Let's Talk About Heating Shall We?

[lordkenmore]

>Everytime I see homes with large ceilings open to the second and third floor all I can think of is comfort problems and gigantic bills. They look wonderful, and castles had them too--and life was hard.

You have a point.

Another thing I dislike are those open floor plans that have almost no walls and definitely no doors between rooms in the main part. There's a long list of reasons I don't like this, but one relevant for this thread is that heating options seem better when you have real individual rooms, ideally with a door. A door on the family room can be helpful to help cut the noise from the rug rats, but it also means that one has the option of easily heating just that one room to 70, while the rest of the house is kept at a frugal 60.

In the 1990s, my father endured a lengthy power failure. His-then family lived in a modern development house. The only heat was the fireplace in the family room, and apparently even keeping it going 24/7, and it was apparently quite cold. A fireplace won't heat much, but I'd bet it would have been more tolerable if there had been some way of easily closing that room off from the rest of the house, which certainly literally sucked what heat there was out, and sent back lots of cold drafts.

 

[wayupnorth]

John, you are absolutely right about a wood burning fireplace. I have one but as a heat source, its useless. I have an open kitchen, dining, living room with a cathedral ceiling but the rooms off them with normal ceilings always are warmer than the big room because of the bigger area to heat.

 

[lordkenmore]

>I have one but as a heat source, its useless.

I'd have to think so. I don't have much contact with fireplaces now. Indeed, it seems like most people I know who have a fireplace have gas logs now. But I remember the one we had growing up--pretty flames, and toasty warm if you were right by it.

Although I have heard that fireplaces can be viable--at least considerably more viable than regular fireplaces--for heating. I've been intrigued by Rumford fireplaces (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace), and fireplaces that have massive mass to hold heat (which could be released after the fire goes out).

But these better fireplaces need the right design, and probably more expensive construction. Cheap and easy wins out, particularly in the sort of house my father had. (Prefab fireplace, probably the cheapest choice avaiable to the builder).

 

[norgeway]

Antique Floor Furnace

I found a oddity im going to get tomorrow, a 1950s Evan oil fired floor furnace, In all the years I worked on furnaces I never saw a Evans, it is a typical 50s floor furnace with a vaporizing burner , It will be fun to play with for the vintage factor.

 

[wayupnorth]

Vaporizing burner has to have a constant level control and the thermostat turns it on and off but leaves a small "pilot" running. At one time as a little kid we had one on a Sears Homart water heater that worked great until the tank went. As I remember those burners only ran on kerosene. My fireplace has a steel liner with side vents but is still useless for heat but pretty to look at and not worth the work.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

When I said, "Not that critical" I was thinking of one individual unit in one individual room. If you have a central system that's another story.

In my parents' development with central a/c just slapped into a warm air heating system, most stratification problems were solved with adding a very large return in the upstairs central hall. Its damper was open in when a/c was in use, closed when using heat.

Regarding the 3-story den, did everyone involved think warm air would stop rising and cool air would stop sinking as a result of their thoughts/feelings/beliefs? If the den is cold and the upper floors hot, how could there be a need in increase capacity in the den?

More to the point, how could any HVAC specialist NOT realize that the upper floor zone(s) would be carrying most of the a/c load and the den zone carrying most of the heating load?

Where are the vents for the den a/c? One would think/hope they'd be at the top of the walls near the ceiling. There should be at least one return up there as well to reduce load on the top floor zone, right?

Do I want even want to know what it's like in the winter?

Jim

 

[gusherb]

Thinking about winter time...

A multi story room would do well with radiant floor heat. With forced air heat you'd be heating every cubic foot of that room, which with 3 stories is ALOT, plus any rooms open to it that are on upper floors. With radiant floor heating you're just heating the floor, and anything around it, like walls, furniture, people etc. The idea is that heat doesn't rise, but heated air does. So to warm the area with minimal convection would actually be a good thing, and keep most of the heat in the actual space that's occupied.
That is a wonderful concept I learned from a few of many of Dan Holohans fantastic and very insightful articles.

