heat pumps...

[kimball455]

Floor Furnace

I had a COZY floor furnace up to about 15 years ago when I installed hot water baseboard, three zones. Spring and fall it was OK. In the dead of winter, January/February it had problems keeping the house warm.
Here is a link for more info about the COZY floor furnace. Still popular in milder climates.

Harry

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www.cozyheaters.com

 

[a440]

Sounds like your vintage Floor Furnace could be a Payne.  I am wondering

if Carrier owned Payne back during that time.  Payne was a very good Furnace

company.

Do you have a way to take a picture of it to post?  It sounds so interesting.

Thanks

Brent

 

[countryguy]

I have never heard of floor furnaces before. Heating systems here are mainly forced air - natural gas, propane, oil or electric, baseboard electric, wood stoves or hot water systems - radiators or more recently in floor heating systems.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Floor Furnaces and Heat Pumps

Older houses without basements in the Atlanta area had floor furnaces. A friend lived in an old garden apartment complex called Crescent Court in the 1970s on Scott Boulevard that still had them. I remember the little folding fences that were set on them to prevent people from accidentally stepping on the hot grate. Every year there were stories of children who seared the soles of their feet by stepping on them. They did not provide very even heat since they were usually located in a central hallway. I guess it would be possible to have more even heat distribution by using a fan or two. Outside-facing rooms were chilly, but it was the South's way of scorning winter cold and all things that came from the Nawth. We rented a house in Decatur from April til September, 1955, while our house was being built and I remember hearing my parents talk about getting out of there before the heat had to be turned on. They worried needlessly; heat was not needed in September in Decatur, unlike Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota which were their points of reference.

As to heat pumps, I had a through the wall Coldspot of around 20,000 BTU capacity downstairs under one of the big windows in my townhouse in Greenbelt and in reverse cycle, it kept the whole place warm in all but the coldest weather when I would have to use the baseboard heat in my bedroom, the toespace heater in the kitchen and always in the bathroom in the morning. Once I turned the heat pump on in the fall, it stayed on and kept the house at a steady 72 degrees. It had back up strip heat for temps below freezing and a great defrost cycle that produced clouds of steam when it terminated with a WHOOSH of the reversing valve and fan operation resumed. I used a Filtrator dryer in the winter to add heat to the house, but once all of the structure and the furnishings were at a stable temperature there was great thermal inertia and it was always snug. Before, when there was just the baseboard electric heat, it was not so comfortable.

 

[circlew]

I only knew of one house in my area that had a floor furnace, and it was the neighbors across the street. It operated on oil, and was original to the house's construction circa 1947. They replaced it with oil forced air sometime in the early 60's. It was later replaced with a natural gas model.

Many older small houses that didn't have central heating used stoves (oil or kerosene) for their heating.

 

[askolover]

my grandmother

had a propane floor furnace the whole time she lived in her house....almost 60 years! The original one required electricity for the Tstat, her new one she had installed in 1998 or so had a millivolt Tstat. As kids we learned very early on to tiptoe around the edges of that thing to keep from being burned. I still have a pair of shoes with the grid permanently branded on the bottom! Her last one was an Empire brand, looked just like the Cozy pic above.

 

[wayupnorth]

There were many floor furnaces here and most ran on oil and very noisy. Very cold in other rooms away from it and the main room it was in was like an oven. Cheaper way to somewhat heat other than stoking wood and coal. Heat will not run to which ever north side of the building is. I've done my "clinical test" and it wont go toward the north.

 

[retro-man]

Have only seen 1 or 2 in my time and that was many years ago. How was the exhaust gas from the burners vented? It must have been a sealed burner so the exhaust was not to enter into the living space. Where did it go? No chimneys I see attached, was this just exhausted to under the living space?

Jon

 

[askolover]

Grandmother's was vented into the brick chimney from below the floor. Her house was very old and used to have fireplaces, which were sealed off from the living spaces now, so they just tapped in through its cleanout door.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Regular furnace-grade flues went up through the walls and then through the roof. The neat thing was the sight glass where you could see the flame.

 

[cfz2882]

A440,floor furnace is a payne-found a barely legible spec sticker.The 2012 forced air pavne I may install is almost identical to a ~2008 carrier at work-that one has been trouble free since new .the 2012 payne looks to have pretty decent parts including a "Gentek"(assembled in mexico)blower motor.There are cheap Chinese capacitors on the PC board I'll swap out for good ones.The mr slim indoor unit needed extensive cleaning-had to be completely disassembled-but now only need to evacuate pipes and indoor unit before releasing charge from outdoor unit if no leaks found.

