You may find that local building code requires heat in you bedroom and other spaces.

Hydronic heat with forced air AC, very nice! I like to sleep in a cool room too, but I like the floor warm when my feet hit it in the morning. Guess you want the bathroom warm for night time trips there? Another zone would be the answer unless what you really want is for the bedroom and bath to come up to warmer temp at the same time in the morning. If that is OK, you just put in a programmable thermostat that controls both rooms.

You are already spending a bundle with your somewhat redundant HVAC systems. I don't expect that adding a zone will add that much, but just ask your contractor.

Ionized- why redundant HVAC, i am confused? I thought you could not cool with a radiant system so if you want it cool you would have to have both systems. I like the idea of programmable thermostat. Thanks for the suggestions.

People that install forced-air cooling will almost always install the heat to go along with it to save a bundle of cash. Hydronic heat is really nice, but an expensive option when you could heat with the same ducts your are cooling with.

Just how far North are you talking about? People in NYC consider Stony Point "upstate" but it is a long way, distance and climate-wise, from Massena If you don't need that much cooling, I would seriously consider installing a couple of strategically-placed ductless heat pump mini splits to go along with the hydronic heat and delete the duct system.

You might consider putting forced air heat in. Just here me out - it is very cheap, it can heat the house very fast after a setback, and it could be the only heat in your bedroom.

It might be cheaper to put whole house heat in than adding another zone.

I have a setup that has no heat in the master bedroom (although I can turn it on) but in a milder climate and is a second floor room. It does not get more than 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. In a new house, the room might be not nearly as cold as you expect without heat.

I am surprised that you live in an area that gets to -30 and still needs a/c in NY. Build a tight house with proper window exposures and I wouldn't think a/c would be needed. But I haven't lived in every corner of NY but that just seems strange.

Down in NC, any area that gets down to zero regularly has little need for a/c (if the house is designed right). These are obviously areas with elevation which I am guessing you are.

Just to be clear, north of Syracuse for the winter and menopause for spring, summer and fall. I really don't want forced air heat for possibly 6 months in the winter. I want a clean heat and cool bedroom to sleep. This is a new house build so if I need duct work I want to do it now.

I was saying to have forced air in addition - it gets around code restrictions regarding the radiant in the bedroom and gives you some flexibility.

But since you typed it - "clean heat" - do you really think forced air heat is dirty? Do you then think a/c is dirty going through those same ducts? No question, radiant has its advantages. Most people installing ducts don't feel the advantages are worth the cost.

I grew up in Chenango county and spent 3-4 years in each Monroe and Tompkins. I still go back a lot so I know the climate. It seems like summers are getting warmer there. As I got into Jr. high school, IIRC, our family was given a small window unit and liked the benefits while typically, folks had no AC. Now, 40 years later, my dad runs up to three light window units in hotter weather.

Ask yourself if window units would suffice to keep you comfortable. I am not suggesting that you go this route because they are noisy and block your windows. Just ask yourself if that would be enough cooling for you if you had them in some rooms. If the answer is yes, look at mini split air conditioning. Look at the Sanyo, Mitsubishi and Toshiba web sites. Be sure that you understand that there are alternatives to the typical wall-hung models. If you get the heat pump versions, you can use them for heating if your electric rates are advantageous compared to your gas or fuel oil prices.

We have radiant in floor heat in our basement (zone 1), the main floor master bedroom and master bath (zone 2), the main part of the first floor (zone 3), the upstairs which has 2 bdrms and a bath (zone 4) and the garage + driveway (zone 5).

I don't think it should be expensive to have your master bedroom and master bath on separate zones. In our house zone 1 has it's own pump. Zones 2-4 share a pump and zone 5 is plumbed but is currently not one we use. The only addition for the extra zones off the same pump is a valve that is electronically operated by a thermostat in the area of the zone. We've had to replace a valve and it is about $100. It is a little tiny bit of extra copper pipe (a couple of inches to add a new zone). Another programmable thermostat (you can get any type you like at the hardware store - nothing special about it) plus running the wiring to the basement. No real cost at all. We've also had to replace the pumps and they aren't very expensive. A couple of hundred dollars for all the parts. Our originally had some fancy named pumps that all have broken. We got some nice metal Taco pumps and parts that run like a champ and have had no problems.

I suggest you install air ducts for your air conditioning. The ductless mini-split is hugely expensive and no one knows how to work on them. Having a ducted air conditioning system is alot more common and you will find repairs, replacements and upgrades to be much easier. The heat pump is a nice back up if your infloor radiant needs work but ducted AC is much better for the reasons I gave above. I wish we had ducted AC.

Good luck!

"The ductless mini-split is hugely expensive and no one knows how to work on them. "

I think you are wrong on both counts when you take into account the expense of ducting. In this case, the homeowner might be satisfied with two or three installations in a multi-room house since most people in the area don't have central cooling. That would be a considerable savings.