 

[sudsmaster]

It's true that most fireplaces usually wind up sucking cold outdoor in to feed the fire, so most of the heat winds up the chimney. A good fireplace insert however, with a heat exchanger, will change that equation and make it a much better heating option. Even so, most inserts still rely on sucking room air in to provide oxygen for the fire, so there is still the influx of cold air into the living quarters. A better design would be for a separate duct to bring outside air into the firebox directly... which some modern designs may do.

 

Around here it was recently announced that ALL fireplaces are banned in new home construction, even modern low emission designs. The issue is air pollution, which can be severe on cold still winter days. Existing homes with fireplaces, if sold, have to be accompanied by written warnings of the dangers of wood smoke. On such cold still winter days, it's illegal to burn a wood fire (even an outdoor BBQ). Bummer. But on the other hand, I've noticed the air pollution on those cold still winter days can be really unpleasant when people burn green wood or trash in their fireplaces. My only problem is I'm running out of room to store firewood .

 

[supersuds]

My dad had an outside vent to feed the fireplace back in the Seventies. With glass doors that were fairly airtight, it did put more heat in the house than it removed. During a blizzard in 1993, it was the only heat we had for a few days and the inside temp never got below 60.

But it was still a lot of work.

 

[DADoES]

 
A fireplace was in my previous house.  I never used it in the 14 years I was there.  Ashes remained in it from the previous owners.

My current house, built in 2004, does not have a fireplace.

My parents have one (house built in 1972, moved there in 1980).  We used it a few times at first but not now in many years.

My apartment when I moved away from home was a garage apartment type of deal, with the owners house built around/behind it.  Their fireplace chimney was directly behind my (2nd floor) kitchen & living room.  The smoke odor was near-intolerable at times.

 

[lordkenmore]

>My dad had an outside vent to feed the fireplace back in the Seventies. With glass doors that were fairly airtight, it did put more heat in the house than it removed.

I remember glass doors, at least a type of glass door. I don't think they had outside air source, but they did supposedly IIRC help increase efficiency. I think some people my parents knew added them to their fireplace, and it was something my father planned to do "someday" to ours. I have a vague memory of being appalled at the idea; however, I can see the practicality now as an adult.

Another thing I remember are special grates that had hollow tubes that would capture heat, and send warm air out into the room. I think they were available as a natural convection design--which I seem to recall seeing locally--and also a system that had blower, which I only heard about.

I am guessing these grates might have been a reaction in part to the energy crisis of the late 1970s. Around here, I think a lot of people got into wood heat. And I suppose things to make fireplaces more viable (or seemingly more viable) with heating suddenly were of interest. There was the promise of using your romantic fireplace, and shaving off part of the heating oil bill.

 

[lordkenmore]

>A fireplace was in my previous house. I never used it in the 14 years I was there. Ashes remained in it from the previous owners.

I think that's not uncommon. A part of me would really love a woodburning fireplace, but...I wonder how much I'd even use it. Would I ever use it?

One huge problem I see now is that one needs a supply of something to burn. I think the most likely scenario for me would require buying fuel, and given the prices, and the near-zero heating efficiency of a fireplace, my practical side would say: "Light a fire only on special occasions."

The fireplace we had when I was growing up were fueled by free wood. The house I grew up in had enough trees around the property that my father was able get a fairly good supply of firewood just from fallen branches. But our use of the fireplace was pretty light--maybe a weekend night.

And even though my father didn't mind cutting wood, we had a fireplace in the dining room that was never used, not even IIRC when we had company. I have a vague memory of a fire in it the night we moved in, and that was very likely the first and the last fire ever.

I now suddenly remember a gadget we had to make "logs" for the fireplace out of newspapers. It had a pole with a crank that would roll up the newspapers, and they'd be secured with some sort of twist tie. I think the operation was done with a water bath. I suppose the water would help make the paper stick together better or something like that.

 

[whirlcool]

In the three story den they have about 9 vents in the ceiling where the a/c and heat comes out. And three 25x30 media filters in the walls down in the den near the baseboards. SO the air gets sucked in from the den, processed through the system and exits out the ceiling. The den size is about 40x30 or so. It's a very large room. The house is worth 2.5 mil or more.

