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You don't need a "perfect storm" for a gas furnace to leak Co into a house. In our new house 3 years ago the direct venting pvc pipes were not glued correctly and fell apart, introducing all exhaust into the house. Did not have detectors then but do now. The only thing that saved us was the bedroom window open all the time and the exhaust hood in the kitchen always on low or high. We smoke but only at the stove in the kitchen under the hood. Only ashtray in the house. So I guess smoking saved our lives lol. Cutting back and going to quit soon. That should be an annual check upon starting up your heating system, check your exhaust to make sure it is connected completely.

Jon
 
Yeah except it would've had to have been actually producing CO when the pipe fell apart. A proper working furnace produces almost no CO at all. If it hadn't been burning cleanly, AND the pipe fell apart, then you'd be in serious danger. Of course there is no way to tell this without doing a combustion analyzer test on the furnace so it's safe to assume that it's always pumping out CO when it comes to any kind of exhaust leak.

I wish I had a picture of the 1960 Carrier Weathermaker furnace that heated a room
addition to my grandmothers house. In its 48 years it only had a new blower motor put in. It had no thermocouple but instead a bimetal switch in the pilot assembly that when the pilot would go out would cut off power to the gas valve. The pilot was also a dual pilot sorta like an old gas oven, when the gas valve would open the second pilot would come on simultaneous with the burners to aid in lighting them.

That furnace was always kept at no less than 72 degrees and later on at 78. She liked it HOT, and that furnace was more then happy to oblige. I checked the HX a few times and it still looked like brand new after so many years of running hot. (Because of a seriously deficient return duct on top of keeping the temp high).
It was surprisingly cheap to run too! The new HE Trane two zone system doing the whole house costs more to operate for some reason.
 
Oh, I don't know about repairs and service costs being all that great with a forced air gas fired furnace system.

 

This here home had a 17 year old forced air gas furnace when I bought it. 18 years later, it's now 35 yo and it's never needed a service visit. I did retro fit it with better duct sealing and insulation, and upgraded the filter holders (they are below grates in the floor in the house) but that was not directly related to keeping the furnace happy.

 

As in other areas, one would have to be somewhat insane to try to heat a home in California with resistance electric. Rates zoom up to over $.30/KWh when you get over about 600 KWh/ month. Insane.

 

As for heat exchangers, they can be set up to provide aux heat with gas as well as electric. And I imagine that gas could be natural if your home is piped for it, or propane if not.

 

A good idea is using ground water for the heat exchanging medium. While outside air can dip well below freezing, ground water is typically no colder than about 50F. So it would be more efficient. But it does mean drilling a well and ensuring it's always below the water table, and there's sufficient well volume or water flow to ensure the water doesn't drop in temp or freeze. And of course the associated plumbing. I suppose there are also ground heat exchangers that use a gridwork of plumbing in the soil at a certain depth.

 

 
 
Gas in Norway

I've never seen any residential gas in Norway (may have changed for the wealthy now, they may have propane ranges/cooktops) - I don't believe that there is any extent gas infrastructure even in older parts of Oslo (may have been in the past however). Friends of my parents lived in a large block of flats from around 1900 and their hot water heat was via an electric boiler for the entire building. I think a fireplace or wood stove may still be required for backup heat in Oslo, it used to be. Cast iron stoves were the typical heating, or else, if you were fancy, a "Swedish Oven" - i.e. a big tile stove, which was pretty ubiquitous until the 60's in Sweden when people got rid of them for not being modern. What struck my mother was in all the time they spent there the power (other than in our unit when we had company and turned on the heat in a poorly insulated living room that we didn't use in winter) never ever went out.
 
Supersuds,

 

I expect that indoor/outdoor thermostat duo was great for the poorly insulated/leaky homes of old. With the advent of better insulation, tighter house envelopes, and dual pane windows, I suppose its usefulness was greatly diminished.

 

Which reminds me. Time to close the high wall vent and low wall windows in the enclosed patio. The heating season here has officially begun with a recent cold snap.

