i take my registers/grates off in the spring and fall and take them outside and give them a good cleaning with the hose. i have found that using a nozzle with a very strong spray (or perhaps a power sprayer if you have one) does an excellent job at cutting through the crud, as well as getting in all of the nooks and crannies. the downside to this method of cleaning would be if the paint were not adhered well to the grate, the pressure of the water could chip it off. but hey, better to have clean paint chipped registers than dirty ooky ones!! :) jiggreen

Home is a two-story, about 2,000 sq feet - no duct work. no natural gas out here, no fire place. There used to be a coal furnace in the basement, but its been removed by previous owners. Insulation is poor - 20yrs ago cellulose was blown in, but not densely packed in. We're replacing some leaky windows (eventually the whole house, but a couple at a time). We were thinking heat pump on the first floor (there are rectangles of plywood where the old ductwork used to be), with a heat handler with electrical strip to serve as back up. However, the more I read about it, the more i'm wondering if it could keep up. the house is about 3x draftier than a standard home (we had an energy star home assessment done). I've read that their efficiency goes down as it gets colder, plus extra energy is used by them to keep ice off the coils in the winter. Add that to the duct work needed in the basement, which is an uninsulated dirt floor basement (you'd have to insulate the ductwork), the eff goes down even more. Its nice with a heat pump that it cools and heats - but with the decrease in eff in the winter of the unit, plus an unheated basement, plus a drafty house - i'm thinking it may not keep up. I'm thinking putting the money towards a wood stove, then sump pump and insulating the basement instead. Any thoughts?

Again, thanks guys for the info and site. My seasonal rate posted above was stated on the monthly bill but if I understand you correctly I need to divide my last monthly bill by the number of kWh used for that period : $121.21 / 1096 kWh used = 0.11 cents If so then no need to be too jealous ;) I too understand that today's newer version of HPs are much more efficient and warmer, last month while at a buddies playing poker the terp outside was 45F and his heat pump was too warm for me (therm set up to 76F for cold natured granddad). But how it performs when 25-30F outside is another story and no doubt his ele back-up kicks in then. When my oil man suggested oil back-up he named a "Kurr" (sp?) furnace brand that he says is very oil efficient. New Central AC will most likely be Carrier. You bring up good points about the duct size, these ducts were installed when the house was remodeled back in the late 80s and are well insulated, hopefully the sizes are right for HP. Right now we use 2 oil filled ele radiators in that Fla room at night to save on furnace oil, they do well and not too expensive on the ele bill, probably keep them no matter what route we take. Thanks again for you thoughts and help, have several months to put it all together. I'll save and review your kind advice above. Any particular HP brand you like, Carrier ok?

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.