In order to help with the problem there are ceiling fans mounted on 25 foot poles from the ceiling. These are about 1/2 up from the floor of the den. They have them blowing up in the summer and down in the winter.

I think part of the problem is the couple who own the house are cheap. They call out contractors who are running the $29.95 special call out to inspect your system types. And when these guys walk in the door there is the wife with a pen in one hand and a open check book in another.

The guy who recommended the den unit be increased in capacity didn't know what the hell he was doing. I watched what he was up to and she had a 5 year old Carrier furnace, the tech pulled the power wire to the gas valve and said "See, she won't light up. You need a new furnace up here" I reattached the wire, turned the unit on and it fired right up. So he gets back to the woman who called him tells her that she is risking her safety by having such an old dilapidated furnace in her house and it could explode on her any second! I threw his ass out, called the company he worked for accused them of being rip off artists and then reviewed the company on any review site I could find. Hell, that Carrier furnace still looked brand new.

They have already sunk so much money into this house trying to resolve this issue, the cheap way. They've just learned to live with it. They are empty nesters, and really should more to a smaller house. So they moved their master bedroom down to the first floor and never really use anything upstairs unless the kids come back to visit or they have guests.

The funniest thing I have ever heard out of the woman with the house (her husband said "it's your house, YOU deal with it!) is this. "You know we get our system checked out and serviced twice per year. And we have probably replaced our furnaces and a/c units 4 or 5 times already. But our neighbors mostly still have all their original units! I wonder why theirs are lasting so long and why we are having to replace ours so often?" Their home was built in 1993.

This years project is to get them to buy a few smoke detectors and Co2 detectors.
The house has them as part of the alarm system, but they have that turned off. They think that because they live in a gated community fire detection is "Taken care of for them by the subdivision". I don't know how?

 

[gusherb]

O. M. G.

Those people sound like they don't have the first CLUE on how to take care of a house, and/or are oblivious as all hell! Reminds me of the neighbor across the street who thinks they need their "freon" replaced every season.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Hmmmmmmmm.......... Am not sure how to say this diplomatically, but it sounds like there might be issues beyond that of the HVAC system...

At the risk of stating the obvious, here're a couple of thoughts working off what you and other posters have said:

For a/c... I'd get a thermostat that turned the fan only when the temp went below the comfort setting. This would suck the cool air from the floor and blow it out near the ceiling. This would help with the summer problem of an overcooled den and might reduce the load on the top floor zone.

My parents had this option with their second warm air furnace. The house was cooled by a couple of window a/c units and having the fan cycle on and off helped even out temps in the whole house. Not perfect, but a definite improvement.

For heating... it sounds like the same problem (but going in the opposite direction) my parents' neighbors had when they got central a/c slapped into a warm air system designed for heat only. If the ductwork to the ceiling vents runs up an accessible wall in the den, you could cut a hole in the wall right near the floor. Tap into the ducts and install a vent that open and closes. In the heating season you could shut the vent near the ceiling and open the vent near the floor. It would probably help to do the same with one or more of the return ducts as well.

Wow, this is really messed up and I'd blame the original designers of the system.

There's another alternative is Gusherb's suggestion of radiant underfloor heating. I stumbled upon two retrofit methods a few years ago while searching for solutions to problems in a friend's house. Practicality depends on whether or not the den floor is accessible from underneath, what the floor layers are made of and what the floor covering is. If the underside of the floor is accessible AND the flooring layers are made from materials that conduct heat well, you can install either electric wires or hot water flowing through flexible piping.

If that is not practical for whatever reason, you can buy modular electric floor panels that fit together and lay them down on top of the present flooring. I believe they are only 1/4" thick. I can't remember if they come with a readymade floor on top or if you need to add your own flooring material.

