Heating and Cooling Options for 1850s Greek Revival New York

I'm with @ethicalpaul — and basically your friend's father-in-law, except that like Paul I'd go with plain vanilla atmospherics rather than fancy condensing units.

If the house will be used as a single home rather than a duplex with two units occupied separately, you might consider one larger boiler rather than two smaller ones. There could be significant savings in installation costs.

Educated homeowner here who recently completed a whole house remodel from bare studs.

Please keep the cast iron radiators. The quality of heat and comfort from these is hard to beat (I had them in a previous house, and I now have radiant floor heat with a wood stove - also nice heat - I would never choose forced air).

If you are doing extensive renovations, consider improvements to the building envelope (insulation and air sealing) to reduce heat loss. This can reduce the size heating system you need by a lot (and reduce fuel cost).

Consider a hot water heat pump for domestic heating. Your cast iron radiators are likely 2-3x oversized and can run with significantly lower temperature water (120 degrees F on your coldest day) and that makes either a geothermal heat pump (somewhat expensive) or a air-source hot water heat pump (less expensive) a viable option if you are ditching the oil system (I second the recommendations from others to get rid of the oil system(s)).

Radiant floor heat is really, really nice, BUT is a lot of work to install and it is hard to find a capable designer and installer (I did this work myself). There is a lot of opportunity for a bad install with radiant floor heating. Plus, you already have cast iron radiators - if I had those already in the house I renovated I would have just used them with my geothermal heat pump instead of installing the radiant floor heating.

New York State (I think) still has some good incentives on heat pump hot water heaters and geothermal heating systems (and maybe air-source heat pump heating systems as well).

I am speaking as a homeowner with a coal stoker boiler for my only heating.

If it were me and as you have 30 radiators and a gravity hot water heating system, I would use a coal stoker boiler. Your home was probably heated using a coal boiler originally too.

1. you have a great deal of thermal mass that you can take advantage of to the fullest extent:
2. keep the radiators and save better of the 2 oil boilers as a back up boiler and do the following
3. install a EFM DF520 dual fuel coal stoker boiler with an internal domestic hot water coil with the existing plumbing so you can use natural gas in the summer months to make hot water.
4. you will be able to obtain rice anthracite coal in bag or in bulk easily and heat your home and hot water very economically and the coal stoker boiler will operate for 5 decades or more with regular maintenance.

The home you have apparently uses the radiators in the home as the point of no pressure change by leaving an air charge in each radiator making your heating even more easy and the DF520 could heat even more radiators if you want to add them to add more thermal mass and have a hot water temperature that would stay between 160-170 degrees with slow even heating.

Hot water heating with Anthracite Coal would also help with avoiding allergies; I can state this with the fact that my younger brothers 3 children had asthma and the coal stoker that used for heat helped them a great deal as they no longer had symptoms as the home they lived in used electric baseboard heating.

And regarding boilers, the Burnham (not Buderus) MPO you have is a first-class unit. Burnham throws a temper tantrum when we talk about putting gas conversion burners in these, but it can be done with the right burner. I know of several that run well using the Carlin EZ-Gas Pro.

The Smith is older- I think it's a BB14 series- and though it's built like a tank, if you're looking for efficiency I'd replace it.

A home as old as yours will most likely have horse hair laid plaster and you do not want to ruin it by breaking it. I agree with ethicalpaul as blown in cellulose is what you want for insulation. You can purchase 3M window insulating kits for seasonal use. Upgrading single pane windows is best left for the summer months to replace caulking and putty to improve window sealing against drafts and replacing sash weight ropes.

I would keep the CI rads.

Not a mod con guy but with CI rads and starting from scratch you have the ability to condense and modulate. If I had an installer I could trust who could service it I would be tempted to go mod con.

That being said if I was in a remote location where service is difficult it would be a CI boiler.

2 boilers would be a good idea and give you some back up. You could pipe 1 boiler to each system and have a couple of "emergency cross over valves" if one boiler fails.

And if you decide to leave it as two units you could have 2 gas meters..

Lots of options.

I have sent you a PM, @lchamb .

The separate water heater/boiler idea is very good. When one goes, the other isn't affected.

Be sure to have the water heater sized to meet your needs, as well as any boiler replacement requirements. This is very important. Be sure to do this. Sizing your replacement boiler is the most important thing when getting started.

From your pictures, it looks like one boiler is much older than the other. If you're able to, replace the older one first, keep the setup you have, and add a crossover as @EBEBRATT-Ed mentions above to allow for both boilers to be used if ever needed.

If you wanna do that second floor laundry right, figure on a fully water proofed laundry room with a threshold and good 3" or 4" floor drain to handle a failed washing machine hose, et cetera. Mad Dog..

