Home Heating Opinions

[MTNRAT]

Radiant floor heating is a way of dispersing the heat from a boiler, hot water tank or heat pump. It just uses hot water in the floor to heat rather than forced air from a conventional furnace. Ground source heat pumps http://www.canren.gc.ca/prod_serv/index.asp?CaId=163&PgId=912#What , cost more for initial installation, however the monthly saving in heating and cooling mor than offset any increse in mortgage size. Here where I live it typically costs $10,000 more than conventional systems. The payback ranges from 5-15 years depending on the cost of natural gas, home heating oil or electricity, (it take electricity to run the heat pump). They can be installed in a pond, trench (takes up a large area), or in vertical drill holes. Installation quality is paramount to achieve an efficient system. A poor installer can screw up the contact between the ground and the water carrying pipe. Research your installer if you go the ground source route. I have a few friends who have it installed here and it works great. Actually improves the resale value as the cost of heating increases.
Cheers,
Sean

 

[reffug]

Tell ya what. Ate some nice hot mexican food for lunch today and I still have wicked fxxxing heat coming out of my ass tonight. You may want to consider that.

Its past 10 o'clock shouldn't your fat fxxxin ass be in bed??????

Oh I forgot your husband doesn't allow you to sleep with him.

 

[Red Herring]

thanks Steve. We have a small Vermont castings stove at our summer place and it is a great stove. Do you use alder or softwood to keep yours going?

Usually fir. I prefer old growth... less knots

 

[White Shark]

OK I'm getting the general idea, but I have never heard of such so is this something that all major manufactures i.e. Trane, Goodman, Carrier etc... make. I have never seen any reference made to that type of heat pump on there websites.

Heat pumps typically suck unless you have ground source heat. The unit works on the principle of reverse flow. Cold in heat out in winter, and flip to cold out, heat in during winter.

I'd look into a gas fired furnace / air conditioned, forced air system. Heat pumps often have electric heat strips which absolutely suck in cold weather, especially when compared to a gas fired heating element.

When I was a kid, we had a 5 ton heat pump and got rid of it because it sucked on ice. It was a POS. We put in the gas fired unit and it worked wonders.

Heat pumps are mostly used now in large sized commercial applications and are rarely found in homes.

 

[zebrabeefj40]

Ummm, heat pumps have been used on homes for 20-30 years with no problems. The quality of heat is similar to a gas forced air furnace with the systems I have seen.

The geothermal heat pumps are also well established. Heck, they're so popular here in southern IN right now that we can't get a contractor to do a retrofit because they're all busy doing new home installs. We were looking at a Water Furnace brand unit but it is only one of several brands available. More expensive in the short run to install but will more than pay for itself in the long run if you keep your house long enough.

Nick Jennings

 

[zebrabeefj40]

Ummm, heat pumps have been used on homes for 20-30 years with no problems. The quality of heat is similar to a gas forced air furnace with the systems I have seen.

The geothermal heat pumps are also well established. Heck, they're so popular here in southern IN right now that we can't get a contractor to do a retrofit because they're all busy doing new home installs. We were looking at a Water Furnace brand unit but it is only one of several brands available. More expensive in the short run to install but will more than pay for itself in the long run if you keep your house long enough.

Nick Jennings

 

[Landpimp]

I have never seen any real problems with heat pumps, seen very few fail or need much work, but I have always seen them used with another heat source, the heat pump is used just to cool in the summer.

 

[Landpimp]

Hmmm, I havnt seen or was thinking about the kind of set up your talking about. The kind I was thinking of uses a boiler and lines(back and forth) in the floors of the home to heat it, works best in a concrete floor, holds the heat very well.

John

Radiant floor heating is a way of dispersing the heat from a boiler, hot water tank or heat pump. It just uses hot water in the floor to heat rather than forced air from a conventional furnace. Ground source heat pumps http://www.canren.gc.ca/prod_serv/index.asp?CaId=163&PgId=912#What , cost more for initial installation, however the monthly saving in heating and cooling mor than offset any increse in mortgage size. Here where I live it typically costs $10,000 more than conventional systems. The payback ranges from 5-15 years depending on the cost of natural gas, home heating oil or electricity, (it take electricity to run the heat pump). They can be installed in a pond, trench (takes up a large area), or in vertical drill holes. Installation quality is paramount to achieve an efficient system. A poor installer can screw up the contact between the ground and the water carrying pipe. Research your installer if you go the ground source route. I have a few friends who have it installed here and it works great. Actually improves the resale value as the cost of heating increases.
Cheers,
Sean

 

[FJ40_owner]

Ummm, heat pumps have been used on homes for 20-30 years with no problems. The quality of heat is similar to a gas forced air furnace with the systems I have seen.

