Hydronic baseboard heating (gas)/AC options for a new home
10 years ago
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10 years ago- 10 years ago
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New Heating System (hydronic vs. hot air)
Comments (4)I don't know how deep your pockets are or how 'Green' you'd like to be but there is another option you may not have considered about yet. You can keep you hydronic system and with some modification to it have it coupled to a geothermal heat pump. The modifications would allow you to use the geothermal heat pump to heat your home, preheat your domestic hot water and to have central air-conditioning without ever having to install ducts or removing your existing rads. Since we're considering a small area, the cost of geothermal will not be as high as it would be for a much larger system. That coupled with possible tax breaks could make it a viable project. Operational costs could be as much as 70% less or greater than fossil fuels or even electricity. Those that I know who have done this are very satisfied, especially with the central A/C. It's virtually maintenance free with no ducts and no chimney or chimney liners. But the pain is up front as this is the most expensive option. Look at the cost differential between geothermal hydronic and conventional technologies and the tax incentives. SR...See MoreHelp Weighing Options for AC/Heat Pump System
Comments (12)Duct leakage is a huge problem when ducts are outside of the living space. They turn the HVAC blower into a power vent blowing air out of the house and sucking it in in random places when leaks are on the supply side depressurizing the house. When leaks are on the return side, the house can be pressurized blowing air out in random places. Even new duct systems leak. Poorly balanced duct systems pressurize and depressurize individual rooms. Central returns tend to do that by their nature unless careful attention is paid to undercutting doors or other sufficient room-to-room venting. Old duct systems leak a lot. Maybe energy_rater_la will chime in and report typical results. I think that 20% is not unusual. Not enough attention is paid to the problem. Check other links too. Buildingscience.com is a good place. Search on key words like, duct, envelope, and pressure. You might consider consulting with a local energy rater. It can be a good investment. There may be local programs to help with the cost, government or utility programs. Check resent.us. They can help identify the low-hanging fruit for energy savings and help you make your house more comfortable at the same time. Here is a link that might be useful: Energy Star...See MoreGas Heat to replace Electric Baseboards
Comments (13)Matching new and newfangled systems to existing homes can be very challenging. All electric homes were typically very well insulated but even that might not be up to today’s standards. Have there been improvements in air sealing and insulation since the home was built? I can see why the hydronic coil might be useful. You don’t have room for a furnace where the existing air handler is, and the the duct system can’t be made to work with a furnace in the basement. There are a couple of problems to consider with the hydrocoil idea. To have a large capacity, hydrocoils need to be big or run hot, your choice. Since you don’t have room for a furnace with the existing AHU, you might not have room for a big hydrocoil either. You might be able to ameliorate this somewhat with more than one coil in the ductwork if it can be fit. Ok what is the problem with a hot hydrocoil? That seems logical after all. It has to be hot to provide heat, right? It boils down to physics if you'll forgive the cheap humor. For anywhere near efficient boiler operation, you need your return water to be below 130 F. Even lower, much lower, is better. Hot water-driven convectors (aluminum fin baseboards) also need relatively hot water, but not nearly as hot as a typical hydrocoil in an AHU. Toe-kick heaters are hydrocoils. Radiant floor heat can use very low temp water and are a good match for condensing boilers. Cast iron radiators are pretty good too, falling between the convectors and radiant floor heat. You can run them all from one boiler as well as domestic hot water (and melt the snow on your driveway if you want) and it can all be done with upwards of 95% combustion efficiency with skillful design. That is easy with a new building, but you have to be somewhat lucky with an existing home. You also have to know a lot of stuff yourself or have a very good installer. With a boiler in the basement, you could run the hydrocoil and install baseboard close by in the basement in a separate zone. My only caveat there is that small zones can be a problem without a buffer to keep the boiler from short cycling. Maybe efficiency of the boiler is not your top concern. After all, you are going from electricity as fuel to nat gas. The difference between boilers burning at 82 and 98% might not be a big deal. Just don’t let someone install a high efficiency boiler that can’t take advantage of that design because you can’t both run it at low water temps and keep your house warm. It won’t work very well. Note that in less than the coldest weather if the system is set up right, you can still run in an efficient mode with lower water temps, just not for as much of the time. If a modulating/condensing boiler is dropped into a system where it is snapping on and off a lot and can’t condense, it will be neither efficient nor last long. They are not built for that and since they cost more, even a bigger waste of money right from the start....See MoreIn floor heating for new build - electric or hydronic?
Comments (69)Boomer, you've tolerated what most would consider a hijack of your thread with good humor. There will be more to sift through, for relevant stuff, but learning will happen. There are a lot of dedicated posters in this site and it is a remarkably good site for little nonsense and good judgement in staying between the lines and with little flaming and insults. There are other sites for boilers and hydronic heat, however, if you really need to get into the nitty gritty. I suggest two places that I found very useful. The HVAC and boiler areas within the DIY area at terrylove.com are good. For example, right now there is a recently-active thread there about a monoflow system. That is type of system that shunts part of the water flow in a loop through radiators in sub loops using special "monoflow Ts" I doubt any significant number of systems based on that elegant principle have been installed for 50 years. It enables you to have single pipe circulation and install valves on individual radiators (thermostatic or not). Messing with the pump rate or other parameters might cause huge problems for the unwary or careless. If I had one and felt the need for some modification, I'd plan on hiring someone that knows what they are doing or spending a few hours learning about how it works. For the curious, looking at how monoflow systems work might be fun and I greatly appreciate the genius of the person that came up with the idea to begin with and the one that applied it to hydronic heat. Another site as good or better iis "the wall" at heating help.com. It is a well run site with lots of knowledgeable posters https://forum.heatinghelp.com. Right now there is a thread over there about steam vs. hydronic heat in a new build. That argument will never, never end even though the answer to me is clear.. terrylove.com the wall...See More- 10 years ago
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