Another alternative is to install baseboard heating around the exterior perimeter walls. Whether electric or hot water would probably depend on whether there's a boiler installed or not. Since you haven't mentioned that I'm guessing not. I would go with hydronic/oil-filled baseboard that works like those electric plug-in radiators as opposed to conventional electric baseboard. My experience is that with conventional electric base board a chill sets in the moment the units turn off. With hydronic/oil-filled heat is retained in the fluid and is released more slowly, thereby avoiding the chill factor. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere a LONG time ago that these indirectly save energy because the lack of a 'chill factor' lets a person be comfortable at a slightly lower thermostat setting.

Any of that help? I kind of feel bad for your friend as she doesn't seem to understand her situation.
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Fireplaces: IIRC, there was a whole back-to-basics/ecology/apply-hippiedom-to-real-life movement in the early 70's. After the energy crisis hit in 73, the focus of that movement turned toward saving energy. Everywhere you looked back then you saw adds and articles about that. How to insulate, how to stop air leaks, etc.. While a lot seems common sense now, it wasn't even on the radar prior to '73. Back in '68 my parents had to pay extra to have their house built with insulation in the walls (1 1/2") & attic (4") and storm windows. The machines to make logs from newspapers were very popular. Back then it wasn't unusual to have 2 or more newspapers per day delivered so many/most people had a steady supply. IIRC, they were quite effective provided you took the time to learn to use the machine properly. Fireplace inserts were a BIG thing back then, with many varieties to choose from. While they didn't produce heat like a wood stove retrofit into a fireplace (also big back then), they did produce much more heat than a regular fireplace.

Everyone used their fireplaces all the time because oil and gas were so expensive. Also several winters in a row were extremely cold and snowy in New England. In the winter of '76/'77 Boston harbor froze solid and the Blizzard of '78 dumped four feet of snow on the south shore and that was on the heels of a storm a week or 2 prior that dumped over 2 feet.

Jim

 

[gusherb]

Another sad sight...

Walked into this coffee shop that used to be heated with two pipe steam I think it was, with steam traps. Well, over the summer they had it converted to all forced air. While that's definitely more practical for a business, especially because that gives them central A/C, it's still sad to see yet another system built by the Dead Men decommissioned. In the picture you can see the new ductwork, and then an old thermostat and cut off pipe where a presumably 1940s steam unit heater used to hang.

 

[sudsmaster]

I know several people who have heated their homes successfully just with a fireplace with an insert. The nicest inserts I've seen are the Lopi brand. Very well built, attractive design, and reasonably efficient. I looked for one when I was fitting inserts for my two fireplaces, but wound up getting other used units that work fairly well. Both have fan-driven heat exchangers that certainly can pump out heat. Not as nice as a Lopi but they work well enough. They will keep the rooms they are in toasty, but other rooms in the house don't benefit much, since it's a single story affair. I suppose I could run the house furnace at a low setting to redistribute the heated air, and I might try that this winter. One of these days I'd like to modify the house furnace control to enable it to run with just the fan. Currently the fan operates only when heat is called for.

 

I've long wondered if those hollow tubular combination grate passive heat exchangers were any good. I figure they probably don't work as well as an insert designed to capture the heat of the fire and transfer it to recirculated room air, mainly because they require the mouth of the fireplace to remain wide open.

 

 

 

[norgeway]

Donalds parents

Heat with a outdoor wood fired boiler hooked up to baseboard ,They have done this for 30 years and their house is always toasty warm.

 

[delaneymeegan]

Electric heat and insulation, insulation, insulation

I miss the days when coal, oil, and natural gas was abundant and one could find a 30% efficient furnace chugging away in the basement. There was no thought to waste. It was a quaint time.

But the world has changed considerably in the last 50 years. Oil resources have peaked and we are living in the era of the slide down where heating with fossil fuels is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Houses tend to be bigger than they were in 1940, though better insulated. But now the U.S. and world population has exploded to unsustainable levels. Global warming is affecting all of us.

I prefer baseboard heat because it makes no noise, there is no waste of heat, it's easy to control, no venting is required, and it doesn't require dangerous or dirty energy source.

But regardless of what ones favorite or familiar type heating is, making sure your living envelope is thoroughly insulated is key to economizing and being comfortable. Americans really need to focus on this as the oil resources continue to become more difficult to attain, prices will go up and solutions to staying warm (or cool) will become a prime goal. Something we in the U.S. take for granted these days.

