Warm wishes for the holidays
The nights are about as long as they get. It has just started to feel like winter. Today, I bring a review of the pluses and minuses of heating systems commonly found in New England. I asked James Morrison to write up a primer on heating, for those who don't know a furnace from a boiler:
Understanding what you’re looking at will help you recognize the practical implications of the heating system in a house you may want to buy. Here are the basics:How they heat:
Boilers send hot water or steam through pipes to radiators in each room.
Furnaces send hot air through ductwork to registers in each room.What you see in the rooms:
Radiators hold steam or hot water. Those big old honkin’ cast iron radiators might do either, -there are lots of permutations like: baseboards and fancy-pants towel-warming racks.Vents distribute hot (and sometimes cool) air from furnaces throughout the house. Look for rectangular, or square, or circular openings in heated rooms.
Pros and cons:
Hot water- This is the preferred and most common heating system found in New England. It is considered the most comfortable way to heat. It is also fairly versatile and relatively easy to add onto.Steam- Steam is also comfortable, but less so. We stopped installing steam heating systems in structures just after WWII. Adding onto these old steam heating system can be (though it isn’t always) complicated. Since trapped steam bangs, it takes skill to add on correctly.
Also, the radiators get pretty hot, so some folks install radiator covers on them. Radiator covers retard the convective process, so they reduce efficiency and raise operating costs.
In most residential steam heating systems, the air vents on the radiators will hiss intermittently when the system is operating. That’s normal, but it annoys some people.
Hot air - Benefits include: the registers don’t take up space like radiators, the same ductwork can often be used for air conditioning systems, and the installation and operating cost of the equipment is low. However, the heat is appreciably less comfortable than forced hot water systems in our climate.
Things to look out for: Nine times out of ten, if the tattered old white insulation on steam pipes looks like asbestos, it is. You’re going to want to have that stuff removed or covered. Depending on how much there is, it can be expensive. If there is asbestos on the boiler as well, it should also be removed. Gravity hot water and gravity hot air systems are rare these days, but there are still a few out there. They are outrageously inefficient and always old. Be prepared.Most heating systems need to be in a space that is about 5-7,500 cubic feet in order to run safely. They use air to burn their fuel. If the basement is smaller than that because it was partially finished, that could be a problem. Your home inspector should evaluate this for you.
Forced hot air heat or central air conditioning, require professional duct cleaning. You could hardly imagine the filth that I see inside many people’s duct work. Having it properly removed is expensive, but worth it -- especially if anyone in your home has bronchial sensitivities.
What is your favorite type of heat? What would you add to the pros and cons list? When I ran this information before, people asked about fireplaces, wood stoves and pellet stoves.
