real time via the web.

With some well insulated thermal storage that may in fact be the best way to get inexpensive heat.

hot rod

Steamhead (in transit)

Sure it can be done

geothermal as used here is essentially a heat pump, but the heat is extracted from buried water loops or wells rather than outside air, and transferred to the water in the radiant system instead of directly to the inside air. The advantage of this method is that the water temp in the ground stays fairly constant, unlike outside air which if it drops below 40 degrees or so ruins an air-to-air heat pump's effectiveness. Such a system could also be used for A/C using duct coils or other transfer methods.

But these systems do take a certain amount of power to operate, and there's the installation issue which I mentioned before. The cost of power in your area may or may not stay low- remember what happened to Montana Power? So you'd have to figure this into the mix to decide whether it's cost-effective to do.

Electric-resistance boilers do exist, and aren't complicated to install. But they consume a lot more power than geothermal probably would. On the East Coast where I am, this makes them prohibitively expensive to operate.

"Steamhead"

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Weezbo

well, a few years ago ....

not to be a wise guy buh just to ascertain the applicabilities , i shut off the oil fired boiler stuffed a basket ball in the stove pipe and paid to do some tests on an all radiant system that i had installed in a home with 22 glass windows and 6 6 ' glass doors, during the entire month of February . i paid the Lady ,Susan's electric bill that month..while i conducted this experiment writing things down and freaking with the system dialing things way up way down this that and the other....then considered the weather etc. the amount of fuel oil and electricity combined to operate the system for this three story house with a two car garage and plenty high ceilings :)turned out that the cost of electricity only vs. the cost of fueloil and electricity for her system was ok deal. 180 for the KW's and 230 for the fueloil and Kw mix....i told her not to spread this about too far or the Electrical co op might jack up the rates...


dragging some of my friends and inspectors around to check out the lash up gave them some idea as to where having a back up unit for certain "occasions" might not be a bank buster.... so then one of my buddies asked me to help design a system ok for a guy living out the road a piece using electrical for the shop...he lashed it up for him and that guy was very satisfied with the investment in my buddies work ...... we have an experimental station here in the area

it is called the Cold Climate Research Center.

where variations are considered...look it up maybe there is something that might better answer your question...

singh

Electric boilers

Yes I am using an electric boiler for my home with radiant.
And here in the Northeast , it's not cheap per kw, but my smallish home and load , the Thermolec is a good match. Have you considered some Solar thermal collectors, with a back up boiler system.?

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nick_7

See a lot about CO hazards on this site. one substantial benefit of electric is no more CO worries, no combustion going on in the home. maybe assign a fairly large dollar value to that peace of mind. plus quieter operation, usually, and reduced service need.