 
 
IIRC honeywell and other system makers still can utilize an outside sensor that is connected to the inside system and is used to help determine what flame size and so forth is required when heating a house.  Nowadays the outside temperature will be displayed on the indoor thermostat as well as the inside temp.  Below the covers the system is using this  outside temp to adjust the amount of fuel needed to heat at any given time.  And the clock...well the system is using time to determine wake, leave, return, sleep periods along with the temp you have set for each period.
 
 
I have an outdoor temp sensor on my heat pump.  It allows setting an outdoor temp above which the auxiliary strips are locked-out from running (except during defrost cycles).  This makes for more efficient operation during setback recovery in situations when the room temp is a degree or two short at the target time.  The thermostat would otherwise trigger the auxiliary to quickly make-up the difference when running 15 mins or so longer on the compressor would take care of it without involving the high-current strips.
 
Outdoor Temperature Resets

Are very much a part of most all modern steam and hot water heating systems, especially for large multi-family buildings. You see those metal "twinkie" shaped boxes all over NYC and for good reason.

ODRs allow for finer control of how hot the boiler heats water. Warmer temperatures outdoors means you don't need that much heat indoors thus you can use lower water temps (subject to the aquastat settings).

 
Outdoor Sensors

Outdoor sensors (and weather data) also allow for more sophisticated thermostats/controllers to anticipate heat needs (the heating load) and changing indoor temps and adjust before there is a noticeable change inside.
 
I Had One

On the heating system at the apartment building. Until I accidentially tightened the control panel of it down and fried the board (turns out the installer ran the wires around a mud ring and left it mounted loosely...little did I know there was a reason it was loose until learning the hard way)

It was a Tekmar 256 ODR control. I believe the most affordable on the market. They have hot water supply temp sensor and an outdoor sensor that is just a little white box. The installer mounted it in a gangway that has no circulation so it would read 17 degrees when it was 0 outside. Had to run a wire extension up to the second story deck and mount it under a railing to get an accurate readout.
When it shorted out we never replaced it because the ODR never served us any purpose because the system has so many radiators that their max output greatly exceeds the actual heat loss therefore the system NEVER gets real hot. The hottest I've ever seen the system get was 150 degrees when it was -10 outside. And then subtract 10 degrees in the heating system for every 10 degrees warmer it is outside. So an average 20 degree day the heating loop will hold almost dead on 120 degrees with the system cycling at 70.

For that reason a mod/con boiler would've been the best application for the building because any loop temp under 140 causes condensation in a boiler and that's detrimental to cast iron whereas Mod/Cons are built for that because they reach optimal efficiency when operating below 140 degrees.
 
The best thing they can do is Install thermostatic radiator valves on the two pipe steam systems and thermostatic air vents on the single pipe steam systems. I hope nobody is putting orifices on the single pipe steam systems, talk about water hammer!

And the other thing is to make sure the mains are vented as well as possible, replace any failed air vents. And last but not least, make sure the boiler is sized correctly to the amount of radiation the system has aka EDR, and most importantly, turn the pressuretrol way down or better yet install a vaporstat instead!
 
I read the article. It made very little sense to me. And that odd comment about coal being inherently less efficient than gas or oil?????? I assume the article was either written or edited by individuals who didn't understand the information they were given. But the main point carried: Individual heat control is a Good Thing.

Maybe I'm missing something, but why is it so complicated to replace the valves in "cold" rooms with a faster one and those in "hot" rooms with a slower one? OR, even simpler, replace valves with Vari-Vents that have (or used to have) a little lever with arrows pointing one way for "warmer" and the other for "cooler".

Or is it just that most people are stupid?

Jim
 
There is not a doubt in my mind that Lisa Foderaro (the writer of that article) understands no more than how to turn the dial on a thermostat or twist the knob of a radiator valve at best when it comes to heating systems. I would guess that she had to do a bit of research just to write that article, but didn't have enough interest in the subject to even get all the facts right. The correct info is out there and it's not hard to find *cough* Heatinghelp.com *cough*.

And that is also fairly accurately representative of how well the general population understands central heating systems, or really anything that we on this board are interested in.
 
Agreed. My comments weren't intended as a knock against the underlying concept (individuals having a bit more control over how much heat they get), but against the notion that this is somehow fixing a problem that's been there all along....

But, hey....... if this gussied up presentation is what it takes to have common sense applied, I'm all for it.

Jim
 

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