Timely topic. I am in Maine and am closing on an 1860 3,000 sq. ft. house in about two weeks. Cast iron radiators that are tied to a 2 year old Ideal condensing, outdoor reset boiler. Uses about 1,000 gallons a year with the thermostat set to 60F. It uses LP and that is $3.41.

I have been chewing over the heating options. Present plan is spray foam the rock mortar basement walls. Thermostatic valves on all the rads, and probably an air to water heat pump in parallel with the boiler.

For this winter, we will be installing a pellet stove to help keep the cost down. We used to import and sell air to water heat pumps, so even with high electric costs, this will work well. The rest is energy retrofits. New windows (eventually), create a conditioned attic space by spray foaming the rafter space and just tighten up everything. BTW, where I am the average winter temp is 32F. Perfect for a HP. Was debating minisplits but the inside units of any configuration would just not blend aesthetically.

Might sneak in radiant floors in the two bathrooms that will be retrofitted.

I knew there was a good reason for buying that thermal imaging camera..

Photos sometime soon.

Merry Christmas! And a Warm New Year.

tom in maine

Morning. There are tons of great comments on the heating, but I’d like to comment on the A/C. I live in Ohio and also have allergies. Pretty sure everyone in ohio does. Anyway, my previous house was a huge 1924 Tudor Revival. 6500 sqft, 7 bedrooms and 5 fireplaces. Couple kitchens and laundry rooms. There was a full basement, 3 living floors and actually an attic above the 3rd floor.
It had steam heat that I tweaked after reading Dan’s book a couple times and hiring Gerry Gill. The heat was great.
However, there was no central air. I’m a stickler for maintaining the historic look and feel of old houses. Also, the roof was a bit of an optical illusion (on purpose). The slate roof on the front and sides went “way up” and you assumed it went right back down on the other side, but that was the trick. They separated them and added a large flat roof. That way the 3rd floor was actually 800 sqft with a 7+ foot ceiling. Plus, there was a 3-4 ft attic above it.
I agonized for several years before deciding and installing the A/C system. Here’s what I did..

I had a high velocity Unico system HUNG in the attic to prevent transmission of vibration and noise. Make sure you use the minimum length of tubing because it decreases the whooshing noise. I opened up a large access hole to that attic in the nursery that I changed to a big laundry room I also reframed that part of the access hole and continued it directly above to the flat roof. I had the condensing unit craned up to the flat roof near the back so you couldn’t see it from the road. I used ceiling vents for the 2nd & 3rd floors. Make sure you choose exactly where each vent goes. You don’t want air blasting in your face directly over the bed, for example. I created access holes to the 3rd floor knee wall areas, laid plywood flooring and used them to install ceiling vents on the 2nd (bedroom) floor. I added extra vents over the great stairway, knowing air would sink downstairs. Then I filled the knee wall areas w Insulation and permanently closed them up. I put one large return grill with built-in filter holder on the 3rd floor.

For the first floor, I used a separate conventional, ducted system as I had access to the basement. I spent time w the contractor deciding exactly where each vent would go, both for aesthetics and to utilize the empty joist spaces in the basement ceiling, since I was finishing about 1000 sqft of the basement. This system was ONLY for cooling as the steam did a great job heating.

Then I put a THIRD forced air system in the basement that both heated and cooled the basement.

So, there were four separate systems: steam heat for floors 1-3, high velocity A/C for floors 2-3, regular A/C for first floor and a forced air furnace/A/C for the basement.

It worked and still works great. you might ask why high velocity for upstairs and conventional for the first and basement? High velocity is more expensive to purchase, install, run and maintain. It’s absolutely necessary and worth it for the historic homes where you need to hide ductwork AND the cooling is MUCH more even than conventional. Come to think of it, perhaps I should have done the first floor in high velocity?

I moved down the street to a normal sized house I ended up removing the beautiful steam system here and replacing it with TWO forced air systems, one in the basement to heat/cool/humidify the first floor (and basement), and a system in the huge attic to do the second floor. While I love the A/C, I hate the heat. Boy do I regret removing the steam system. I’ll never do that again.

So that’s my story over the past decade or more. Please spend the TIME needed to really research everything. It sounds like you are and that’s fantastic. Good luck in this and the many other projects you will have.

Todd Brown

I can sympathize, and commend you for your purchase. Nothing like the character of these old homes (mine a home in a historic district, built in the 1830s in Upstate NY), but as seen in "The Money Pit" it can cost a bit to maintain/restore. Ours is about 4000sq (including a 450sq 2 story addition in 1928), brick exterior, single pipe steam, Utica boiler, natural gas. It is interesting that many of the vestiges of previous fuels were left behind, whether the 6x20' coal bin, fill pipes and copper piping for when they converted to oil, until they converted to NGas. I can't fathom replacing that natural gas boiler with something all electric that could generate enough energy to heat this place.

