Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Radiant and forced air on multiple levels

Options
Gustovier
Gustovier Member Posts: 5
in Radiant Heating
Hello all,

I’m having a home built in IL area and the current hvac approach was to have 2 forced air heat/AC zones, one zone for basement/1st floor and another for the 2nd floor. Each zone has its own furnance/AC setup.   I also liked the idea of also adding in the tubing for radiant heat in basement for possible add on later so that was done.  Well now I decided to move forward with installing a gas hot water heater for the basement radiant heat.  

But now what’s not clear to me is how would I balance the the forced air heating with the radiant.  It seems like the basement would get too hot because it has the radiant going and people on first floor would call for heat generating heat for both the basement and 1st floor since they are all on same ductwork zone.   How should this work or be setup?

Comments

  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,859
    Options
    Water heater or Boiler?
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,157
    Options
    Not a good combination,

    If the basement forced air was zoned on its own thermostat, then you could run radiant in a two stage control. Radiant runs, forced air as backup.
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • Gustovier
    Gustovier Member Posts: 5
    Options
    pecmsg said:
    Water heater or Boiler?
    Water heater
  • Gustovier
    Gustovier Member Posts: 5
    Options
    What’s the suggestion for a fix at this point? (all drywall is now up). 
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,322
    Options
    Gustovier said:


    pecmsg said:

    Water heater or Boiler?

    Water heater

    Bad choice. Water heaters aren't meant to heat houses, boilers aren't meant to heat domestic hot water.

    More to the point, if you can't rework this to have the basement hot air on a separate zone, I can't see how this is going to work well.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Gustovier
    Gustovier Member Posts: 5
    Options
    Thanks.  Yeah I don’t see this working well either with basement and first floor being on same forced air zone.   What are some options to create a separate Forced air zone in basement.  Zone Dampers? 

    Ahh the great boiler vs hot water debate for radiant :smile:   
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,322
    Options
    If your ductwork would allow installation of zone dampers, that would be one way to do it, and would probably work very well.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    ryanwc
  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,859
    Options
    Gustovier said:


    Ahh the great boiler vs hot water debate for radiant :smile:   

    No Debate

    Its designed to heat potable water not heating the home!
  • Gustovier
    Gustovier Member Posts: 5
    Options
    Lots of debate. But don’t want to go into it as it’s off topic..

Categories