We just bought a house in the northern suburb of chicago. It was built in '78. It is a raised ranch with the basement being 4' in, 4' out. The house is about 1,600 sf. It is 2x4 construction with original aluminium siding for now(plan on changing in the next couple of years.) This part of the house still has the original boiler and radiant floor board heat. At some point they installed an air handler in the attic to provide cooling. In '00, they put an in-law addition with its own kitchen, living room and master suite and added a attached 3 car garage. This brought the total living space to about 2,400 sf not including the basement or garage. The in-law side has it's own furnace/ac. not hot water heat. I just gutted the original side basement so I can redo everything in the basement. I have many questions...

1) Do I keep the old part of the house on hot water heat?

2) If I do, what is the best system available? I plan on living here a long time and want to have a quality unit that is very efficiant.

3) Do I change the floorboard heat things? It's easy now that the basement is wide open.

4) If I do change the heat registers, what style is most efficiant?

5) What about converting it to radiant floor heat? Installing the tubing from below now that the basement is open?

6) How do I zone it? Right now, they have the entire main floor on one loop, and they had the basement on another. I'd rather have more flexability. Can I add more zones? Is it less efficiant?

7) I read somewhere where it says to hook up your boiler and hot water tank?? How? What does this do?

8) I also have to change the hot water tank. Is there a way to use one boiler for heat and HW?

9) Should I be looking into heat pumps?? I saw heat pump hot water tanks?

10. I also plan on heating the garage. I was going to buy one of those natural gas blowers that hangs from the ceiling. Just keep it set at like 55-60 degrees during the winter. Should I be considering something else?

I'm also planning on getting solar heat for the water. It's probably a few years down the road.

Any suggestions? I'm soo confused..

Alex