I don't see how I can be wrong when I own two Fujitsu ductless mini-split systems consisting of two outdoor compressors, two ceiling cassettes and three wall hung units. Ductless mini-split sounds oh so lovely in the brochures and it was the only solution that would work for our house. But what a royal pain to get installed. We had bids of $13.5K, $15.5K, $22K, $23K, $25K, $30K, $30K. These were essentially for the same system. Most installers when they first bid really screwed up the bid. We had everything from a single unit for the entire house in the ceiling that would be huge and somehow the cool air would migrate into the other rooms, to systems that only cooled the north side of the house but left the rooms with full wall glass on the south side uncooled. They did this as installing the units on the North side is easier. We eventually worked out for ourselves where we wanted the units and the size that they should be and had everyone bid against that. We had to go through two contractors. The first wasn't installing anything according to the installation manual. The second had to come out and redo the entire system after the city inspection. So far it has worked exactly one time when we turned it on. The other times we have needed a call to the company who then comes out and fixes it. It then works for a while until the refrigerant leaks out again. Both companies we selected were recommended on the Fujitsu web site as certified trained installers. Hopefully come summer all the kinks will be worked out. We didn't have a choice for AC for our house because it wasn't physically possible to run duct work without having it show in the ceilings but the original poster does so I am providing them with our experience. Your experience may vary so feel free to post about that. We had bids for Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and LG systems. They all were super expensive. The Fujitsu was the best fit for cost and types of units for us.

Oh, and I ordered the system in June of last year. It took about 3 mths for the parts to come in. Then the first installer started to put it in until he gave up and pulled it all out. Then we had to get a second company to bid, put it in and get it working. Just this past March it worked. So about 10 mths from start to finish for this product. Probably a whole year as we spent a couple of months researching cooling options before placing the order in June.

If we had a traditional AC the whole process would have been alot quicker, less painful and cheaper.

Mic111 would you agree that In summary, I could say that you did not have a competitive bid for a ducted system and you are cursed to live in an area with poor contractors? I don't that that needs to be generalized.

I got mine installed for $2,200/room with everything run through the wall cavities on interior walls and then under the house. It was a little more costly than a new ducted system with all-new ducts. For our lifestyle, it was a good choice since it is inherently zoned We generally only directly condition only half the house at any one time at most. I chose an experienced contractor, from three that know mini-splits, in December 2011. They did not finish until the end of January with a week away for vacation for the boss and holidays slowing things down.

My main point was that the OP might only need a couple of indoor units in that area. I think my dad would be happy with one in the living room which is pretty centrally located, and on in a bedroom and he is further South than the OP. I think it would be a good match for the needs.

The simple solution is to have a separate zones for bedroom and bathroom. Since this is new construction it is easily done. It will require separate feeds and returns, zone valve or separate pump, another manifold, and thermostat. The one thing to remeber is radiant heat does not respond as fast as baseboard or forced air. Setbacks with drastic temp changes will not work. The bathroom can be left alone at the temp you like and the bedroom can be used with a setback. If you like it cold then the setback would have to be done early on and come on early for a warm room in the morning. Remember it will be warmer at the floor and colder at the ceiling unlike conventional heat. Radiant is the ultimate but temperature changes take more time. Being that this is a new house it will take longer for the outside temperature to change the inside temperature because of new codes for insulation.

"The one thing to remeber is radiant heat does not respond as fast as baseboard or forced air. Setbacks with drastic temp changes will not work."

You correct this later with:

"Radiant is the ultimate but temperature changes take more time."

Drastic temp changes will work, you just need to turn the heat back on earlier. Alternatively, get a thermostat that adapts and let it do its thing.

I have no problem with split systems being used when ducted systems are not possible. Since this is a new built ducted systems with zones or separate small systems seem more appropriate. Some do not like the look of the spilt system unit being seen in the room it is cooling. The heat seems to be the main problem so zoning the radiant should supply the control of temperature needed. If high ceilings are involved or areas that radiant will not provide coverage then a backup of hydro-air can be added to the ac system. We did a large house with radiant that the owner only uses on weekends. The thermostats lowered on Sunday night and raised on Friday afternoon. With east windows the house would take a day or 2 to drop to the lower temp setting. We found that to bring it back to normal temperature the heat needed about 4-6 hours to be able to raise 8 degrees. The temperature of the water is much lower in radiant so to warm up the floor mass and the room contents takes longer. In the case of the bedroom you could have a setback, but to lower the temperature you would need some outside air. With highly insulate new construction temperature swings will not happen. Clients need to understand the benefits and drawbacks to this type of heat. It is very stable, very comfortable, very controllable, but needs more time to change temperature settings. In this situation with a new build zoning radiant for bedroom and conventional ducting of A/C would be my choice for control and comfort.