Replacing current steam heating system with a mini split system in 3 family building

GreenGene

aye, as that famous lady said on American Horror Story

"YOU'RE GONNA REGRET IT"

Coany

Hidden in the manual somewhere it'll tell you ductless systems are SUPPLEMENTAL heating systems. The first time I saw it written there it didn't register. Then met a customer who used one as the sole heat source in a office addition,and discovered he had to leave the door to the house open below 20 or so to be comfortable

TonyS

To start off with,it appears you would like to have a/c...steam wont give you that. When you have your ductless installed be sure to use heat pumps. The cost difference is small. Then test them out and see how they work. If you like it,go ahead and remove the steam,if you dont ...you have a little redundancy. The units I sell operate down to -13. That is far below what we get in south east PA. In my own home I have multiple ductless hp's along with a radiant floor heated with geothermal. My ductless units have no problem heating my entire house on a 10 degree night and that's pretty amazing considering they were only sized for the a/c load. Unfortunately they do not heat my floor so I only use them during shoulder seasons or to test. Cleaning ductless is a snap, it requires about 1 hr apiece using the kits available from rectorseal and others. I usually do it once then sell a cleaning kit to my customers for future use.

ChrisJ

TonyS said:

To start off with,it appears you would like to have a/c...steam wont give you that. When you have your ductless installed be sure to use heat pumps. The cost difference is small. Then test them out and see how they work. If you like it,go ahead and remove the steam,if you dont ...you have a little redundancy. The units I sell operate down to -13. That is far below what we get in south east PA. In my own home I have multiple ductless hp's along with a radiant floor heated with geothermal. My ductless units have no problem heating my entire house on a 10 degree night and that's pretty amazing considering they were only sized for the a/c load. Unfortunately they do not heat my floor so I only use them during shoulder seasons or to test. Cleaning ductless is a snap, it requires about 1 hr apiece using the kits available from rectorseal and others. I usually do it once then sell a cleaning kit to my customers for future use.

How long are ductless units expected to last when being used for both heating and cooling?


How comfortable is your house on a 10F night when the units go into defrost mode?

keyote

Chris where are you located?If its a townhouse in brooklyn for instance where you are squeezed between two heated spaces except for a fron and back wall and you were willing to say spray foam those walls and use triple panes you could probably do this if you were very carefully designed, but you would have the fans sections to either use the wall mount style or ceiling mount or figure out how to drop a few ceiling for the through facia style as i am. In a new renovation thats easy in a restoration of historic more difficult though toilet kitchen and closet ceilings worked for me and you have to run you copper lines from every one and the dunnage on the roof etc.
That said you are on an excellent website to learn why steam can actually be counter intuitively an excellent and efficient heat source in case your thinking nothing as old as your 100 year old system could possibly be good youde be wrong so before you go to far keep an open mind and educate yourself. That said i get that the inverter heat pumps are a no brainer for AC these days [and im a tin man by trade] so the idea of running in reverse come winter appeals

Canucker

@keyote if you look @ChrisJ signature, i think you'll find that he is well aware of the benefits of a well tuned steam system