Zoned system or not?
I have a 2 story home (2500 sq ft) with 600 sq ft finished/300 sq ft unfinished basement. It was built in 1965 and has a fuel oil boiler. I want to run a ducted system using a heat pump and am trying to find the best solution for this. How efficient would a single system with condensor outside and air handler inside be pushing air from the basement to the attic and down to the bedrooms? 4 bd/2 ba on 2nd story, kitchen, LR, DR, laundry and sunroom on 1st. I already have an area to build a chase for duct on all floors as well. I am in the greater Cleveland area as well so i gets very cold in the winter and pretty hot in the summer.
Thanks
Comments
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2 Stories
2 Systems
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- Don't abandon the Hot Water Heating system.
- Use a 2 zone system with separate thermostats for the first and second floors.
- Try not to place any ductwork in the unconditioned attic. That ductwork will have a much greater heat loss (duct loss) exposed to the hot attic in the summer and cold attic in the winter. Enough loss to require increasing the size of the outdoor unit by 1/2 ton of capacity (6,000 BTUh)
- You can use one system with zone dampers or two separate systems for zoning.
Just some thoughts from an old man in a wheelchair with nothing better to do.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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I'd like to avoid running ductwork in the attic but theres no other way to get heat/AC unless I get 6 ceiling mounted cassette units which gets very expensive very fast. We have a very long, 90 degree hallway, 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs. Theres a wall mounted mini split on the first floor but it can only cool about 700 sq ft effectively. With temps getting into the 90's this week its going to be brutal.
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Ceiling Cassetts are nice but labor intensive, Avoid them.
My 1-Ton wall mount does 1000 Sq Ft 1st floor. What wrong that you cant cool 700?
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It was existing and an older Goodman HDC24-1A unit. It was also before they added on the sunroom so it's not properly sized. It's a fairly open floor plan though but the sunroom has 4 windows and a slider so it gets very hot. That has a crawl space under it, not a basement. I have power outside on both sides of the house already with disconnect boxes. I could just replace the old existing unit and run the line set to an attic air handler for the second floor and another on the other side of the house to an air handler in the basement to supply the first floor and basement. It would have to be heat pumps though because we are all electric.
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It would have to be heat pumps though because we are all electric.
Where is this home locaed?
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Cleveland, Ohio area
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good luck being all electric.
buy some extra blankets you might be using them
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@pecmsg, please follow site rules and be respectful in your posts. Your sarcastic comment here is neither helpful, nor is it kind.
Forum Moderator
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How is recommending extra blankets not helpful? Comfy is very helpful.
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Probably because it was sarcastic? Either way I don't care. Just looking for some insight.
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I'm in the land of 2.5 story houses with finished basements. Often these only have a single air handler in the basement for the whole place. To make it work, you will need some seasonal adjustments (simplest is dampers on the main supply trunk) to divert airflow to the right floor. Also you need a large return near the ceiling on the top floor to reduce stratification. This bit is very important and often skimped on.
Zoning with heat pumps is possible and not too expensive especially if you don't need zones to completely turn off. The idea here is to use dumb zone dampers for small sections where you want extra control driven by a local thermostat that is not connected to the main heat pump thermostat at all. These dampers should be set to never fully close to allow some airflow, essentially just modulate the airflow a bit. Important bit here is the zones need to be overprovisioned as this will only work if the zone has extra airflow that can be throttled by the zone damper.
Depending on glazing and orientation, sunrooms generally need special considerations and in some cases their own heat and cooling source. A wallmount on its own compressors is usually the best option.
Two air handlers is the best option but does add cost. If you go this road, make sure to keep the air handler out of the attic.
If you have previous oil use, you can run through the math here to get an accurate heat loss number to avoid oversizing:
Cold climate heat pumps work just fine in your climate. Sized right and installed with some care, it should have no problem heating the place.
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Carrier Infinity is a very good inverter heat pump. It definitely can be zoned if ducted right. The few I've set up also had hydro coils if needed.
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Carrier infitiy is good stuff up to zone 4. Colder than that, the output on most units drops quite a bit. If I remember correctly only the 5 ton has vapor injection and that does run well in colder climate:
https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/219879/7/25000/95/7500/0///0
The Carrier rebadged versions of the Midea units (37MUHAQ series) can be had smaller and those do all come with vapor injection.
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