As recommended in this thread, DEFINITELY take your time, research, and find the right contractor as a couple contractors I had earlier to consult on the system said "tear this out, remove the radiators, and get a nice forced air unit". After going through this in our past restorations(gas fired octopus to energy efficient furnace), the convenience of central air was nice, and some improvement in utility bills, but the quality of heat never came close to the original, vintage setup. One honest contractor on our current house explained the simplicity of our system, gave us numerous tips to keep it going, and although we do pay more for our utilities, the quality of heat is irreplaceable. Best of luck on your new home, and welcome to Upstate NY.

I'm including a rudimentary drawing of our basement piping showing dimensions, lengths, and radiator taps. The Main vents have since been replaced with Gorton #1s, and the dark black circles are each of the 25 taps to go to the installed radiators.

i would keep the rads and put a high efficiency wood pellet boiler in to control your heating costs. I live in an 1830s Greek Revival (also in upstate NY!) that was converted to forced air with two propane furnaces by the prior owner. To heat our 4100 sf home we were burning 500 gallons of propane a month from December through March and 500 gallons during the shoulder months. To control our costs, I installed a 120k BTU boiler (MBTek Phoenix 35) with heat exchangers in both furnace plenums. We figured this would just supplement our propane use but the system is so efficient we no longer need to burn any propane and the boiler heats our entire home on its own. We burn 6-7 tons of pellets a year, keeping our house at 67 degrees from October through April, plus it indirectly heats an attached 1900sf garage and workshop to 50 degrees. This effectively cut our heating costs in a third, easily. The initial cost of our install was more than recovered during our second year, plus there were additional biomass tax deductions realized (not sure if these are set to expire). If you have a rad system, you have the setup that would make adding a pellet boiler even easier and more efficient than starting with forced air.

Your plan is great! I have a restored 1928 french revival home (3200 ft.² with 19 radiators). I replaced a standard cast-iron boiler with a modulating condensing boiler using outdoor reset and added TRV to majority of radiators. Heating Comfort is exceptional. Maintenance of the mod-con is often brought up as a reason to avoid however, this viewpoint ignores the improved comfort modulating boilers provide and assumes everyone maintains thier modcon yearly. Most don’t; not saying it’s good or bad. Just a fact.
I also have a a Spacepak high velocity HVAC with 2 inch ports. Practically invisible with exceptional comfort but does require planning, including sizing of attenuators and maximum /minimum run lengths. I have a spreadsheet I used to balance CFM by room. PM I’d be happy to share.
I did put the second level HVAC equipment in attic with ductwork sealed and buried in dense pack insulation underneath 1.5” XPS and subfloor. It’s effectively part of conditioned space but with a loss of 7” head room.

If I did it again, I would make the attic a conditioned space using close cell foam / vent channels / roof sheathing (I’m not a fan of spray foam applied directly to roof sheathing.)

It would be less work than sealing / building up insulating the subfloor and provide more condition storage space.

Our 1830's 1740 sq ft Greek Revival had 10 cast iron rads and a coal fired boiler installed in the 1920s when a doctor's family lived here. I am so grateful no one wrecked out this heating distribution system over the years. When the fuel oil boiler went bad we installed a NG mod con 10 years ago. It's a simple fire tube design that is easy to clean and maintain. An indirect water heater takes care of domestic hot water. We saw a 40% reduction in heating costs over fuel oil so I like your friend's father in law idea. Sounds like he has looked the place over when he made those recommendations. A mod con can be a great match with cast iron rads if you can heat the house with boiler water less than 130f most of the time. Like a lot of old homes with improved doors, windows, insulation, those cast iron rads don't require 170f water to heat the place anymore. Much cooler water will do the job and will fluctuate based on the outside air temp. Our house is heated with boiler water ranging from 90 to 140f which covers us down to -20 outside temp.

You can calculate your radiator max btu output by finding charts online for radiator EDR in given sizes. Compare that output to your home's heat loss. Slant Fin has an app that's useful for calculating heat loss. In our case radiator output with 170f water is 106k btu. Heat loss on the app is 58k btu. Cooler supply water works just fine and keeps the mod con boiler in the most efficient range most of the time.

I hope most of the original wood work, hardware and cool structural features of your home are still intact. Our house was also once a duplex with two brothers and their wives living here around 1900. Fortunately no major remodeling happened and much of the old house character remains. I also went to the county recorders office and researched all previous owners back to when the place was sold as bare village lots in 1835. If you like history it's a lot of fun.

What town?, I run all Rensselaer county, Northern Columbia and Southern Washington Co, same on both side of the river.