Radiator heat vs. forced air for house renovation
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Anonymous
| I love, love, love radiator heat -- nice and moist and doesn't blow the dust around. Given that so many people have pretty good sized allergies locally, I'd consider a boiler and radiator heat over forced air. The big glitch is whether you can also get central air with radiator heat. CAC is another given but most forced air is so drying, even with a humidifier connected to the furnace. Instead, I use room humidifiers...which is a bit awkward and yes, they need to be refiled often. |
Anonymous
| I don't understand how radiator heat is moist, the system is closed pipes. Maybe it's because of poor insulation and wet basements in older homes? |
Anonymous
1. Less expensive 2. Antiquated technology. Try buying a set of radiators for a new home. See how that works. 3. Uneven heat. Pushing air makes much more even heating. That is the main reason for #2 4. Shared systems with HVAC. The chance that your house had radiators and central air when it was built is 0% 4. |
Anonymous
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It is not that uncommon if you have radiator heat, to add baseboard
radiators if you are building an addition. Hot water heat is also pretty simple to zone. |
Anonymous
It's less dry than forced air heat, which takes dry outside air, heats it up, and blows it into the house. |
Anonymous
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One builder told us that since radiators are becoming less common there are fewer repairmen available who specialize in radiator and boiler repair issues. I'd hate to have a problem and then have a hard time getting someone to come and check it out.
^BS |
Anonymous
Yeah. All old homes have radiators, wet basements and poor insulation. 
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Anonymous
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I think it really depends on the style of your home. We live in a 100+ year old house on Capitol Hill, and radiators are entirely appropriate for our house. Any addiition or renovation we make in the future will probably stick with radiant heat. We like the look, and we have never had a problem finding someone to sevice or repair the boiler or radiators.
Of course, in the best tradition of DCUM, anybody who disagrees with me is stupid ? |
Anonymous
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Had a lengthy discussion with my friend who grew up in Germany with water heated rads. He said they were awful , a lot of dust gets trapped in the radiators and they take up a lot of wall space.
He was impressed by my new build's forced air and thought it was nice the air came from the floor vents because the floors felt warm. He said that the radiator air was still dry and that they would often bring in fans to distribute the heat that was trapped on the side of the rooms because unlike central HVAC with intakes the air would be stagnate. The no fan advantage was false in his case and in fact the dust trapped behind and around the radiators would blow in the air. |
Anonymous
Haha, what? That might just be your German friend's attempt at being humorous. |
Anonymous
I our office we have rads and the heat is not evenly distributed and the air lacks circulation. The building maintenance actually runs the hvac on fan mode to help circulate the air. I would hate to not have any circulation. |
Anonymous
| Rads = old technology for old people. |
Anonymous
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Forced air heating systems... "degrade indoor air quality because the buffer
spaces where ducts are located are often moist and have large amounts of biological activity (crawlspaces), dust including cockroach and other allergens (attics), and vehicle exhaust or solvent storage (garages). Thus an HVAC system may serve to increase contaminant loading in a space and may introduce contaminants " One study (of MANY) by University of Texas at Austin: http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/siegel/papers/conference/siegel_forcedair_hb_680.pdf |
Anonymous
EEEK! 
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Anonymous
The code calls for those ducts to be sealed and insulated and wrapped. Not an issue anymore. 
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