Heating/Plumbing Systems
I know.. I have a million questions these days. But the insulation info was really helpful! I have a house with an old baseboard heating system. I need a new furnace/boiler. I need all new plumbing. I think I’m down to two choices: 1. Test baseboard system with air ($). If it passes (I’ve been…
I know.. I have a million questions these days. But the insulation info was really helpful! I have a house with an old baseboard heating system. I need a new furnace/boiler. I need all new plumbing.
I think I’m down to two choices:
1. Test baseboard system with air ($). If it passes (I’ve been told it looks good), keep system and incorporate indirect water heater.
2. Scrap all that and do forced hot air with tankless water heater and central air. This is about 50% more money.
The only reasons I’m considering the baseboard system is (1) I’ve heard mixed messages about tankless water heater (“nothing else makes sense anymore” to “I don’t know anyone who is happy with it. You cant’ wash dishes and take a shower at the same time”). And the indirect heating system makes sense to me. And (2) I was told baseboard heat is a selling feature. Which I can’t believe, but go figure.
I could do traditional tank heater but this is a weekend house and it seems dumb to heat water all the time.
I’m leaning towards the forced hot air system. Any thoughts?
Bonus issue: some guys say they only use copper. some guys say they only use PEX. The only pro I see to PEX is it doesn’t freeze (?) and not having to think about bursting pipes would be nice. Prices quoted are comparable. Does it matter too much?
I’m leaning towards the forced hot air system. Any thoughts?
If you have any inquires regarding air conditioning, air condition maintenance, air condition repairs, plumbers, electricians service, ventilation service, home air conditioning, office air conditioning, residential air conditioning, domestic air conditioning, commercial air conditioning, computer room air conditioning, severer room air conditioning, air condition servicing in London please do not hesitate to contact us 020 8452 3030 or visit http://airconditioninginlondon.wordpress.com/
ringo,
we just turn off the hot water tank when we leave the weekend house and turn on when arrive. They do heat up pretty quickly these days.
Thanks for all this info!
Two things: I really think I need to have central air. If the revolution comes, I may need to rent or sell and central air is, I think, a must. I think that’s why I’m leaning towards to forced hot air with a/c. That, and I don’t like the look of baseboard heaters.
Tankless would be fine, I think, for my small family, but the nature of a weekend house is everyone comes home from being out all day and wants to take a shower and throw the stuff in the washer and start dinner. And there are guests. So I wouldn’t need much hot water for 5 days and then need a lot of it all at once. That’s why I was thinking I needed either an old fashioned water heater with a vacation mode or, if I went with baseboard, the indirect system
“other I had not heard and not necessarily believable (that it is better to not have the boiler idle for 6 months of the year when the heat is not on”
…talk about an “adverse knee-jerk reaction”.
Petebklyn, copper expands quite a bit before it’ll split open. I honestly don’t know if one will expand more than another before it is permanently damaged, but because it is meant to be buried in masonry and stapled to wood floors, excessive width expansion is not an intended property of PEX tubing.
MasterPlumber — isn’t Pex supposed to be more forgiving for freezing…as in will expand and contract more without springing leak?
IMHO – I probably would do copper in house I occupied all the time and use radiators/hot water….but in seasonal, weekend house I would strongly avoid baseboard -or hot water heating system. And this person I think has beach house- so any issue with ‘dry air’ from forced air becomes mute.
Also – since house only part-time occupied I would also go with the tankless heaters….There come in gas or electric…so if have enuf elec service and get electic heater don’t need to worry about venting. In fulltime residence I probably would not do the tankless.
gut reaction is the central system. baseboard heating can produce good heat, but the baseboards get beat up and can be bad for furniture placement. had in my old place and was a constant annoyance. central air will be great while you live there and excellent for re-sale.
we have the central system and are happy. there are times in the dead of winter where we’ll run a simple vaporizer to add moisture, but overall it’s great heating. agree that system heats and cools quickly.
For those that grew up with old fashioned hot air heat (myself included), there is a knee-jerk adverse reaction to hot air heat. Older systems often were poorly designed, produced very dry heat, and had lots of temperature variance. Newer systems are better balanced, produce moister air, and have the benefit of essentially operating as a whole house air filter, and making a/c integration easier. As Pete said, they also bring the house temperature up much faster.
We are rebuilding a weekend house. We installed a Buderus boiler and forced air heating with partial radiant floor heat. The builder and plumber were both very against the tankless hot water heaters. Some reasons were those often mentioned (capacity and venting issues) and other I had not heard and not necessarily believable (that it is better to not have the boiler idle for 6 months of the year when the heat is not on). Our thermostats can be controlled remotely, but that is a feature of the thermostats not the boiler.
We also have used pex throughout, including domestic water. One other advantage of a pex system is that each water line is a “home run” to the water source, and you can turn the water off to any fixture independently from a manifold in the basement (sort of like a breaker panel for water). Also, you do not need (but in some cases might want) turn off valves at each sink/toilet/etc., which can make for neater plumbing on pedestal sinks, tubs and the like and eliminate the need for access panels.
Here are some random thoughts on PEX vs Copper:
I’ve installed about 20,000 feet of PEX in the last 12 months and will do at least the same in the coming 12.
Sometimes PEX is easier and saves on labor charges, sometimes it’s a pain in the neck and saves nothing at all.
The good stuff (aluminum core, vapor barrier) is every bit as expensive as copper if not more, and more rigid, which makes it less easy to maneuver through walls and floors and requires a much longer turning radius than copper. That means you have to make room for it or it will creak and pop as it heats up or, if you’ve really got Murphy’s Law on your side, it will twist and kink itself closed.
The fittings that connect PEX to copper or to radiators, etc, can be very expensive and can easily eat up your material savings over copper. These homes shows on HGTV can be very misleading with their near-lab-conditions installations that take no time at all and no one gets dirty….
PEX doesn’t freeze, neither does copper. The water in either WILL at 32 degrees, making either product susceptible to a burst. Yes, you can add anti-freeze that is safe for heating systems, but use it the wrong way and it’ll eat through your boiler in no time, or change the properties of how your boiler water absorbs and delivers heat. It has to be figured for in a substantial way if that’s what you’re going to do.
Animals and insects have been known to chew through PEX, so it’s not a great product in cities where people live attached to each other.
PEX is broken down by sunlight, so god help you if your plumber installed PEX he kept out in a storage yard for an extended period.
Less than 10% of the country’s plumbers are in a Union of any kind, so get that nonsense about a “grasp” out of your vocabulary.
As far as systems go, no one but no one gets excited about the beauty, efficiency, function or air quality of their forced-air heating system.
Outdoor reset controls and flame-modulating boilers connected to well-designed radiators and radiant panels are the most efficient and adaptable systems we have available to us today and for the foreseeable future. All the big advances in efficient home heating pertain now to water-based (hydronic) heating. That includes solar and geothermal. If ever you were to convert, your radiators and piping would remain, you would just change your heat source. Not a dime wasted.
That excites me.
But then again, I get excited by Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gateway-Plumbing-and-Heating/10150140775395177?ref=ts
http://www.GatewayPlumbing.com
I think it is the copper cartel that doesn’t want pex. The union guys are happy to work less and still charge the same.