The geothermal heat pumps are also well established. Heck, they're so popular here in southern IN right now that we can't get a contractor to do a retrofit because they're all busy doing new home installs. We were looking at a Water Furnace brand unit but it is only one of several brands available. More expensive in the short run to install but will more than pay for itself in the long run if you keep your house long enough.

Nick Jennings

Heat pumps are inefficient. You have to run a compressor like an air conditioner and send the waste heat into a coil that is installed in the home air stream. They suck the watts.

The cheapest conventional route to go is fan forced air using some kind of Hydrocarbon. Nat gas, Propane or oil.

If you have the money the slickest way to go is Hydronic. You can set up the system to heat by zones. They need to run almost continous because recovery is slow. But the sensible heat does not dry out the air and furniture. And you need a way the heat, circulate and control the system.

My .02

Happy Thanksgiving.

JB

 

[semlin]

looks like heat pumps get a bad rap on the west coast and are popular in the northeast.

 

[White Shark]

looks like heat pumps get a bad rap on the west coast and are popular in the northeast.

We use piped in natural gas or propane, rather than diesel / heating oil, The natural gas is really clean and is available on demand with no need to refuel. Propane requires refueling, but also burns really clean. With a forced air / gas furnace system, you are burning gas with an electric fan moving the heat. The a/c condenser is only working in summer as compared to a heat pump where it's running year round.

Imaging the heat coming off of the coils in you refrigerator dissipating in the room and the cold staying inside the unit. Now reverse that process and that's essentially what you've got in a heat pump system. Very inefficient. It's usually used in large commercial buildings and high rises because it's easy to implement on an enormous scale. Not the cheapest, but the easiest.

I have an EPA Universal CFC Certification for working on and recharging residential and commercial systems, and heat pumps are out of date. A gas fired system can realize 92-97% AFUE (annual fuel utilization efficiency).

Heat pumps are measured in efficiency using a SEER rating, like other a/c systems. The model in the following example is for a 25,000 S.F. building because, like I've said before, heat pumps are better utilized in large buildings due to their relative ease of maintenance and installation, although they lack efficiency.

In the model, you can see that the gas fired a/c combo runs $11,000. The recommended GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump) runs $16,000 per year, and the best GSHP available runs $23,000 per year. Pretty basic math I'd say.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/femp/technologies/eep_groundsource_heatpumps.cfm

 

[DSRTRDR]

absolutely have to concur with Ed (Degnol): get a "ground source" system. They are also known as geothermal; takes care of the airconditioning at the same time. Closed systems (more common lately) do not require a constant water source, but if you have a well, you could look into open systems.

also have to second John (Landpimp) on the in-floor radiant heat. We got both coupled in a CommandAire (brand name) heat pump. Trane makes those as well. The entire system is electric, and for what it's worth, in 5 years, we have NEVER had a monthly electric bill over $275, and this is on a 4BR large house everything combined. May/October run more like $150.

Depending on size, you may indeed think about 2 systems, good backup if onw fails, in which case, we can also use our in-the-middle-of-the-house fireplace.


PM me if you want more details. We totally love our system.

PS: heat pumps with outside compressors are a PITA if they are in surroundings where leaves etc. can clog the airflow.

 

[Degnol]

Claudia, kinda by accident, I have radiant heat in my garage/workshop floor. I had to aircondition a rental house that had new 180,000BTU hot water boiler at the same time we were building our home. Workshop is about 1,000sqft on the first floor and 600 on the second floor. We ran three polybutylene loops of 300' with no underground fittings, kinda like three "burners". Radiant heat does not heat air, just objects. Feet are always warm and if you have to raise the garage door to move a vehicle out, the heat stays in/recovers quickly.
I think up north there is a proprietary name....Wurzbro? I may not have the spelling right. Radiant is good stuff.

Ground source is getting to be a bigger deal around here. And as to the efficiency of the heat pump....Well, when you are either heating or cooling from a constant 60*, they seem to be very efficient.


JMO

Ed

 

[Hawke]

We did a major renovation / rebuild on our house a few years ago before I knew about hot-water in-floor heat. It was the perfect time to have it installed but we didn't do it. We're kicking ourselves now. I know people in this city (cold in the winter) say that the in-floor radiant heat (not electrical) is the cheapest on their gas bill.

 

[MTNRAT]

I currently have in floor radiant heat in different zones throught the house. Heated by a natural gas boiler. I am going to retrofit a ground source heat pump to my system and use the boiler for backup.
Sean

 

[firetruck41]

Hijack-

Does anybody have radiant over a crawlspace/basement? Is it installed through the joists or on top of the subfloor, and how do you like it? I am thinking of radiant for our (planned) new house, but there are several ways to install and thus varying degrees of efficiency/comfort. I am curious to hear from those who have it.