Just like when you go outside, or get into bed, what do we do to stay warm? We get a jacket or blankets, and the thicker the covering, the warmer we are. The same principle applies to our homes, though it isn't as easy to apply. American's need help in insulating their homes, and for that matter, understanding the concepts.

Some solutions: windows are the greatest source of heat loss. Eliminate unnecessary windows by building over them and insulating the space. If you have thermopane windows, like a double pane window, add another one on the inside, so you have a double-double pane window.

Chimneys, flues, and vents: know where they are and how open they are. These can act like a stray, quietly sucking heat right out of your house when they are not operating. I once lived in a house with a 6" kitchen vent hood that had no baffles and the heat was literally just going right up and out. Fireplace chimney with no damper, or with an open damper will do the same things. We don't question what their doing because they are frequently associate with heating. A typical gas water heater with flue has an open vent and will freely suck any hot air up and out, including room air. When possible always chose closed combustion appliances that have a separate pipe that brings outside air in for the sake of combustion.

Dryers: a favored appliance for most people here, but when they are operating, the suck a huge amount of room air and push it outside. These should all have a separate duct that connects for fresh air in, so they use fresh clean outside air, instead of room air. Because they aren't usually used but for a few hours a week, their losses can be controlled by opening a near by window, or similar. In situations where they are used daily alternatives should be sought.

Best of luck to everyone securing their home for the heating season.

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[sudsmaster]

Absolutely. Sealing the house envelope is probably the first thing to do when improving the heating (and cooling) efficiency of an older home.

 

I also found this house had a retrofitted cooktop hood with a 6" diameter flue going up to the roof with no damper whatsoever. I fitted an aftermarket automatic damper (opened when the fan is on full blast). I can hear it close when I turn off the fan so I know it's working.

 

In addition to that there were numerous air leaks between the rooms and the open attic. Most were the result of the 60's era remodel of the kitchen. I spent a lot of time with a caulking gun in the attic sealing those off, as well as the older holes for passing electric and plumbing penetrations. Another source of energy loss were the uninsulated and leaky forced air ductwork in the crawl space. Those all got sealed with special mastic and in some cases fiberglass tape, and then insulated with 1" foil backed fiberglass insulation. Also improved the filtration setup for the furnace, and insulated the cold air return ducting.

 

The outside doors here were pretty well set up for insulation, but the horiz. slider windows had worn out their fuzz strips and rattled in the wind. Rather than spring for all new dual pane windows, I got some new fuzz strips, removed each slider one by one, carefully disassembled the glass from the frames (only broke one or two) cleaned out the old fuzz strips and installed the new. The difference was dramatic. I don't now about energy savings, but the sliders now fit firmly and don't rattle in the wind any more. I figure the new fuzz should last as long as the old... probably about 40 years. By that time I won't care any more ;-).

 

I even fitted large foam edged plexiglas window panels on the fireplace openings, because I didn't trust the dampers to block enough air. I knew they worked because I had a air convection powered artificial electric log set - the kind with an incandescent light bulb that heated air and as it rose it would hit a little fan on a rotating translucent shade, casting not very realistic patterns on the translucent fake logs. When I fitted the plexiglass windows, there wasn't enough air movement to rotate the shade. Now the fireplaced have inserts, sealed as well as I could, and I haven't noticed any drafts from them when their dampers are shut.

 

Last but not least, the attic had zero insulation. I added up to R40 up there, using the more user-friendly Dow Corning Miraflex. Can't get that any more, how sad. Also insulated about half the underside of the flooring from the crawl space. And of course the hot water pipes.

 

When I got all this done I analyzed the gas bills the following winter, accounting for average temperature differences year to year, and found that I'd cut the gas consumption by half. Before, the 80% gas furnace would run all night on the coldest nights, and it was still drafty and cold. After the sealing and insulation work, on the coldest nights it might run for a couple hours off and on, and the place is comfortable. All this with single pane windows, too.