 

[cfz2882]

Mr slim working good

released the charge into the system and working good so far-quite impressed with the performance and unit is very quiet: inside just a quiet rush of air,outside,running full speed,compressor noise about the same as a typical refrigerator while the 3-blade condenser fan sounds similar to an old 3-blade 20"box fan.With a ~50*outside temp,heat output feels similar to about a 3000w electric heater.might have to wait for next summer for a proper test of the cooling function .In cool mode, the air discharge slats position to blow air outward,while in heat mode air is directed at the floor.

 

[cfz2882]

very quiet,but...

the MrSlim is great-got to test out the cooling on a semi- hot (87*)and it handled this with ease-quickly kicked down to low speed then cycled off.I thought there might be some "fluid noises"gurgling,hissing,etc. from the indoor coil,but there is none. When unit runs at low speed,a low frequency throb can felt on the outdoor unit cabinet-kinda similar to a 1985 chevy citation 4 cyl. engine idling .

 

[cfz2882]

heat mode test

had a frosty 30*morning the other day,started the MrSlim and it was soon putting out a stream of 112-130* air-almost hot The conduit through which I routed the refrigerant lines outdoors became slightly warm in the 30*temps,so will go back and increase the insulation of those lines-wrapped each line with ~3/8"thick foam insulated pipe wrap-will increase insulation to ~3/4"thick and route through bigger conduit.

 

[ilovewindex]

Daikn Ductless HeatpumpOr

I commented on the other HVAC thread, but I love my Daikn... It does so well and my house is very open and air flows through...

Cooling upstairs is a tad harder because of the ceiling height and an uninsulated sky light, but it does ok...

Mine is 24K and my house 1400 sq ft under air... If i put a second 7k to 10K btu unit upstairs it would help fix the few short comings.

For the price I paid after rebates, the $2200 is well spent and my house is comfie... I couldnt go back to the forced air furnace.. I am afraid of gas, hate the smell of oil and steam is just too much here

 

[cuffs054]

Funny, I feel the exact opposite. I've had heat pumps in all my houses since the early 70's and never was keen on them. The new old mini manse has a Gas Pack with floor vents. Boy, does the real "heat" feel great!

 

[cfz2882]

daikin

some consider Daikin to be the best minisplit brand-better than Mitsubishi or fujitsu,those two brands also generally spoken well of.So far,mine is the only residential minisplit I have seen locally,but I have seen some installed on dentist offices,hospitals and visitor centers:most are Mitsubishi,but fujitsu,daikin,and sanyo have been seen local.Part of the reason the Japanese minisplits are very effective in heat mode might be the electronic-modulated expansion valve and variable speed compressor.

 

[washer111]

Inverters and all the whizz-bangery are great now when they work - but what about in a few years time? 

 

Electronics are not built well anymore. So what will happen with "dirty" power supplies, surges, brown-outs, lightning plus moisture? 

 

A simple central A/C unit, installed properly will remain far more fixable for much longer. It may also work better too. It won't become junk just because a control board for the inverter costs nearly as much as a new system. 

 

That's why I resist these things. You spend a small fortune installing them - and a failure in a couple of years could ruin in "savings" you got replacing a reliable, old system. 

 

[cfz2882]

that is a worry...

...the possibility of a lightning strike causing expensive damage to modern electronics-laden HVAC equipment:i thought about adding a line reactor to the Mr Slim power feed,but looked like there was one built in already-along with some gas type surge suppresors.will turn the breaker off when a lightning storm approaches though (same thing with my electronics laden 2010 bosch dishwasher)

 

[kb0nes]

Overall the state of the electronic art is better and far more reliable then it ever was in the past. The oft heard Mantra that older is better is often just not true.

There is no doubt that manufactures cut costs and use inferior components and omit filtering and protective devices. Provided a bit of care in the design I'd much rather have newer then older. Older mechanical only systems weren't trouble free either and the added benefits of the sophistication greatly outweigh the added complexity (see also fuel injection).

It isn't a bad idea for any home today to have a transient voltage suppressor installed at the main service panel of the home. One of these will provide bulk protection of the entire home to the degree that most connected devices will do just fine. I still have point of use protection at sensitive devices and I won't run any computer (that I care about) without a UPS. Full disclosure, I maintain a bunch of radio equipment on some local water tanks with the antennas high in the air. I may be a bit more paranoid about transients then others due to this!