 

[semlin]

We use piped in natural gas or propane, rather than diesel / heating oil, The natural gas is really clean and is available on demand with no need to refuel. Propane requires refueling, but also burns really clean. With a forced air / gas furnace system, you are burning gas with an electric fan moving the heat. The a/c condenser is only working in summer as compared to a heat pump where it's running year round.

Imaging the heat coming off of the coils in you refrigerator dissipating in the room and the cold staying inside the unit. Now reverse that process and that's essentially what you've got in a heat pump system. Very inefficient. It's usually used in large commercial buildings and high rises because it's easy to implement on an enormous scale. Not the cheapest, but the easiest.

I have an EPA Universal CFC Certification for working on and recharging residential and commercial systems, and heat pumps are out of date. A gas fired system can realize 92-97% AFUE (annual fuel utilization efficiency).

Heat pumps are measured in efficiency using a SEER rating, like other a/c systems. The model in the following example is for a 25,000 S.F. building because, like I've said before, heat pumps are better utilized in large buildings due to their relative ease of maintenance and installation, although they lack efficiency.

In the model, you can see that the gas fired a/c combo runs $11,000. The recommended GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump) runs $16,000 per year, and the best GSHP available runs $23,000 per year. Pretty basic math I'd say.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/femp/technologies/eep_groundsource_heatpumps.cfm

White Shark thanks for that link. the upshot I got from it was that a ground source heat pump (GSHP) was more energy efficient and cheaper to maintain than either gas or an air source pump over a 15 year lifespan. I agree that it says that the gas furnace is more efficient than an air source heat pump over 15 years BUT


-since, heat pumps last longer than 15 years there is a saving not accounted for in the comparison that makes the GSHP an even better deal and also levels the playing field a little between an air source pump and a gas furnace.

-the savings is calculated based on energy costs of $0.06/kwh for electricity and $0.40/therm for natural gas. But natural gas prices are more volatile than electricity prices. In BC where we have a lot of hydroelectric power so electricity is a safer bet over 15 years. heat pumps look better

-- a very large part of the energy consumption in that model is air conditioning/cooling based on the fact it's modelled for washington, DC and it's for an office tower (e.g., tons of exposed windows). houses typically do not need anywhere near as much a/c as a densely occupied office tower. if you reduce the a/c as a proportion of overall expense, the advantage of the GSHP becomes even more pronounced. in fact it becomes a no brainer.

 

[Toyo FJ40]

I install a lot of radiant. Just finished an under staple install in a crawlspace. Radiant works great and with high ceilings keeps the heat at the floor. You can do radiant with any constuction and floor cover although tile and stone work the best, wood works well too. The job I just finished was carpet and we just need higher loop temps to drive the heat through the carpet.
I use Wirsbo but any pex based tubing is fine.
You would need a boiler to do radiant and then still run ducts for A/C.

Ground source work well. I have a customer with a 2 well ground source system heating and cooling a 3000 sq ft house for under $700 a year


Kevin

 

[LongIsland60]

White Shark thanks for that link. the upshot I got from it was that a ground source heat pump (GSHP) was more energy efficient and cheaper to maintain than either gas or an air source pump over a 15 year lifespan. I agree that it says that the gas furnace is more efficient than an air source heat pump over 15 years BUT


-since, heat pumps last longer than 15 years there is a saving not accounted for in the comparison that makes the GSHP an even better deal and also levels the playing field a little between an air source pump and a gas furnace.

-the savings is calculated based on energy costs of $0.06/kwh for electricity and $0.40/therm for natural gas. But natural gas prices are more volatile than electricity prices. In BC where we have a lot of hydroelectric power so electricity is a safer bet over 15 years. heat pumps look better

-- a very large part of the energy consumption in that model is air conditioning/cooling based on the fact it's modelled for washington, DC and it's for an office tower (e.g., tons of exposed windows). houses typically do not need anywhere near as much a/c as a densely occupied office tower. if you reduce the a/c as a proportion of overall expense, the advantage of the GSHP becomes even more pronounced. in fact it becomes a no brainer.

And if you are using solar panels to power the system it is basically 'free' to run. (after the initial cost)

 

[Trollhole]

Here in the south. Gas used to be the best way to heat your home. With a heat pump a close second. Problem is Gas has doubled in the past year. Making my effecient gas furnaces a hole in my wallet. Some times it's not about effeciency it's about what it cost to run them. I'm a licenced HVAC tech and I can tell you there are positives and negatives about every system. You will either pay now or later. Pay for a better system with low monthly cost. Or pay less now and have a higher monthly cost.

I have never looked into the Geothemal heat pump. I'm building a house this summer and may look into this since I'll Have 4 acres to play with. The biggest thing to think about is not how efficient you heating and cooling system will be in building a new house. It's how well you house can hold that heat. Buy a cheap system and get better insulation and windows on an existing house.

I plan on building my new house out of SIPs (Self insulated panels) You want to talk about efficency? How about a house insulated like a cooler!